We received a letter :(

[chickencrazy999]

I live in michigan, and I have chickens. I was scared that my neighbors wouldnt approve of them, but I bribed them with eggs

LOL

 

[Yoda]

No we are not zoned farm. We live in a residentially zoned subdivision. Everyone in our subdivision owns at least 10 lots. We own 20 lots. They say we cannot have chickens because the ordinance says no chickens in a platted subdivision. We only have 10 girls.

I do not know if you can hide behind that law seeing you are NOT considered a farm. If you were a farm the law will protect you from complaints. here is what I found on it at this link: http://www.michigan.gov/mdard/0,4610,7-125-1599_1605---,00.html I had a complaint from a new neighbor that I was killing or torturing animals in my backyard. The town knows I have peafowl and let the neighbor know this and it ended cause I am considered a farm in the town hall. In my town you need 3 acres to be a farm. I "lease" an acre from my neighbor which put me in farm zoning. The noise he heard was the peacocks screaming LOL

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8. Does Right to Farm give me the right to farm my land?
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]No. The Right to Farm Act provides an affirmative defense to nuisance lawsuits. Although the law is called "Right to Farm" it technically does not give the landowner an entitlement or a "right" to conduct farming on any or all property. [/FONT][/FONT]

 

[wingless]

I do not know if you can hide behind that law, here is what I found on it at this link: http://www.michigan.gov/mdard/0,4610,7-125-1599_1605---,00.html

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8. Does Right to Farm give me the right to farm my land?
[FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman,Times New Roman]No. The Right to Farm Act provides an affirmative defense to nuisance lawsuits. Although the law is called "Right to Farm" it technically does not give the landowner an entitlement or a "right" to conduct farming on any or all property. [/FONT][/FONT]

Yoda, that document that you quote from MDARD is dated May of 2013.

That is 5 months after a small group of urban, suburban, and rural farmers convinced the Agriculture Commission to NOT restrict our Right to Farm protections, in December of 2012.

Also 5 months after Judge Solka in Forsyth Township ruled that a small farmer in a residential area IS protected by Right to Farm, even when the township has an ordinance that says otherwise.

You will note that MDARD does not mention these facts that are contrary to their opinion in the document you quote, which is typical of them. They also do not mention that this current position of theirs is not their historical position; from 2000 to 2005 or so their position was that RTF protects everybody. Why the change? I can't say, but will note that the law has not changed during that interval, so that can't explain it.

So yes, since at least 2010 our state agricultural agency has told us repeatedly that RTF does not protect us; MDARD told Forsyth Township that Randy Buchler's farm was not protected by RTF, but Randy disagreed, went to court to prove it, and won. We are in a protracted, ongoing battle with our state agricultural agency to get them to acknowledge what the law, the courts, the legal scholars and the zoning experts in our state have long recognized: in Michigan, RTF covers everyone who meets the requirements of the Act, with no restrictions on size or place of the operation, and local regulations are explicitly not permitted to conflict with that law.

Because MDARD never backs their opinion by pointing to legal language, court decisions, or the opinions of relevant scholars I feel compelled to back up mine. If you want to fact-check my statements, these are the documents to look at:

MDARD document dated May 2013: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdard/RIGHT_TO_FARM_ACT_Final_3_422144_7.pdf
Ag Commission Meeting Minutes, December 2012: http://sustainablefarmpolicy.org/the-commission/
Buchler court decision: http://sustainablefarmpolicy.org/the-courts/
Text of the law: http://sustainablefarmpolicy.org/the-law/
What the legal scholars say: http://sustainablefarmpolicy.org/the-scholars/
What a zoning expert says; note that special provisions have to be made for the position of MDARD, which sits outside of other interpretations: http://lu.msue.msu.edu/pamphlet/Blaw/RightToFarmAct LocalRegulationPreemptionTable.pdf