Update (Nov. 21, 2024): The Kansas City Council voted to refer Urbavore’s plan back to the City Plan Commission to make adjustments that would move the driveway and compost piles farther north, away from residential homes.

Kansas City’s effort to nurture urban farming and make fresh produce and compost available to residents has run into neighborhood complaints and zoning citations.

The City Council’s agenda for today includes action to put an end to a zoning dispute at the heart of tensions between an urban farm, its neighbors and city officials in charge of regulations that can make urban farming difficult.

The council will be presented with a master development plan, created by Urbavore Urban Farm and approved by the City Plan Commission, to renovate the farm located north of Swope Park and to bring it in line with zoning regulations.

If the council votes to approve it, the farm at 5500 Bennington Ave. will put in a new paved road, compost-heated greenhouses and solar panels that will power neighboring houses. If the council votes no, the farm could be forced to shrink its composting program, posing a threat to its ability to continue growing vegetables.

The road so far for Urbavore

In May 2023, the city cited Urbavore Urban Farm for four zoning violations:

• Shipping containers: Urbavore uses shipping containers as storage for farm materials. Kansas City prohibits storing shipping containers unless the land is zoned for manufacturing purposes.
• Retail sales: Urbavore sells products like cheese, yogurt and mushrooms produced by other local farmers as part of its community-supported agriculture program. City code lets the farm distribute its own produce at the farm, but not food that is produced by other farmers.
• Gravel driveway: City code requires the parking lot and first 25 feet of driveway to be paved. Urbavore said its current driveway may have been grandfathered in when it first got building permits for the farm.
• Composting: Urbavore uses the land for a composting program, where it picks up food waste from houses across the city that, once processed, is used as fertilizer. Kansas City requires Urbavore to stay below 1,500 cubic yards of compost and cited the farm for processing more than that. Urbavore said it does not have storage capacity beyond the city’s limits. 

But Urbavore disputes the code violations and appealed them to the Board of Zoning Adjustment shortly afterward.

Those zoning violations are in the appeals process, and no final decision has been made about whether Urbavore violated city code.

Urbavore’s proposal for the council

To fix the violations, Kansas City’s planning department recommended that Urbavore create a master development plan, or MDP. It was approved by the City Plan Commission. 

That MDP includes a new paved entrance to the farm to replace the gravel driveway. That attempts to also address neighbor complaints that the farm was increasing traffic on produce pickup days along 55th Terrace, which runs south of the farm. 

The plan also includes shrubs and trees to block the view of compost piles, solar panels installed on a roof over the compost piles to provide electricity to neighbors and a community kitchen for cooking classes.

Urbavore said it has received more than 70 letters of support from its neighbors.

But before moving forward, the plan needs a final OK from the City Council.

In early October, Urbavore and the city planning department presented the MDP to the Neighborhood Planning and Development Committee. The committee voted to recommend that the council vote “no.”

Councilmember Eric Bunch, who represents the 4th District, supported the plan, but 3rd District Councilmember Melissa Patterson Hazley and Mayor Pro Tem Ryana Parks-Shaw opposed it.

Patterson Hazley told the committee that she was not opposed to the farm and thought the work was important. But she opposed the MDP because she said the farm had been developed in violation of city code.

“I cannot in good conscience permit such code violations without setting an unfair or perhaps dangerous standard across all city code and all city neighborhoods,” Patterson Hazley said. “It has to be done in order. It has to be done in respect to city code.”

The City Council will meet at 2 p.m. on Nov. 21. You can watch the meeting remotely here.