Prosper Plant Influencers Forced to Close Up Shop Over Zoning Confusion

Tanner and Erika Mitchell are experts when it comes to plants — zoning, not so much. 

Which is why they were shocked last week when they were summoned to a meeting with Prosper city development officials and were told that they needed to immediately cease operations at their property, a quaint little white-trimmed home with a wraparound porch that sits on the edge of downtown Prosper, or else face a $2,000 a day fine. 

In an effort to come into compliance, they’ve been forced to shutter their popular plant store, Famous in Oregon, that sits on the town’s main road. The closure hasn’t been met quietly by the residents of Prosper. 

For eight months, a Victorian-style house had served as the hub of the Mitchell’s gardening brand, which includes the Instagram account @tannertheplanter, that has over 600,000 followers. They also operate an app that allows anyone from anywhere in the country to purchase their plants, have published a book on houseplant care and run the retail storefront in downtown.

When they moved into the house last summer, they retrofitted the property with grow lights and lined the porch with flora. They employ 18 staffers to operate the online plant store; shipping the tropical inventory alone requires as much expertise in meteorology as in herbology to ensure the sensitive greenery arrives cross-country in mint condition. They’d befriended their neighbors, which includes some residential homes and a smattering of other small offices. 

And it never occurred to them that what they were doing was wrong. 

“[The city officials said] ‘What is it you think you’re doing at 303 South Parvin?’ As soon as we walked in the door, we weren’t even sitting down yet. And I said, ‘Just shipping,’” Tanner told the Observer. “And he said, ‘That is exactly what you can’t do.’ Erika and I were just completely stunned, like speechless.”

In the meeting, the Mitchells learned that their house’s zoning calls for the property to be used for an art gallery or museum, meaning their shipping operations were not permitted under the land use classification. They were also notified that they’d failed to obtain a certificate of occupancy, a document that local governments require to ensure code compliance, for the building. 

For the latter claim, the business owners say they didn’t know any better. They opened Famous in Oregon during the pandemic, when City Hall, like the rest of the world, wasn’t operating normally. The Mitchells met the permitting requirements when officials came to the store to help them with the process. Naively, they’d assumed that was how those sorts of operations were done. 

But the zoning debate was new information to them. The art gallery or museum classification is a subsection of the downtown office land use; until last week, Tanner and Erika were confident that a downtown office was exactly what they were running. 

Additionally, the Mitchells say city leaders assured them at a meeting last year that their shipping operations at the house were permitted, though the meeting wasn’t recorded. In a recording of last week’s meeting provided to the Observer, city officials can be heard stating they have no memory of such an agreement. The city of Prosper did not respond to a list of questions submitted by the Observer. 

“The energy [in the meeting] was very much like we were criminals. Like we were trying to do something wrong, that we did this on purpose,” said Erika. 

Small Business Friendly?

In the recording, planning officials tell the Mitchells that they could attempt to rezone the Victorian-style house — which they still have a four-year lease on — to allow for shipping, but that the planning and zoning committee would likely recommend the request be denied. Rezoning would also likely take months, allowing fines to accumulate. 

“[Rezoning] would have to go to council and they’d have to give you approval,” one planner says. “I think the main issue is that it’s incompatible with the surrounding area.”

The officials added that complaints were filed against the half-dozen trash cans that the shipping business required. After some pushback, the city acknowledged that there is no limit on the number of trash cans a business can have, though they suggested that Erika and Tanner keep fewer bins at the property and transport any leftover garbage to their storefront on Broadway Street by car. 

In the days after that meeting, Erika and Tanner attempted to mediate the situation with Prosper officials. Ultimately, though, they felt that the conversations were “delaying the inevitable,” and that the solutions offered weren’t fixes tailored to a small team with a tight budget.

Staring down the barrel of thousands of dollars in fines, it became clear to them that Famous in Oregon, the plant shop they’d started six years prior, was on the chopping block. While the store is what rooted the Mitchells in the downtown Prosper community, it accounts for only about 10% of their overall business. 

“We were pouring into the community. This was our contribution,” Erika said. “Our online sales, that’s definitely what keeps the business alive. But it felt like the store and the people that inhabit the store … that was the heartbeat.”

On Saturday, two days after they met with the city, they sold out the entire store by mid-afternoon. They were shocked to see firsthand the impact the place had on the community. People stood in line for an hour to buy a small succulent. Strangers stopped in to admire the cozy space one last time, and to say goodbye to the store cat. Their social media channels have also been flooded with support and customer photos from trips to the shop.

On Sunday, they moved everything from the house on the edge of downtown over to the downtown storefront, which will now serve as their new shipping facility while the house property sits empty. The experience was especially “traumatic” for their staff, Erika said, who suddenly found themselves in an “unstable” environment.

The closure has prompted outcry, both among the Tanner the planter community and the Prosper business community. The Mitchells say they’ve heard the city has been inundated with pleas to allow businesses to remain open, and on Facebook, some small businesses have posted sample emails to send to the Mayor and other city leaders. One such example, published by the business Fur Services Fur Pets, has been shared 75 times. 

“I can’t imagine how other small businesses are feeling, if they could take us down in a day,” said Tanner. 

He added that, in conversations with city leaders, it was emphasized again and again that Prosper is a small-business-friendly town. Tanner and Erika would argue otherwise.

“It feels like such a cheap ending for such a classy place. She [the store] deserved so much better than that,” Erika said. “We know we will never be investing in Prosper again.”