Johnson County looks at changing greenhouse rules to help Amish farmers

Johnson County's supervisors said Friday they want to exempt greenhouses from building codes to help Amish farmers.

The issue came up because Amish farming less than 40 acres were being denied building permits by the county for greenhouses and hoop buildings.

In Johnson County, farms are exempt from building codes, but a farm is defined as a property of 40 acres or more used for agriculture, said Rick Dvorak, Johnson County's planning and zoning administrator.

Mervin Ropp, an Amish farmer in southern Johnson County, said Amish farms traditionally are larger than 40 acres, but with land prices going up, more are getting smaller.

They want to use the greenhouses to grow plants and vegetables to sell, but some have been denied permits because county inspectors weren't satisfied the structures met wind- and snow-load rates.

No one at Friday's meeting suggested the buildings were unsafe.

The supervisors recently toured Amish farms and heard concerns with the 40-acre definition.

“We wanted to be able to encourage the Amish community to take advantage and promote a whole new (type) of economic development, which are greenhouses, and not all Amish farmers have 40 acres,” Supervisor Terrence Neuzil said.

At an informal meeting Friday, the supervisors said they wanted to exempt from building permits membrane-covered structures, like greenhouses or hoop buildings, used for growing plants.

The changes would apply only for structures used for private homeowner operations and the wholesale of plant products. Customers could not come to a greenhouse to buy items.

The structures also would be subject to setback standards. Those likely would require them to be 10 feet from a residence and 40 to 50 feet from roads and property lines.

The proposal is aimed at helping the Amish, but as planned it would apply to everyone, including people living in residential neighborhoods in unincorporated parts of the county.

Ropp and a few other Amish men at the meeting said they were satisfied with the plan.

The proposal will require a couple of ordinance amendments and likely will take at least three months to go through the review process, Dvorak said.

In Linn County, farms are defined by a combination of factors and the number of acres is not one of them, said Brita Van Horne, the county's building official. Greenhouses used to produce farm products can be exempted from the building code, she said.