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December 15, 2009

Closing Bell: Community Gardens at Risk

baltic-community-garden-1209.jpg
Remember back in 2002 when then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued the city and won a reprieve for hundreds of community gardens threatened with extinction? Well, that agreement expires next year and City Limits is reporting that a bunch of the gardens—including 23 on HPD-controlled land and another 11 under DOT jurisdiction—are potentially vulnerable. But maybe it's crazy to worry: “The city is as committed now as it was in 2002 to preserving the gardens,” said Parks Department Assistant Commissioner Jack Linn. “Only a wacko would suggest getting rid of them.”
No Winter Hibernation for Garden Activists [City Limits]
Photo by greenbk




Posted by Brownstoner at 4:00 PM | Comments (16)
Categories: Closing Bell

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“Only a wacko would suggest getting rid of them.”


Plenty of those around. c.f. the Nora Jones side windows issue.

Posted by: daveinbedstuy at December 15, 2009 4:03 PM

I don't think we are any more short of wackos now than 10 years ago.

Posted by: Petebklyn at December 15, 2009 4:03 PM

We're horribly short of new housing. We've got a rent control emergency.

Build housing and people will be able to have affordable apartments. Growing 20 tomatoes a year isn't the highest and best purpose of the land.

Posted by: thwackamole1 at December 15, 2009 4:31 PM

the city could have sold these at the peak a few years ago. now they want to sell them at the bottom.

of course, they need to be sold so they can be returned to a productive use and generate some tax dollars.

Posted by: slick at December 15, 2009 4:40 PM

"We're horribly short of new housing"

Are you a stand up comedian?

Posted by: dittoburg at December 15, 2009 4:41 PM

There are still some "community gardens" that serve no community whatsoever and are hardly even gardens. There are others that are open to everyone and present a very lush and inviting space to that public. I remember whwen Bette Midler did her big publicity save of the gardens. A friend was working for Trust for Public Land. They had wanted to be smarter about which gardens should be saved because they realized that there was a need to balance what could be built on and open land. Instead what was presnted to the public was an all or nothing scenario.

Posted by: bessie2 at December 15, 2009 4:43 PM

Most of the community gardens are not in areas where the demand for new housing is all that intense. They are valuable and play an important role: the gardens and the community groups that formed around them have been important, if under the radar, factors in stabilizing neighborhoods. They are also often in araes underserved by parks. There are plenty of buildings and private empty lots in these areas that can be rehabbed or developed and the existence of gardens and community groups help make the surrounding properties more attractive for this kind of development. Development sites aer not scarce. Preserving the gardens will continue to help revitalize these neighborhoods. Getting rid of active gardens will be disruptive to the fabric of the communities where they are located. To think of the use as unproductive suggests a lack of vision and understanding of what is going on in these communities on the ground.

Posted by: slopefarm at December 15, 2009 4:47 PM

a lot of community gardens take up much needed land that could be used for housing and social services, especially in manhattan.

i see now purpose in a big plot of land for someone's rinky dink onion patch. sorry!

*rob*

Posted by: Butterfly at December 15, 2009 4:51 PM

Slopefarm is absolutely correct. In my neighborhood, many of the community gardens bring together people who would never otherwise, like West Indian gardening ladies, young white transplants to the neighborhood, and young black men, all working to keep the garden beautiful. Yeah, they could build housing on the site, but getting all of these people working together, getting to know each other, and learning to understand each other is more important to the overall health of the neighborhood than a building. There aren't that many gardens, and they don't take up that much land. We as a society are in bigger trouble than not having enough housing if we have to build up every inch of land in a city, or if we forget the human necessity of cooperation, working together and neighborhood in the equation.

Posted by: Montrose Morris at December 15, 2009 5:36 PM

I vote for selling the community garden across the street from Fort Greene park on Dekalb.

Posted by: Putnamdenizen at December 15, 2009 8:01 PM

Why stop there? Fort Greene park would make a perfect condo development site.

Posted by: DitmasSnark at December 15, 2009 8:52 PM

I think it is better o sell them and make productive use out of it. rather than making some useless stuffs.

Posted by: rebeccamartin at December 16, 2009 7:30 AM

I'm with Montrose, as usual. Community Gardens serve a purpose that's far beyond the mere growing of vegetables. And the notion of all-or-nothing regarding housing is absurd. There are plenty of truly derelict and vacant lots, and plenty of stalled building projects, to serve development needs. The gardens should be permanently protected as part of the parks department (as many in the LES have been.) Back in 1999, when Giuliani tried to sell off city-owned gardens, there was a huge public outcry and a campaign of civil disobedience. Hundreds of people were arrested. I wonder if New Yorkers will still stand up like that if they try to take the gardens away again.

Posted by: Frederick Law Homestead at December 16, 2009 8:54 AM

Gee. I'm ALL for community gardens! The more the better!

Most gardens are vital parts of their communities. GreenThumb under the Park Dept. does an incredible job supporting NYC's hundreds of community gardens! !

Luckily, most gardens are "safe" (under Parks, Trust for Public Land, Brooklyn-Queens Land Trust, etc.). The HPD and DOT gardens may be able to work out arrangements where the Parks Dept will take them over. Let's hope!

There is so much empty housing in NYC right now, I doubt many developers would be interested in buying the rather small HPD lots and manage to get loans to build small buildings Let's get people into the existing housing and then worry!

Posted by: BrooklynGreene at December 16, 2009 8:56 AM

@thwackamole1: Phasing out rent regulations would help bring down rents citywide. Demolishing gardens is no solution. We have a community garden in Clinton Hill that's part of the Bette Midler Land Trust. It represents the labor of two generations: the first that reclaimed a City-owned lot that was a bona fide public safety hazard, being used as an illegal dump and shooting gallery. After years of letters and protests and threats of litigation, the City was persuaded to bring in heavy equipment to haul away a huge pile of burned-out cars and dumped appliances, and sift earth to screen out used needles and condoms. The garden workers then protected the lot by getting it into the Bette Midler Trust. Now kids can plant vegetables there, learn to cook what they raise, and spend time with their parents and neighbors. Seniors without access to back yards participate as well, growing their own kitchen gardens. And the garden as a whole benefits the carbon footprint of the community.

All this costs the City nothing, yet provides social, educational, and nutritional benefits to neighborhood residents. Efforts like this can't accurately be described as "raising 20 tomatoes a year." Moreover, when the lot was City-owned, it was an abandoned wasteland; it took the community to turn it into something productive. I'm grateful that we don't have to worry about losing it now. Long live the Bette Midler Trust.

Posted by: Despina at December 16, 2009 10:05 AM

One benefit of community gardens that might appeal to some of you regular posters was quantified in a 2008 study by NYU economists that found gardens have an extremely positive impact on the values of surrounding real estate. The study assessed the net tax benefit to NYC from the 600+ gardens studied at $647M over 20 years, or $1M per garden.
Here is the link to the American Community Gardening Association site that summarizes some pertinent studies: http://www.communitygarden.org/learn/resources/research.php

Posted by: South Sloper at December 16, 2009 10:01 PM

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