This Shakopee woman used to farm on her rural property. Then a city oversight made it illegal.

Victoria Ranua knew she wanted to be a beekeeper since kindergarten. And for years, the Shakopee resident tended 20 hives in her front yard — an activity the city permitted on her rural residential lot.

But when Ranua returned to the city after a few years away, hoping this time to grow and sell native plants and vegetables on her land, she ran into an unexpected roadblock: Shakopee had inexplicably wiped agriculture from its list of permitted land uses in rural residential areas, putting her garden business on hold.

Crouching beside a clump of native sedges in her yard on a recent morning, she contemplated the zoning hitch that has stalled her ambitions.

“They’re just waiting,” she said of the plants. “You give them a chance, they want to grow.”

Ranua’s predicament caught Shakopee officials’ attention when she spoke at a City Council meeting earlier this month.

At the meeting, Director of Planning and Development Michael Kerski attributed the mix-up to a “scrivener’s error” that occurred when the city enacted a flurry of zoning code changes in 2020.

Kerski said in an interview the city staff is working on restoring agriculture as an authorized land use, with the Planning Commission set to review a draft of that change in June.

Until officials make that modification, though, Ranua is patiently waiting for the greenlight to grow.

“I really like feeding people,” she said.

Ranua and her husband, Todd, were pleased when they scored a great deal in 2011 on a cozy house in Shakopee — an idyllic two-acre property with towering bur oak trees and the occasional turkey strutting across the road.

The home suited the nature-loving Ranuas for another reason: City code allowed them to turn the plot into a home base for agriculture, a permitted land use on the rural residential property.

And they did farm, selling honey through their business, Eagle Creek Honey Farm.

The pair sold most of those hives in 2017 and relocated to the Iron Range when Todd got sick. After his death, Ranua returned to Shakopee hoping again to work the land, selling native plants and fresh produce to her Scott County neighbors.

But last fall, Ranua looked at the city’s list of permitted land uses and noticed agriculture was missing. A self-professed rule follower, she dug through old meeting minutes until she found the date when the change occurred: Nov. 4, 2020.

That day, the city made sweeping alterations to its zoning code that would come to baffle Ranua, like adding “adult entertainment establishments” to the list of permitted land uses yet excluding the designation needed to grow and sell plants.

“They added strip clubs as an allowed land use and took away agriculture!” she said.

Kerski, the planning and development director, said the city removed agriculture in 2020 because officials wanted to narrow its definition, which at the time allowed people living on relatively small rural residential properties to raise livestock.

They intended to restore a redefined version of the land use to the city’s zoning code, Kerski said, but that never happened.

That’s created certain unusual zoning situations, Kerski said at a May City Council meeting. For example, residents can operate roadside stands, but they’re barred from farming the food sold at those posts.

“We’re in the process of fixing that,” Kerski said.

The new definition of agriculture will allow residents in rural residential areas, which typically constitute one dwelling on 2 ½ acres, to keep domesticated animals that produce commercial products — think cows and chickens.

It will also permit people to host seasonal sales of crops on their properties, greasing the wheels on one part of Ranua’s fledgling business.

But whether she can keep bees remains unresolved.

Ranua’s love of the natural world — especially bees — runs deep.

In high school, she would down a whole bottle of honey before every track meet, the sticky pick-me-up propelling her toward a long and successful running career.

She deepened her knowledge of bees during college, studying under the pioneering entomologist Marla Spivak, who is known for her work breeding disease-resistant bee strains.

After college, Ranua lived for years in a log cabin tucked in the tribal garden of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, tending to their organic farm and later serving as the tribe’s beekeeper.

The insects are “just such amazing creatures to work with,” she said.

Ranua wasn’t living in Shakopee in 2019 when the city adopted a beekeeping ordinance that permits the practice in all zoning districts.

Residents on lots the size of Ranua’s can sell honey farmed on their property and keep up to eight colonies — so long as they’re not situated in front yards.

But that’s not enough to sustain a business, Ranua said. Her earlier operation included hives across Scott County, plus nearly two dozen in a grassy patch in her front yard that absorbed ample light.

“It’s important that they’re in the sun,” she said of the bees, whose honey she sold at farmer’s markets up north and inside the IDS Center in downtown Minneapolis.

Kerski said officials don’t plan to include bees among the livestock residents can raise under the new definition of agriculture. That means Ranua must hew to the existing ordinance by restricting the number of hives she can keep to eight.

Shakopee Mayor Matt Lehman said he was surprised to learn the city removed agriculture from its list of allowable land uses.

Asked if he endorses restoring it, the mayor said he didn’t want to weigh in until reviewing a draft of the change. Lehman added he intends to take a hard look at how agriculture could impact traffic and surrounding properties before making his decision.

“We have to see where exactly it’s located and what the road situation is around it,” he said.

Rauna, meanwhile, has rebuilt her garden in ways the city allows. In a patch of grass where her hives once sat, recently planted fruit trees have begun to sprout apricots, cherries and plums.

“You can grow a lot of food in a small amount of space,” she said.

Her silver “honey truck,” however, sits idle in the driveway beside her house, poised for its owner to one day load the flatbed with boxes of bees.