DIVIDE — Virginia Loop imagined rows and rows of carrots and peppers, trees that would give her lemons and kiwifruit in a few years, and even her own crop of avocados on their land at 9,200 feet.
What she has, though, are wasted seeds, tomato plants of a half-dozen varieties that wilted and died in their pots, and a greenhouse taken over by weeds.
Virginia and her husband, Zac, had a dream of growing their own food, sharing with the neighbors and selling their extra zucchinis, potatoes and mangoes to fellow Teller County residents. They researched state and local laws, decided they did not need a permit, took out a home equity loan and built a $60,000 greenhouse on their 4-acre lot not far from Woodland Park.
Now they are facing the possibility of losing their home after Teller County officials told the Loops to tear down the greenhouse. The 2,856-square-foot rectangular structure, built into a hillside outside their back door, was nearly finished, some potatoes and zucchini plants already thriving in the rich soil, when the county issued a stop-work order in May.
The county-imposed fines were set to kick in this week, tallying $3,000 plus an additional $300 per day until the Loops take down the structure and call it quits on their dream.
The Loops say the project is allowed under Colorado’s Farm Stand Act, a measure passed by lawmakers and signed by Gov. Jared Polis in 2019 that says people can build temporary or permanent structures on a “parcel of any size” for the “sale and display of agriculture products” regardless of whether the property is zoned for agriculture. While local governments can require permits for farm stands, they can’t prohibit them, the act says.
Teller County officials, however, say the greenhouse — which is 168 feet long and 17 feet wide — violates zoning laws because the Loops’ property, in a subdivision with large lots on the hills above Divide, is not zoned for agriculture or commercial activity, including selling produce from a greenhouse. The property’s water well is for household use, not “commercial agriculture,” according to a July letter to the Loops from the Teller County Community Development Department.
The Loops, and their attorney, argue that if Teller County would simply update its rules to align with the state Farm Stand Act, the fight would resolve itself.
Instead, it may take a court case to decide a significant question: Is a greenhouse a farm stand?
The battle keeps heating up while the weeds in the greenhouse grow taller.
Teller County caters to retirees, fifth-generation family says
The Loops have hired a lawyer, started a fundraiser, and tried to drum up support by posting on social media and reaching out to news outlets. “Growing food is illegal” in Teller County, Virginia said in a Facebook post.
Local officials, meanwhile, have been threatening to take legal action against the Loops if they don’t take down the greenhouse. This week, they offered to pause enforcement if the Loops would stop trying to get media attention, according to the Loops’ attorney. Virginia refused, and the county filed a lawsuit in Teller County District Court on Wednesday.
The Loops are barely scraping by financially, they said. Virginia is a mortgage broker and Zac is a heavy equipment mechanic. They sold their chicken coop, so now their hens wander in the bushes and on the patio outside their back door, where outdoor chairs face Pikes Peak and an American flag flaps in the breeze. (Chickens aren’t allowed under their homeowners association rules, but other residents have them, too.)
Virginia’s car is for sale and she’s sold most of her jewelry, other than her wedding ring.
This isn’t about us. This is about this county. We’re doing this for the people here.
— Virginia Loop
In what the Loops took as an added insult, the county’s stop-work order also cited the use of an “unlicensed contractor.” The Loops’ family and friends pitched in for two weeks to build the greenhouse, topped with an ultraviolet-resistent roof to protect the plants and temperature controlled with a geothermal battery, from a kit they ordered online.
They are not ready to give up yet. Zac’s family has lived in Teller County for five generations, and the Loops are in disbelief that the local government of the place they’ve lived for decades would try to stop them from growing their own food.
“I can’t make it make sense,” Virginia said.
“It’s where we grew up, where our kids are growing up. This isn’t about us. This is about this county. We’re doing this for the people here.”
The family’s 19-year-old twin girls have moved out but come home to munch their way through the greenhouse, plucking whatever is ready to eat and popping it into their mouths, even raw onions. The boys, ages 10 and 11, had planned to help their mom harvest and market the produce as a 4-H project.
The county has become too focused on retirees, Zac said, and the rules too focused on people who aren’t working to feed their families. “You don’t see a lot of normal houses up here anymore,” he said. “You’ve got to be a millionaire to live here. That’s what happened — a lot of people with money built a second home here, or maybe a third or fourth. They live here for a couple months of the year and they’re gone.”
County rules say residents are allowed to build outdoor buildings, including sheds and greenhouses, without a permit — if they are 200 square feet or less (which is 14 times smaller than the Loops’ greenhouse). But the Loops’ lawyer, in a letter to the county, argued that the code is outdated and requested that the county update its rules to align with the state Farm Stand Act.
