TRURO — The planning board and ad hoc zoning task force are both looking to revisit the town’s farm stand rules after it took one local farmer more than a year to get permission to open a stand for selling flowers and produce.

“Truro is a historically agricultural town,” Ellery Althaus, chair of the planning board, told the zoning task force on July 21. “It should be, more or less, a really easy thing to put up a farm stand.”

The application that caused the boards to focus on farm stand rules came from Paula Erickson, who sells produce at the Truro farmers market and bouquets of flowers to weekly and monthly subscribers. In July 2024, she told the Independent she was making plans for a roadside stand.

Erickson first spoke with the building commissioner and planning department in May 2024, according to Truro Town Planner Barbara Carboni. Erickson thought she had followed their instructions, so she was surprised to receive a stop-work order from the building dept. this spring.

Police and fire officials had decided that her partner Megan Hinton’s property at 96 Castle Road was an unsafe place for a farm stand because of the traffic pattern there, zoning board of appeals vice chair Darrell Shedd told the Independent.

“People drive too fast on the road and it’s a bit of a blind curve,” Erickson said. “Pulling out of that property is a little bit dicey.”

Erickson then decided to seek permission for her stand at 9 Castle Terrace, which has frontage on Whitmanville Road near Route 6.

The fire chief, police chief, and public works director all said they had no objections to that location — but the building commissioner had by then determined that Erickson’s 8-by-10-foot farm stand constituted a “structure,” which triggered two significant zoning rules: site plan review by the planning board and a setback requirement that limits how close structures can be to a property line.

Because of those requirements, Erickson’s plan was discussed twice at the planning board and twice at the zoning board of appeals. The planning board ultimately waived the requirement for a site plan review on June 18, and the zoning board of appeals granted her a variance from the 25-foot setback requirement on Aug. 18.

Her farm stand will not be staffed, Erickson told the planning board. The flowers, tomatoes, garlic, and herbs that she sells will be purchased on the “honor system, with a money slot for the most part,” she said.

The process has stretched across two growing seasons, she said.

Erickson has “taken a lot of time and energy and lost money because she’s been going through what she thought were the appropriate channels,” said Dave DeWitt, who also operates a farm in Truro. “I give her a lot of credit because she was trying to be straightforward with the town, but she got a little bit of the runaround” due to confusing advice and months of committee meetings, he said.

 

Easing the Rules

Carboni, Truro’s planner and land use counsel, told the planning board on June 4 that in her more than four years working for the town this was the first time anyone seeking to put up a farm stand had come to the board. In other words, most farmers don’t ask the town for permission.

The Independent spoke with four farm stand owners in Truro, none of whom contradicted Carboni’s claim. Two of them — DeWitt and Peter Staaterman — cited a state law that they believe gives them the right to operate a farm stand.

That law, Chapter 40A Section 3, states that no zoning bylaw shall “prohibit, unreasonably regulate, or require a special permit” for certain agricultural activities — including buildings “for the sale of produce, wine, and dairy products” where at least a quarter of the inventory is produced on-site.

Those activities may be limited to parcels of two acres or more, the law says.

Althaus, who is also a member of the zoning task force, said at a task force meeting on July 21 that Erickson’s case had “triggered what can only be described as an excessive process.”

The task force should consider bylaw revisions “to make that never happen again,” he said.

At a task force meeting on Aug. 18, Althaus said the town should consider explicitly exempting farm stands from the definition of a “structure” so the town’s setback and site plan rules would not apply to them.

Althaus said he also wants to look into whether a farm stand should require permission from the fire chief, police chief, public works director, and building commissioner.

“I don’t think you need all four of those,” he told the planning board on Aug. 20. “I think any one or two of those people could probably navigate this and make it safe and acceptable.”

Erickson said she’s glad the town might revisit its rules.

“I would hate for anyone else to have to get caught in this long cycle,” she said. “I’m sure we can find a happy medium.”

 

Right to Farm

Another type of bylaw might have made Erickson’s path easier: a right-to-farm bylaw similar to those in Orleans, Dennis, Yarmouth, and Falmouth.

Truro considered adopting a right-to-farm bylaw in 2018, and that proposal explicitly listed operating a farm stand as part of farming. It also aimed to protect farmers from nuisance lawsuits.

The proposed bylaw was withdrawn before it came to a vote at town meeting, however. DeWitt, who at that time was chair of the Truro Agricultural Commission, said that “we decided to put it on hold because we were pursuing other things at town meeting.”

Although DeWitt still farms in Truro, he has since moved out of town. The agricultural commission is now “inactive” and has no members, according to the town’s website, although DeWitt said he hopes it will be revived.

If it were reconstituted, its first priority should be a right-to-farm bylaw, he said.

In 2023, Truro’s economic development committee conducted a focus group with farming, fishing, and marine businesspeople and recommended with “high priority” that the select board evaluate the town’s regulation of farm stands.

Select board chair Sue Areson told the Independent that the board has not yet done so.

“The simple answer, unfortunately, is that the select board has not had time,” Areson said.

The zoning task force and planning board appear motivated to take up the issue now.

“I think it would be great to review the farm stand regulations,” Francie Randolph, founding director of Sustainable CAPE, told the Independent. “The more we can do to support local farmers and to increase our local food supply, the better for us all.”

“People want to keep Truro rural,” said DeWitt. “The best way to do that is with farms.”

Parker Mumford contributed reporting.