FLORIDA – Right to grow front-yard veggies gets green light for Senate floor

Mar 16

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Right to grow front-yard veggies gets green light for Senate floor

Article Courtesy of  The Tampa Bay Times
By Samantha J. Gross
Published March 10, 2019

  A Senate bill to ban local governments from regulating vegetable gardens is likely headed to the floor.

The Senate Rules Committee — the bill’s last stop — voted unanimously Wednesday to advance the proposal.

Sen. Rob Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican, filed a similar bill that passed during last year’s 2018 session, but the clock ran out and a House version was never filed. Lucky for garden enthusiasts, Rep. Elizabeth Fetterhoff, R-DeLand, has filed the House version (HB 145), which is identical in language.

“Freedom is at stake,” Bradley, the Senate budget chair said.

In January, the Senate Community Affairs Committee unanimously backed the measure which prohibits a county or municipality from regulating vegetable gardens on residential properties and voids any existing ordinance of that nature.

 The vegetable garden proposal is rooted in a legal dispute about an ordinance in Miami Shores that banned the gardens from being planted in front yards. Hermine Ricketts and Tom Carroll sued the village, and in November 2017, an appeals court upheld a ruling that the couple does not have a constitutional right to grow vegetables in their front yard. They appealed the ruling to the Florida Supreme Court, which declined to grant review.

Sen. Kathleen Passidomo, a Naples Republican, voted against the bill when it came up in 2018. She said she changed her vote Wednesday because of homeowners associations and other groups that are not covered by the bill and are able create their own regulations when it comes to vegetable gardens.

“Sometimes a local government will pass an ordinance that is, for lack of a better term, a stupid ordinance,” she said. “A local government that prevents someone from putting in a vegetable garden in their yard is wrong. It’s the principle, but we can’t have someone’s private property rights impacted like that.”  Read more:

http://www.ccfj.net/HOAFLRightToVeggies.html

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