Ledyard — Proposed changes to the town's agricultural zoning regulations, the subject of ongoing discussion by the Planning and Zoning Commission, have been scrapped to give residents, including the newly revived Agricultural Commission, more time to give feedback.

"The Commission remains committed to finding a solution to make it as easy as possible to allow agri-tourism and agri-business to operate in town, but at this point I feel it's likely not possible to move forward with the existing draft to accomplish this," commission Chairman Nate Woody said in a statement at Wednesday's Town Council meeting. He said the commission still will have a public workshop Sept. 10 to seek input on the town's agricultural zoning regulations, and the establishment of a functional Agricultural Commission will help the development of a long-term solution.

The move comes after criticism from several members of the Ledyard community, including commercial and hobby farmers in town, following the first pre-application public workshop held by the zoning commission on Aug. 13. Points of contention in the draft, dated July 9, included new definitions of a farm — the current regulations require at least 3 acres, where the proposal required at least 3 acres for a home farm and at least 5 acres for a commercial farm — as well as increased setback requirements for livestock housing and grazing.

Allyson Angelini, owner of Full Heart Farm, said she didn't know about the public workshop until an alternate on the commission talked to her on Aug. 11 and asked if she had heard about it. She said that when she read through the draft, her first thought was that the regulations, if approved, would put her out of business.

"It's hard when we've given so much of ourselves to the community through not just the food and flowers that we grow but through education and public awareness and donations and other things. ... It's hard to receive a stack of paper that has line item after line item after line item of ways that they would make our life either difficult or impossible," she said, noting how Full Heart has been recognized and supported at the state level.

One of her primary concerns was the proposed size requirements; based on their commercial operations, Full Heart would need at least 10 acres to meet the proposed regulations but only uses 1.25 acres to grow produce and flowers. She also took issue with the draft's categorization of farm stands as an accessory "ag-tivity" rather than an essential function of a production farm, saying that people coming to her farm to purchase tomatoes shouldn't be in the same category as a 250-person wedding. 

Angelini said there are already so many barriers to farming, and large tracts of farmland just aren't available in Ledyard. Without the current zoning flexibility, she also wouldn't have been able to develop the Full Heart Farm Collective in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic to sell products from 30 partner farms and food businesses throughout eastern Connecticut.

"I think, if nothing else, the pandemic brought to light the value of having small-scale farms in town because of their innate resiliency and ability to adapt quickly to the changing times," she said, highlighting the delivery and curbside options offered by Full Heart and Holmberg Orchards to get fresh, local food to immunocompromised individuals in the community.

'Dreaming about chickens and pigs'

Steve and Sarah Martic's candle business wouldn't have been impacted by the draft regulations — the name Cider Hill Farm is an homage to the turkey farm Sarah's great-grandparents once operated on the property — but they said the regulations as written would have dashed their dreams of having a hobby farm and they didn't want to go down without a fight.

"We have always had a personal dream to have our own personal hobby farm. You know, dreaming about chickens and pigs, nothing commercialized," Steve Martic said. "The chicken coop out there was out there and up before the hardwood floors were laid. The day we got our CO (certificate of occupancy) from the town, we went to Holdridge's and got six chicks."

He said he found out about the zoning changes when a friend had added him to the For Ledyard Farms Facebook group, created last week in response to the draft, and he said he was crushed the more he read of the document. He said they made sure that their property, which had been carved off of land owned by Sarah's mother, was 3 acres so they could have the farm they wanted within the current regulations. The draft changes would have prevented them from ever expanding or going commercial.

He said the timing of the proposed changes was strange, given the rising interest in farming and homesteading over the last decade or so and especially now during the coronavirus pandemic. If anything, the regulations should be more flexible and agricultural uses should be embraced, he said, and the stalling of the current draft is good news, as it shows that the zoning commission is listening to the community's concerns. It also helps the Agricultural Commission get off the ground, as many people hadn't known about it.

'Advocating for survival'

The commission was created by an ordinance in 2017 to allow small farms in town to participate in farmland preservation and other grant programs through the state and to inform town regulations to support those small farms. Town Councilor Kevin Dombrowski, who helped write the ordinance, said the commission languished after the death of farmer Robert Burns, who had championed the idea of an agricultural commission for at least a decade.

He said Town Council Chairwoman Linda Davis pitched membership to concerned residents as a way to get people involved in the process. As of Thursday, 12 people had applied for the commission, which will have five members and two alternates.

"I'm actually really excited to see that now we can really stand up this agricultural committee to do what we wanted to when we first set it up," he said.

Woody said zoning regulations are regularly reviewed, and when the Planning and Zoning Commission was working on the Plan of Conservation and Development, members noticed that a lot of agricultural uses weren't addressed in the zoning regulations. The goal of the revision was to clarify those uses, as well as the types of farms that can have them.

He said the pre-application public workshops are an opportunity for the commission to have an open discussion with residents about a draft amendment, as it's harder to have that dialogue during the public hearing of a submitted application. The timeline going forward will depend on when the Agricultural Commission can give feedback on the current draft, and he acknowledged the general frustration around not being able to host in-person meetings regarding such a contentious issue.

"My feeling is that we're going to come forward with something to the application that is very, very, very close to what we will actually pass. We're just going to do more revision pre-application than post," he said.

Amid an exhausting growing season plagued by extremes in weather and a global pandemic, Angelini said she hopes the delay to get the Agricultural Commission up and running will ultimately help develop regulations that support small farms and accomplish the zoning commission's goals.

"We aren't advocating for anything more," she said. "We're advocating for survival. And that's the tiring part. We're not trying to do anything that we're not already doing."

a.hutchinson@theday.com