All posts by sararadhakrishnan

Community Gardens Project Update # 5

The Future of Community Gardens

by Saranya Radhakrishnan

Group: Kelly Garland, Oneeka Khan, Amandeep Kaur, Lisa Wong, Amanda Bernstein, and Laura Benasaraf

 

After presenting our proposal and understanding how to strengthen our argument, we decided to conduct more research as to how the gardens are an amenity and as to various strategies that the city can legally recognize community gardens.

Benefits and purpose of community gardens:

Community gardens may have once been vacant lots, but the amount of effort and care that is put into them transforms them into spaces that are far from empty. There are several components to a community garden that contribute to its definition and its purpose in the community. At a community level, these gardens aid in the development of the neighborhood and its members. It gives the whole community a sense of ownership, leadership, and provides members with a place where other community issues and social concerns can be addressed. Many police departments also recognize these spaces as an effective crime prevention method since they increase awareness of occurrences on the streets.

Community gardens also can develop a sense of culture, which can particularly be helpful for new immigrants who want to learn more about their community. This also provides immigrants the opportunity to grow traditional crops and meet others who speak the same language. This development of culture can aid in the education of youth. The participation of the younger generation in this societal affair can provide a foundation that lead to groupings of individuals with combined interests. This will allow for the growth of essential skills in terms of jobs and an investment in their future.

Another huge benefit of the gardens is low cost food production. Keeping in mind that these gardens are situated in low income neighborhoods, the opportunity to locally grow produce alleviates the burden of food expenses for several households. Moreover, families have access to fresh and organic food, which contributes to an overall healthier lifestyle.

Not only do these gardens contribute socially, but also environmentally. These spaces aid in filtering rainwater, which helps to keep lakes, rivers, and groundwater clean. Their plants are essentially reduce carbon dioxide and increase oxygen in the air. The gardens are also a way to recycle organic wastes such as tree trimmings and leaves back into the soil. All of these contributions allow the neighborhood to be conscious of the environment and how it affects us.

http://www.gardendallas.org/benefits.htm

 

Position of Community Gardens

– Of the community gardens owned by the city, none are permanent nor do they receive budgets to address infrastructure needs.  That is the reason people want community gardens to be mapped out and designated as parkland. If they were considered as parks, then it would take the state legislature to decide that the garden should be used for a different purpose.  According to the Community Garden Toolkit, a landowner can make a contract with a legally recognized entity such as a nonprofit organization. The nonprofit organization would then be responsible for supervising the operation of the garden. Individual gardeners sign their own agreement with the organization to follow the rules and waive any right to sue the organization. Community gardens need to get a permit under local zoning codes in order before claiming a vacant lot; the land should be surveyed in order to insure that it is suitable for a garden to thrive. Though this claim is not necessary, it is highly recommended.  There are regulations set forth by the EPA to declare an area safe, however there are no specific rules for a community garden.  According to this toolkit, the land owner has the final say in how long the garden will last for, not the gardeners.

– Some community gardens classify themselves as urban gardens. They produce food for their neighborhood, which helps low income families save some money. About 80% of the community gardens in New York grow their own food (fiveboroughfarm.org).

– One model for a nonprofit urban farm is through garden allotment organizations. These are small plots of land that individuals or groups can rent or use rent-free in order to grow vegetables for their own consumption. These are common in England, Japan, and Seattle, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is trying to turn large areas of urban land into allotment gardens in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since urban farming and allotment gardens may be better protected than community gardens, our goal is to get community gardens classified as urban farms or allotment gardens in order o protect them from development.

http://www.urbanaglaw.org/planning-and-zoning/

– NYC zoning codes are relatively permissive about urban agriculture. Gardens can grow food in residential and commercial zones as long as there is no bad odor or dust created as a result.

– According to the DCP MaPLUTO 2009 database, there are 3,621 acres of public vacant land. However, in reality there is less vacant land available since community gardens are considered vacant land in the survey.  After considering factors such as environment and actual vacancy, there are only 1,663 acres of vacant public land left that could be used for urban farming or more community gardens.

– Community gardens are not always protected under the public trust doctrine. In order for them to be protected, the community garden must have been declared parkland by the government. If the community garden is on land protected by the Department of Parks and Recreation is more likely to be protected than a garden on any other public or private land.

http://www.ny4p.org/advocacy/alienation/alienation-hey-eng.pdf

– Due to the Public Trust Doctrine, state courts have repeatedly ruled that if a land has been dedicated as a park, or has been recognized as a public space it cannot be taken for non-park use without approval of the State Legislature. The Public Trust Doctrine has also been used by the state Court of Appeals, forcing the city to get approval from the New York State Legislature before tampering with the parkland.

http://www.gothamgazette.com/parks/oct.02.shtml

– Rezoning requires large amount of resources and effort and community groups need support so that local community members can fully participate in the process. Rezoning can displace current residents and can negatively impact neighborhood affordability. Building more affordable housing in the place of already affordable housing is not a good plan because more residents get displaced than can live in the new affordable buildings.