Otherwise, wrote attorney Claire Havelda with the well-known Denver firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck, “absurd results” will follow, which include “civilly prosecuting a resident for exercising rights under the Farm Stand Act.”
Dan Swallow, director of Teller County Community Development, told The Sun the Loops are in violation of local zoning regulations and that they failed to file the appropriate paperwork to get a building permit. The county did not respond to a question about whether its codes are out of date since the passage of the 2019 Farm Stand Land or whether that law applies to the greenhouse.
The governor’s office told The Sun that Polis has heard from Virginia and “appreciates her engagement and passion for producing fresh food,” and that he has passed along her concerns to the Teller County commissioners. But Polis did not take a side or say whether his Farm Stand Act allows the greenhouse.
“This law supports local farming while respecting the jurisdictions within which these stands are located by allowing local officials to grant the appropriate permits,” his office said via email.
Only radishes, turnips grow in Divide without a greenhouse
Virginia Loop is one of those moms who makes her own bread, buys meat “on the hoof” and hunts for 50 pounds of apples at 67 cents per pound so she can make and store a year’s worth of pie filling. She invites her friends over for canning parties, and last year, she canned 3,200 quart jars of everything from bone broth to cranberries to fruit-enhanced tea.
She grew up canning fruit and making pickles in California and Colorado, but became even more focused on producing food after her dad was diagnosed with cancer and Zac’s dad with Alzheimer’s. “Just knowing where your food comes from, you know, and also knowing what’s been sprayed on your food,” she said, holding up one of hundreds of jars of canned food in her basement. “I think it’s really crazy that we have to call food organic. Like what happened to it just being food?”
Besides healthier living, the vision for the greenhouse was also rooted in finances.
Virginia tallied up what it cost her at the grocery store to make a dinner salad for eight people: $37.14. That includes $5.49 per head of lettuce, $6 for 2 pounds of heirloom tomatoes, and $3 per cucumber.
At 9,200 elevation, with only 80 frost-free days per year, the Loops can grow pretty much only radishes and turnips without the greenhouse. Virginia has grown both for years, selling the extra to friends.
“It is impossible to feed yourself at this altitude without a greenhouse,” she said.
Virginia spent weeks researching the rules of her homeowners association, county codes and state law. Under the Farm Stand Act, according to her interpretation and that of her lawyer, she was permitted to build a greenhouse for the purpose of growing and selling produce, so her family got to work.
Besides the $60,000 for the kit, they spent $25,000 to bring power to the greenhouse and about $20,000 to fill it with soil, made with compost Virginia collected from various farms.
The greenhouse is buried 4 feet deep and operates for about $1 per day with an “earth battery,” which includes geothermal tubes that pull heat from the greenhouse during the day and push heat into it during the night. Without the earth battery, the greenhouse would reach 120 degrees in the summer heat and freeze in the winter.
“Remove the unpermitted illegal greenhouse”
In June 2024, not long after the greenhouse was built, a county code enforcement officer stopped by to ask the Loops what they were doing — the long, gleaming structure is easily visible from the main road through the subdivision. “And I’m super excited about this, like it’s a dream come true, and I tell him exactly what we’re doing,” Virginia said, recalling that day more than a year ago.
When he asked about her permit, she explained why she believed she didn’t need one under state law. County officials initially agreed the Loops didn’t need a permit except for when they added the electricity, she said, though she did not get that in writing and the county later said the Loops didn’t follow local laws throughout the process.
The Loops have since applied for multiple permits — two for the electrical work, which included a new electrical panel, one for the roof and another for the solar power. “We’re not anti-permit,” Virginia said. “If you wanted a permit, we would have gotten a permit. But the state law says we don’t need a permit.”
In May, a day after receiving the stop-work order, the Loops applied for a permit for the greenhouse that was already built. The permit was denied.
County officials say the Loops should have asked for a permit before building a structure that’s more than twice the square footage of their home.
Cease all commercial activity immediately related to the greenhouse operation.
— Teller County Community Development Department
“Your commercial greenhouse does not meet the standards for permitting in Teller County,” the county development director wrote to the Loops last month. “Cease all commercial activity immediately related to the greenhouse operation. Remove the unpermitted illegal greenhouse.”
The county issued its final notice July 23, giving the Loops 10 days to remove the greenhouse. Each day of violation “is a separate offense,” and failure to pay the fines could result in the county placing a lien on their property, he wrote.
The Loops say they’re shocked the fight has reached such a level of intensity. At this point, it feels to them like a personal attack.
“They know how much this is hurting me,” Virginia said. “The plan was to feed our family and make a little bit of money.”