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Sweet Meadow vs. The Sherborn Zoning Board...
Last spring a neighbor complained to the town that we were running
a "pet food distribution business" from our farm. Part
of the complaint accused us of selling dog and cat food, which has
never happened from our farm. After the Zoning Enforcement Officer
visited our farm to investigate these allegations he ruled that
all of the operations at our farm were lawful agricultural uses
and there was no zoning violation.
Unfortunately, this decision was appealed to the Sherborn Zoning
Board of Appeals, and after a few months of meetings the 3-member
board decided that only those activities involving agricultural
products grown or used entirely on our land were protected under
state law. In order to protect our business, we have had to appeal
this decision to the Middlesex Superior Court.
On February 17, 2010, the Massachusetts Department
of Agriculture, after reviewing documentation regarding our farm,
issued its opinion directly to the ZBA that “Sweet Meadow
Farm and its farming operations should be afforded the protection
firmly embedded in [state law],” which exempts farms from
unreasonable zoning regulations. Even with this letter our town
ZBA still continuing action against our farm at great expense to
our town and our farm.
This opinion letter is reproduced below.
We hope that this letter will cause the
Town to stop using taxpayer money to pay to defend a ZBA decision
that is incorrect. see below for the letter.
Learn
more
After you read below you may agree that what the town is doing
to our farm is wrong.
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Discussion and support
for Sweet Meadow
We have a Facebook group, Save
Sweet Meadow, that is currently over 600 fans strong!
Please join our discussions about our fight with the Zoning
Board, and feel free to ask questions.
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