Courtesy Novella Carpenter/ghosttown.wordpress.com

Oakland urban homesteading celebrity Novella Carpenter could face fines from the city for unpermitted agricultural activities and lose the animals she keeps at Ghost Town Farm, a West Oakland garden that helped make local, sustainable food popular in the East Bay.

Carpenter says she received a notice that she was being fined about two weeks ago from the city’s Animal Services department based on a complaint against her selling rabbit meat. After a follow-up inspection on Tuesday from the city’s planning department, she was also warned that she must also acquire a conditional use permit for her agricultural activities.

Carpenter is a graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where Oakland North is based, and her 2008 memoir "Farm City" details her efforts to grow produce on the vacant lot next door to her apartment and raise animals in her backyard. Carpenter only recently purchased the lot, and for many years had been squatting on the property, asserting that the garden was a benefit to the public. Since publishing her book, Carpenter has travelled worldwide to talk about growing food in urban settings. Carpenter raises goats, chickens, ducks and rabbits and gives demonstrations on raising and butchering animals at Ghost Town Farm.

Carpenter said she purchased the corner lot next to her apartment last year, and that the area where she grows vegetables — mostly on raised beds — is zoned for mixed commercial and residential use. Currently, she does not have a permit to grow crops or raise animals for sale on the property. But Carpenter said when she bought the property she checked with the planning department to ask whether she would need any permits and was told to wait until April when new zoning laws will loosen restrictions on urban farming throughout the city.

As a result, she said, the notice from Animal Services took her by surprise. “They said they were going to fine me $1,000 and take away all my animals unless I ceased my activities,” she said. “I didn’t know — I guess there is a law against selling rabbit products.”

Carpenter said that the follow-up visit from city planning inspector Chris Candell resulted in a warning that because she had been operating without a permit, she could be charged double the price of a conditional use permit for agriculture, which is typically $2,500. That would be a $5,000 fee on top of the $1,000 fine from Animal Services, according to Carpenter.