Council’s short-sighted decision on Urbavore farm sends Kansas City back to the past | Opinion

Urbavore’s long journey through Kansas City government finally ended on Thursday, Jan. 30, when the City Council voted down our farm’s Master Plan Development rezoning. That plan would have resolved a few neighbors’ misgivings about our farm, while allowing us to continue our work of more than 15 years and grow our vision of a thriving ecosystem that serves the community.

So is Urbavore Farm now shut down? No.

Did the opposing neighbors get the relief they had sought from Urbavore’s operations? No.

Does anything change at all? No.

After two years of what was called “the most contentious issue in City Hall” — a process that nearly starved us farmers out — the council voted to do nothing. Rather than share the view of some in City Hall who described our rezoning plan as “a win for all,” the council instead decided that all parties should lose.

The wins that the City Council voted down were these: Neighbors would have seen a new entrance constructed to Urbavore that brought customer traffic through the farm rather than through the residential street. Neighbors also would have enjoyed a planted border of thick evergreen trees along the property line as a buffer from the farm. The city (and council) would have promoted myriad educational and climate initiatives on the farm, including green energy production, after-school programs, affordable housing and a farm-to-table kitchen. Finally, Urbavore would have gained enduring protection from future city legal action, and surety that our investments would never again be threatened by arbitrary scrutiny.

But a vote for an Urbavore win would also have closed the door to future development of Urbavore and the surrounding area (up to 50 acres within a stone’s throw of Interstate 435, the Kansas City Zoo, and the stadiums). Indeed, one of the opposing neighbors controls some of this adjacent land, has registered development corporations in Missouri, and has known plans to develop their acreage. Perhaps that is why Councilwoman Melissa Patterson-Hazley vigorously railed against our farm’s “hauling trash into the 3rd District” (also known as composting).

Farm had permission to compost

Three weeks earlier, the Board of Zoning Adjustment (an apolitical, quasi-judicial body) gave Urbavore a key win. It took the extraordinary step of overturning city staff’s determination that we had violated the zoning code by composting large volumes of food waste on the farm. With a 4-1 vote, the board agreed with Urbavore that the city planning department had given our farm permission in 2021 to expand our compost operations to their current scale, and that city and state inspectors had repeatedly affirmed Urbavore’s compliance with environmental and nuisance regulations.

Prior to the board’s decision, Patterson-Hazley and Councilman Johnathan Duncan postured that they could not approve a rezoning that “condoned” the composting violation, acting as if Urbavore had somehow circumvented the city’s process and made a half-million dollar investment in our compost expansion without permission. Yet, when we farmers were then proven innocent, they doubled down on rejecting our Master Plan Development. Most other council members followed Patterson-Hazley’s lead, relying on the judgment of their in-district “experts.”

If not for the Board of Zoning Adjustment’s overturning of the compost violation, Urbavore Farm and Compost Collective KC would now be in dire straits.

Instead, the board’s affirmation that we are composting legally combined with the council’s unwillingness to approve the solutions offered in the rezoning produces no change. We are left with the status quo.

And yet our city needs solutions far beyond the status quo if we are to resolve the many challenges we all face. For example, cities across the globe are responding to housing shortages by loosening zoning restrictions and allowing smaller accessory dwelling unit housing on single-family lots.

Do some communities push back fearfully on this trend, citing concerns about property values? Absolutely.

Should we stop promoting creative solutions to our pressing problems for fear of the NIMBYs? Of course not.

Innovators, changemakers needed

When City Council members canceled Urbavore’s plan, they shot down one of the most progressive and diverse development plans this city has seen. Most of the council members were ignorant of the plan’s details. Patterson-Hazley passed up millions of dollars worth of investment into the 3rd District over the next decade, believing that Urbavore’s investment would somehow harm the property values of the few opposing neighbors. She and her colleagues instead favored continued disinvestment in her district, which is as much a recipe for falling property values as is the spate of property crimes now plaguing our neighborhoods.

This city has long endured because entrepreneurs had the vision to innovate and the courage to challenge how we’ve always done things. You will have heard of some of them: Ewing and Muriel Kauffman, Ollie Gates, Jim and Virginia Stowers. Similarly, our family has innovated the space of urban agriculture and community composting.

Kansas City needs elected leaders who have the creativity and vision to solve our city’s most pressing problems — or at least officials who can recognize innovators and changemakers, and empower them to take leaps forward — or even just people who can tell the difference between a landfill and a compost pile. Nine of our elected leaders proved that they possess none of these abilities. Rather than endorse Urbavore’s vision and solve problems both big and small, they voted for the status quo.

Many thanks to Councilmen Eric Bunch, Crispin Rea and Wes Rogers for standing up to their colleagues and casting votes in support of Urbavore, in favor of solving problems and in the spirit of moving forward. We’ll remember you in 2027.