Teachers Plan Educational Community Garden on Crown Heights Lot Targeted for Development
Two Crown Heights teachers who want to create an educational community garden at 1662 Bergen Street received unanimous approval from Community Board 8 last night, despite the fact that the city-owned lot has been targeted for development. The concrete-covered, 1,800-square-foot lot is on the list of vacant sites that HPD wants to redevelop for affordable housing. It also sits…
Two Crown Heights teachers who want to create an educational community garden at 1662 Bergen Street received unanimous approval from Community Board 8 last night, despite the fact that the city-owned lot has been targeted for development. The concrete-covered, 1,800-square-foot lot is on the list of vacant sites that HPD wants to redevelop for affordable housing. It also sits across the street from Granville T Woods School on Rochester Avenue and Bergen, where Zsabatta Taylor and Liesel Zitman teach third and fourth grade.
The duo plan to use the space to teach kids from pre-K through fifth grade about agriculture and the environment, and to involve parents and the nearby community in the garden. Nonprofit 596 Acres will help install raised garden beds, the teachers told CB8.
After the meeting, a community board member who runs Mama Dee’s Garden nearby advised Taylor to get in touch with the Brooklyn Queens Land Trust. BQLT acquires community gardens throughout the five boroughs to protect them from development. GMAP
Image via Google Maps
We have one of those Parks Dept community gardens next to one of our buildings. The only way to get into it is to know the one guy up the street with the key. It doesn’t seem at all for the community.
Good for them! And I’ll come and lie down with them in the garden if they try to excavate. It’s a rip-off to trade communicate garden space for majority-luxury housing.
It’s not “majority-luxury” housing. It’s 100% affordable housing.
Right, so they’re not really much a benefit for the community so much as they are a benefit for the handful of gardeners that get to use them.