{"id":339753,"date":"2026-07-14T16:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T16:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/339753\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T16:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T16:30:08","slug":"askjaxtdy-why-does-overalls-farm-get-so-many-citations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/339753\/","title":{"rendered":"#AskJAXTDY | Why does Overalls Farm get so many citations?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2009, Nathan Ballentine graduated from college into a dreadful job market in Tallahassee. \u201cI don\u2019t know how to fix the economy, but I do know how to grow food,\u201d he says. He started gardening and selling produce<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u200b\u200bYears later, Ballentine moved to Springfield and wanted to grow food for his neighbors again. He didn\u2019t realize how complicated that would end up being. For years, zoning regulations in Duval County exposed him to citations. <\/p>\n

Jacksonville Today reader Marianne B. asks:<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you look at why Overalls Farm in Springfield can\u2019t operate legally? Keep getting citations, and the city wants them to pay for (a Planned Unit Development). They provide fresh vegetables!\u201d<\/p>\n

A: \u200b\u200bBallentine received permission to operate in June 2026, but he continues to push for regulatory shifts for other urban farms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before he planted the first seed, Ballentine met with the city to ask what he needed to do to operate legally. Nathan tells Jacksonville Today that he spoke with a few City Hall members, who told him the city couldn\u2019t advise him. \u201cAnd they said, \u2018Well, we can\u2019t tell you that you can do that, but we also can\u2019t tell you you can\u2019t do it because it\u2019s not defined in our code at all.\u2019 \u2026 And I said, \u2018Well, that sure sounds risky.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u200b\u200bBallentine started a community garden in his yard. It took off, and he began a subscription service for his neighbors to collect produce.<\/p>\n

His neighbors received the garden enthusiastically. Soon, Ballentine expanded. He made a deal with another Springfield resident that allowed him to farm on their property.<\/p>\n

\u200b\u200bThe citations didn\u2019t start until Ballentine opened his third farm location, also in Springfield. The garden was on a vacant lot, not a residential one, which meant he would need either a Certificate of Use<\/a> or a Planned Unit Development to operate legally. <\/p>\n

\u200b(A COU is an application for the city to check that the proposed property use meets zoning requirements and will not disrupt the area. A PUD creates a site-specific zoning classification, allowing more flexibility for what can be done on the lot.\u00a0Usually, these are for large developments that blend residential, commercial, and recreational activity.)<\/p>\n

Ballentine applied for the COU, whose flat fee application cost him $112. He says the PUD would have cost him roughly $4,980, a fee that varies by acreage<\/a>. For a community garden like his, this amount didn\u2019t seem reasonable to him.<\/p>\n

Helena Parola, planning department director for Jacksonville, says the city thought Ballentine should apply for a PUD because \u201c[t]he farm in Springfield includes several uses including growing and selling food along with agritourism events that could bring people from the larger Jacksonville area in to enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe City was determining the impacts from this type of use and found that a PUD rezoning would be most appropriate,\u201d Parola says in an email.<\/p>\n

\u200bAs Ballentine continued to push for a Certificate of Use, he received three citations from the city. One was for unpermitted staging of mulch, a second for trash \u2014 Ballentine says he had piled up firewood by the road and told his neighbors that it was up for grabs \u2014 and a third for operating Farm Three without a COU.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u200b\u200b\u201cBecause they wouldn\u2019t give us one,\u201d Ballentine says. \u201cWe had to operate because \u2026 our farm was gonna go bankrupt.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u200bBallentine started a petition for his right to operate<\/a> and gathered over 1,350 signatures, with 350 coming from immediate neighbors. Eventually, the city dropped all three citations, and Overalls Farm received the certificate for its third farm in June 2026, after applying in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u200bUltimately, Parola says, the Certificate of Use was granted because \u201cthe site was approved for Greenbelt status from the Property Appraiser\u2019s Office. Greenbelt status allows farm operations and agritourism. It is awarded for \u201cgood faith commercial agricultural use of the land,\u201d according to the city\u2019s website<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Ballentine paid the $15 application fee, was inspected by state officials and was awarded Greenbelt in January 2024.<\/p>\n

\u200b\u200bOveralls Farm Three now has the legal right to operate. \u201cWe got our COU, and for our current operations, we don\u2019t have to look over our shoulders anymore,\u201d Ballentine says.<\/p>\n

The larger problem, according to the urban farmer, is that there aren\u2019t clear rules for community gardens in Duval County, which leaves growers uncertain about what is legal.<\/p>\n

Ballentine is working with other farms and gardens in Duval County to propose the Free to Garden Act<\/a>, which he says would establish community gardens, market gardens and similar small-scale urban agriculture uses as permissible by right across Jacksonville.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy recurring feeling is it shouldn\u2019t be that hard to start a community garden,\u201d Ballentine says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2009, Nathan Ballentine graduated from college into a dreadful job market in Tallahassee. \u201cI don\u2019t know how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[15584,3204,502,28323,43323,1563,116,118,117,28983,115,24182,22507],"class_list":["post-339753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-askjaxtdy","tag-agriculture","tag-community","tag-community-voices","tag-distribute","tag-environment","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jaxtdy2","tag-news","tag-springfield","tag-urban-planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}