Tenants get new rights to grow food
October 02, 2014
LAWT News Service
A bill ensuring apartment tenants have the right to grow produce in their homes was signed into law by the Governor late September. AB 2561, by Assembly Member Steven Bradford (D-Gardena), ensures that landlords and homeowners associations (HOA) may not unreasonably prohibit a tenant’s ability to grow food in his or her backyard.
“We have heard a lot in recent years about food deserts—areas where families do not have access to fresh and healthy foods,” Bradford said. “Low-income families are concentrated in these areas and suffer the effects of a poor diet, namely obesity and other diet-related diseases.”
The bill protects the rights of tenants in one- or two-unit buildings to grow food for personal consumption in portable containers. The bill extends the same protections to homeowners by preventing a homeowners association from instituting a ban on backyard produce.
“By expanding families’ options for growing their own foods, we can promote healthy diets, economic development in some of our hardest-hit communities, and sustainable agriculture at a time of severe drought across California,” Bradford continued. “It only makes sense that the state that pioneered the farmer’s market movement should take another step toward small-scale, locally-grown, sustainable farming and all of the benefits that entails.”