To Save Middletown's Farms, Town Officials Mull Zoning Change

MIDDLETOWN, RI -- Middletown wants to keep its active working farms, but the farmers may need economic incentives to stay afloat, according to Ronald Wolanski, Middletown's planning director.

Given the fact most of the Town's working farms are located in residential districts, a change to the zoning laws to allow "more flexibility" and help the farmers is one option, he said.

On Wednesday, Scott Millar, of Grow Smart RI, showed a dozen or so residents and town officials how an agricultural business overlay district might work in Middletown.

But discussion had to be postponed until later.

Millar had been invited to a Planning Board meeting, which was advertised on the state Secretary of State's website. But when a quorum failed to materialize, Wolanski explained, the planning board could not legally open the meeting or hold a discussion.

However, Millar could deliver his PowerPoint presentation. He started by offering a list of policy questions, which Middletown residents should ask themselves.

The list included questions about whether the Town would be comfortable with the overlay zone approach and whether new uses for farms would be acceptable. For another question, he continued, could the allowed uses differ based on a farm's size, with some purposes okay for small farms of five acres or less, and others for the medium and large farms?

Currently, farmers are required to appear at the Zoning Board and apply for a special permit, if they're involved in an accessory use. But some uses be allowed by right?

Also, are there any uses the Town wants to ban? And finally, what type of performance standards should be used to measure impacts on the neighbors?

Earlier, Millar had volunteered to draft an ordinance, which might help farmers make extra money from so-called accessory uses, such as selling jams and jellies, holding special events, and offering the property for weddings.

Currently, he said, garden tours, lectures, hayrides, and corn mazes are among the activities farmers are allowed to do by right, while banquets, weddings, Farmers' Markets bigger than five acres, livestock auctions and equipment and trade fairs are allowed with a special permit. A new use might be a brewery, he said. Middletown already has wineries, he said. Also, retail sales might be included for agriculture-related products, such as arts, crafts, woodworking or wool garments made from shorn sheep.

The draft ordinance was partly based on South Kingstown's existing ordinance, he said. He asked the public to review it and make comments for an upcoming meeting.