Chagrin Falls, OH – Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services filed an appeal, on behalf of its clients Kelly’s Working Well Farm challenging their local government’s demand to cease operations due to zoning code violations. On October 25th, 2019 the Bainbridge Township Zoning Inspector delivered a letter and stated that Kelly’s Working Well Farm must cease operations immediately until a conditional use permit was obtained for the use of the farm property as a school. Just weeks later, the township fire marshal raided their property with a warrant to search the facility and later delivered this severe hazard order.
In response Kelly’s Well Working Farm has released this statement:
At Kelly’s Working Well Farm we have created a unique agricultural education program of farm immersion for children and adult visitors. We have no formal curriculum but rather provide the context of a working farm and farm market in which children and adults spend their days interacting with their surroundings and each other, developing their hearts, minds and hands in their own direction and at their own pace. The care of the animals; the use of natural buildings heated by highly efficient wood fueled systems; the permaculture techniques, including swales to control and utilize stormwater and perennial polyculture plantings; and the ability to range freely over the farm property, cook in an informal outdoor kitchen, set up a mint tea stand, learn to chop wood, harvest fruits and vegetables, make jam, etc., are all intrinsic to our program.
We call our program Chagrin Valley School, but in reality it is an “unschool.” We do not try to prepare children to meet academic standards and offer no traditional trade school education to adults. We conduct no evaluations of “student growth”. When families decide that self-directed learning on a farm is something they want their children to experience, they are completely aware of and accountable to the state’s education requirements for their children as home-schoolers.
Recently, the Bainbridge zoning board and fire marshal effectively shut down our use of the farm because they want to classify the farm as a school which comes with a debilitating range of regulations. We are a working farm, not a school, and the parents of children who frequent our farm are quite aware of this distinction. While we accept an elevated need for safety based upon our unique nature, we want to be treated fairly, and cooperate to find workable solutions. We have repeatedly expressed our willingness to work with the Fire Marshall to develop a reasonable set of safety criteria, above and beyond the requirement of an agricultural establishment. But our efforts to work with the township have been blocked by their insistence that we change our zoning status from agriculture and apply for a conditional use permit to operate as a school.
This we will not do. Since our inception in 2012, our mission has been agricultural education. We will be appealing the decisions by the Zoning Inspector to revoke the agricultural use status of one of our buildings and by the Bainbridge Fire Marshall to shut down all of our buildings until we receive conditional use permits which would require changes that would erode the nature of our agricultural identity.
To learn more about us, check out the Kelly’s Working Well Farm Facebook page, and visit our website. To support us you may communicate your feelings with Bainbridge officials and attend our Holiday Craft Fair November 23rd. We are confident that once the community fully understands our farm and mission, they will support us, our appeal, and the assets we bring to the community.
A hearing will be held on December 19 at 7pm at the Bainbridge Township’s Board of Zoning Appeals. Attendance at this hearing is encouraged.
