How I plan to open my farm without a special use permit

I ran into a special use permitting problem with the town I am in this past summer. We left it at this: I need to pave over an acre for parking on my land to open. Here's what I am doing instead.

Starting right now, I am diving headfirst into the legalities, taxes, and permitting surrounding my business and farm for 2025. Those of you who have been following along with me since this summer know that the town gave me an ‘ultimatum’ for issuing my special use permit. I stood before them in August with 16 different maps and charts I had drafted, ready to answer any question they threw my way.

The town president had to admit the maps were thorough and sufficient. However… for me to open to the public, I would need to supply about 25 more parking spaces.

“Every farm in this area has people park in the grass or along gravel roads,” I said to them.

They ignored me.

“For you to open your business, you need to create more parking in the space between the barn and the farm stand. That’s it,” they said.

The town was proposing I pave over an acre of my farmland - land that has been farmland for centuries - to welcome the public into my space. They knew full well requiring me to do that would result in two things:

• It would cost around $50,000 to create a parking area of that scale

• It would ruin the idyllic country landscape of my land and the land surrounding my property

I held my ground with the board, and if you’re curious to know just how nasty these public planning board meetings were, feel free to read my summary of it here.

I am not someone who wants to stew on transgressions of the past or ‘get my sweet, sweet revenge.’ I truly am a pragmatist. Our country has a massive bureaucracy problem with the power these boards and zoning officers wield - but that is a story for another day.

Today, I am going to go over everything I am doing right now to circumvent the planning board. I only know to do these things based on the advice of two different successful agricultural operation owners in the area. I have carefully met with other people around me to seek their advice. Here is what they told me.