Orlando Generously Allows Residents to Slightly Control Their Own Yards

Last week, Zenon Evans
passed along the story of Hermine Ricketts and Tom Carroll, who
are fighting the city of Miami Shores, Fla., for the right to grow
vegetables in their front yard. They are suing with the help of the
Institute for Justice.

Head north, though, and the City of Orlando has magnanimously
decided to allow homeowners their home-grown vegetables, though
they’ve packaged it within a whole host of other regulations
controlling what people do with their yards. From the
Orlando Sentinel:

On Monday, the City Council gave preliminary approval to rules
that would allow veggie gardens to cover as much as 60 percent of a
home’s front yard. But they could not be planted in the public
right-of-way along the street, and would have to be screened with
fencing or shrubs, and set back at least three feet from the
property line.

It’s more garden-friendly than city planners’ first attempt,
which restricted gardens to no more than 25 percent of the front
yard, required 10-foot setbacks and sought height limits on
tomatoes and other plantings.

As in Miami Shores, the fight started when the city demanded a
couple, Jason and Jennifer Helvenston, remove their vegetable
garden or face fines. The city’s efforts were short-circuited when
it was discovered the city didn’t actually have any rules about
vegetable gardens.

So really, the new rules aren’t giving residents more freedom to
decide what to do with their yards. It’s actually taking it away.
The new rules require a shade tree on every lot of every new home
construction – and for anybody attempting to add to their property.
It also has a list of “approved” shrubs and trees and regulations
for irrigation timers.

Read the whole story
here.