Farmer claims assault on local foods in viral video, which Johnson County disputes

An Iowa farmer's video about a land rezoning application has gone viral, but county officials say it doesn't tell the whole story.

Grant Schultz, an Iowa City resident who farms Versaland — a 143-acre farm where he said he raises a mix of organic crops and livestock — posted a 25-minute video on Facebook on Friday complaining of his treatment by the Johnson County Planning, Development and Sustainability staff.

In a staff report and a 5-0 Planning and Zoning Commission vote, the county has recommended denial of Schultz's application to rezone the farm from agricultural — its current designation — to agricultural residential.

As of 5 p.m. Monday, Schultz's video had over 72,000 views and nearly 1,200 shares. But the video has also prompted Johnson County officials to release a "fact sheet" refuting many of Schultz's claims.

In a July rezoning proposal for the property at 5133 Strawbridge Road, near the village of Morse in rural Johnson County, Schultz said he wanted to rezone 62.5 acres of the property to build housing for agritourism and hired help, as well as operate a retail orchard and fish farm.

Schultz in the video said there is a lack of options for small, organic farmers who want to farm the land and hire help year-round, and that AR, or agricultural residential, zoning is the only option that will work for his operation.

Initially, Schultz said he received positive verbal indications from county staff that they would recommend his rezoning, but Schultz said staff later became uncommunicative before denying the application.

Josh Busard, the county's Planning, Development and Sustainability director, denied that he and his staff have been uncommunicative.

"That's totally untrue," he said.

Busard said he and Schultz discussed several options for rezoning fewer acres due to county concerns that the development wouldn't be consistent with the county's land use plan and with development around the village of Morse — a community of fewer than 100 people whose population has remained static for over a century.

Schultz argued in the video that his proposal for live/work arrangements for hired help is consistent with Morse's village plan. But the fact sheet, authored by Busard and released Monday, noted that the village plan states "future housing stock should not conflict with historic village development."

And once the land is rezoned, there would be nothing stopping a future owner from developing it more extensively than Schultz plans to do.

Schultz said he also doesn't want a large development to spring up in that area and said he's willing to cap the number of units as part of a conditional zoning agreement. That's also why he said there are deed restrictions on the property that forbid residential dwellings unless they're related to agricultural use.

"I don't want 80-some units there either," he said.

But Schultz does not own the land, and the owners, Suzan Erem and Paul Durrenberger, oppose the rezoning application.

Erem said Schultz's plans would turn much of the property's tillable land "into a resort" and that the number of cabins in his proposal is more than is needed for a farm of that size.

"If it's not a resort, what do they need 36 cabins for?" she said.

Schultz has proposed some cabins for farm help and some for educational visits, camping and agritourism.

Schultz said he and any hired help can't live on the land without approval for housing, and the farm is currently "just a fraction of what it was." County actions, including a 12-month moratorium on new retail orchards instituted earlier this year, have created more uncertainty for him, he said.

"You-pick" apple orchards are not banned, but Schultz said he wants to offer a broader orchard experience that could include events or selling complementary products alongside his fruit.

Johnson County has worked with other property owners, including the Kalona Cheese Factory and Celebration Farm, to improve roads prior to past development projects, Busard said in the fact sheet.

Staff opinion is that "the developer should bear the full responsibility for all increased costs as the need for the upgrades to the bridge and roads can be attributed directly to the traffic generated by the development," according to the county's fact sheet, but Busard said it would be up to the board of supervisors to decide whether to share the costs of any infrastructure improvements.

Despite that Schultz doesn't own the land, Busard called it "fairly routine" for a contract holder or someone who has a purchase agreement to file a zoning application. This is the first application he can remember where the landowner opposes the rezoning, he said.

Schultz has a purchase agreement with Erem and Durrenberger and intends to buy the land at the end of 2017. He also filed a breach of contract case against the couple which went into mediation and was settled out of court earlier this year.

Erem, who is the president and cofounder of the nonprofit Sustainable Iowa Land Trust, said the couple bought the farm to help Schultz get started in farming, but they no longer trust him to carry out his plan.

"He wants to turn 62 acres into a resort," Erem said. "That's not what we did this for."

Erem said the agreement reached by the parties in mediation over the property did not include the ability to rezone the land. The first time she and Durrenberger saw Schultz's plans for the zoning application was in a public meeting last month, she said.

"If he wanted that ability, he could have asked for it in mediation," she said.

Reach Stephen Gruber-Miller at 319-887-5407 or sgrubermil@press-citizen.com. Follow him on Twitter: @sgrubermiller.