Community garden finally gets win vs. restrictive city ordinances

DES MOINES, Iowa — For a hundred years, it was a forgotten space.

“It was barren. Not much of anything,” says neighbor, Bill Callahan, of the half-acre lot at 24th and High Streets in Des Moines.

“I presumed it would become a parking lot for somebody.”

But Ryan Francois saw something in it.

“I live a block away and I thought that we could do something special with this spot,” he says.

The sons of a master gardener (State Fair grand champion Don Francois), Ryan and his brother, Erik, packed it full of vegetables, fruit trees, and flowers.

“I think we’ve been really impressed,” says Erik, “with the amount of produce we’ve been able to get out of small spaces.”

It’s been a hit with neighbors, local businesses, and with the neighborhood association.

“I stop and chat with people who are working out here,” Callahan says, “learn about new plants, I like the community of it.”

Community is what it’s drawn. To vegetable stands, to potluck suppers, to pizza parties around the handmade clay oven. But then, the city took notice. First, it demanded an enclosed shed. The Francoises complied. But the city wasn’t done.

“From there it kind of expanded to ‘oh, by the way, you can’t host any events or sell anything on-site — even stuff that you grow and make,’” Ryan says.

The sales and gatherings have stopped, but the city hasn’t. It now says the whole property must be fenced and that fence has to sit seven-to-ten feet inside the sidewalk to allow for things like utilities and sidewalk expansion. The already modest space would shrink significantly — all in the name of making room for a decorative fence that would serve no greater purpose than delineating the property line.

“It’s kind of been a direct conflict with what we’re trying to do with the space,” Erik says, “We’re trying to grow veggies and it’s a smaller lot that we’re trying to grow produce out of.”

The Francoises have asked to buy the right-of-way property along the street from the city to preserve some of that space. The city is balking at that, too, and Ryan is at wits’ end.

“I think we need to rethink our zoning ordinances,” he says, “if this outcome for people trying to do productive, healthy things for our own citizens.”

Joined by a slew of neighbors, Ryan Francois made his case to the Des Moines Plan and Zoning Commission Thursday night. Although city planners recommended his request to purchase the property be denied, the board reversed course. It will instead allow his request to advance to the city council.

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