‘We are a residential community’: Barrington Hills board rejects farm’s request to stay open to public

The owners of the Little Ducky Flower Farm will have to work harder to get their ducks in a row.

Barrington Hills village trustees for the second time turned down Chris Yamamoto and wife Sarah Gul’s request for a new zoning category that would allow them to open the farm to the public as a special use.

In August, the board unanimously rejected a proposal to have zoning for agritourism in a residential district. Then on Monday, a category for agricultural experience.

The couple began operating the farm on their six-acre property on Dundee Road in 2022, letting people come in and pick flowers for a fee, until the village sent them a letter earlier this year ordering them to stop. Since then, they have operated as a delivery service.

Both the Zoning Board of Appeals and the village board took issue with having a commercial use on residential property. Yamamoto said the fees were charged to offset the cost of operating the farm, which also has sheep and ducks.

“We are a residential community,” Trustee Thomas Strauss said. “Our duty as trustees is to uphold the values of the community.”

Yamamoto said the next step is to take a look at the village code and make a better application.

“We’re going to be persistent about it,” he said. “We do have the ability to keep applying. It would really be nice to have people back on the farm.”