Divide Family Battles Teller County to Keep Greenhouse and Grow Food

By Jennifer Brown | The Colorado Sun

The fifth-generation Woodland Park area family argues the 2,856-square-foot greenhouse is allowed under the state Farm Stand Act.

DIVIDE — Virginia Loop imagined rows and rows of carrots and peppers, trees that would give her lemons and kiwifruit in a few years, and even her own crop of avocados on their land at 9,200 feet.

What she has, though, are wasted seeds, tomato plants of a half-dozen varieties that wilted and died in their pots, and a greenhouse taken over by weeds.

Virginia and her husband, Zac, had a dream of growing their own food, sharing with the neighbors and selling their extra zucchinis, potatoes and mangoes to fellow Teller County residents. They researched state and local laws, decided they did not need a permit, took out a home equity loan and built a $60,000 greenhouse on their 4-acre lot not far from Woodland Park.

Now they are facing the possibility of losing their home after Teller County officials told the Loops to tear down the greenhouse. The 2,856-square-foot rectangular structure, built into a hillside outside their back door, was nearly finished, some potatoes and zucchini plants already thriving in the rich soil, when the county issued a stop-work order in May.

The county-imposed fines were set to kick in this week, tallying $3,000 plus an additional $300 per day until the Loops take down the structure and call it quits on their dream.

The Loops say the project is allowed under Colorado’s Farm Stand Act, a measure passed by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Jared Polis in 2019 that says people can build temporary or permanent structures on a “parcel of any size” for the “sale and display of agriculture products” regardless of whether the property is zoned for agriculture. While local governments can require permits for farm stands, they can’t prohibit them, the act says.

Teller County officials, however, say the greenhouse — which is 168 feet long and 17 feet wide — violates zoning laws because the Loops’ property, in a subdivision with large lots on the hills above Divide, is not zoned for agriculture or commercial activity, including selling produce from a greenhouse. The property’s water well is for household use, not “commercial agriculture,” according to a July letter to the Loops from the Teller County Community Development Department.

The Loops, and their attorney, argue that if Teller County would simply update its rules to align with the state Farm Stand Act, the fight would resolve itself.

Instead, it may take a court case to decide a significant question: Is a greenhouse a farm stand?

The battle keeps heating up while the weeds in the greenhouse grow taller.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT THE COLORADO SUN