IOBY is a nonprofit organization that helps fund community gardens, parks, and urban farms. There are also various grants that can help fund community gardens with specific programs such as child-centered programs and food production.  Funding for community gardens mostly comes from loans and grants. These grants can come from the government, or nonprofit organizations. Other modes of funding are through private grants from foundations, businesses, and community fundraising.

https://communitygarden.org/resources/funding-opportunities/

http://www.letsmove.gov/sites/letsmove.gov/files/pdfs/Let%27s%20Move%20Community%20Garden%20Guide.pdf

Case Study of the Gardens: Melrose Commons

After looking into benefits of the gardens, we looked into a model community, Melrose Commons, which implemented the gardens into an affordable housing development. Located in the South Bronx, the Commons consists of 30 three-family homes. The area was built with a mission of becoming a “green” neighborhood. With this focus, the Commons has become more energy efficient and promoted methods of sustainability. This outcome is a result of the participation and tremendous support of the community members. The neighborhood had thus created its own identity along with the development of 26 garden plots.

These gardens are protected under land trusts that were formed after a lawsuit in 1999. The court claimed that the city was “violating state environmental laws concerning the sale of open green space.” Even after the declaration of the lawsuit, the community understood that the gardens were still under jeopardy under the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Nos Quedamos and the South Bronx United Gardeners worked together along with the support of green coalitions such as Green Guerillas, GreenThumb, NY Restoration Project, Trust for Public Land and More Gardens made it their mission to preserve and protect the gardens as well as look into the welfare of the housing development.  Through the alliance of these groups and the support of the community members, the gardens have been protected and continue to be preserved.

Cultivating Community, Food, and Empowerment: Urban Gardens in New York City

By Margarita Fernandez

Building Communities: The Importance of Affordable Green Housing

By Erica R. Levin

Future Plan:

After interviewing Ray Figueroa, we work to incorporate his suggestions into our planned proposal for the future of community garden. We also hope to interview a local from Melrose Commons to understand the inner workings of the gardens and the strategies used that lead to the success of their preservation.

We will also create the website that will be used as the means to bring awareness to the importance of community gardens as well as present a solution to the public.

Communities as an Entity

Community, Part 1: Development and Control

James DeFilippis is a professor at Rutgers University. His concentration of planning and public policy deals with community land trusts and alternative forms of housing tenure. Susan Saegert has taught as a professor in the subjects of Environmental Psychology as well as Human and Organizational Development. It is interesting to note that the authors discuss the idea of a community not being envisioned in an urban setting. In theory, cities are meant to be controlled by economic and bureaucratic governance with no other interactions that would interfere with the workings of an urban environment. And yet, communities have made their presence known, a reaction to fight for their human rights. While capitalist and bureaucratic interests look at the bigger picture to develop the city, the individuals experience what affects them on a day-to-day basis. A community development hopes to improve their quality of life and make their issues known to the government. The authors make it a point to emphasize that the quality of life is directly correlated to the success of the city, both economically and socially. Thus it is a good strategy to address a community problem, although, this is not generally realized.

The translation of these issues from community to government is what Alice O’Connor addresses in her chapter. Alice O’Connor is a professor at Johns Hopkins University with publications that deal with the privatization of cities and urban inequality. There is no way to create an organized and efficient plan for community development because of the red tape and legal regulations that counteract any action. The city regulations themselves have produced the problems of segregation, displacement, and suburbanization. The only way to solve this is to create effective laws that assess and directly impact communities in a small scale method.

Band-aid Solution

A Time of Crisis

Both articles shed light on the misperception of the government to identify the true problems of the city while attempting to solve the issues by placing a bandaid on a large wound. Angotti points out that the community has always wanted to become more involved in the processes of the city’s development as proven by the various grassroots revolts by students, religious institutions, and labor unions. However, public officials have never placed a consistent importance on the communication of the neighborhood and those living in it. This problem is reflected on the inequality of the school system as well as the impact of the fiscal crisis on communities. The plight of industry and commerce in the 1970’s illustrated the lack of police and fire department response and deterioration of various neighborhoods. During this time, government officials were at a loss of how to deal with the in-rem housing, pushing the squatters to buy the buildings when the real estate industry had no incentive to buy the unvalued properties. The city auctioned off vacant lots as well with no implemented policies dealing with the long-term effects of New York City.

 

Deborah and Rodrick Wallace bring a focus on the inability of the city government to mold its policies to the issues of the current time and its problems. They discuss the lack of alternative policy options and lack of small preventative care actions that could have avoided the spiraling of urban decay such as fire department redlining city neighborhoods. It seems that history will continue to repeat itself until the city government chooses to produce a long-term goal for the city.

Purpose of Urban Renewal

Roots of Community Planning

In the chapter “From Dislocation to Resistance”, the author illustrates how urban renewal gradually received a certain stigma. While the purpose of urban renewal is to improve underdeveloped areas in the city in order to produce a better environment and encourage economic growth, the urban renewal projects of the past produced different results. Most often, people in these underdeveloped areas were displaced with no compensation and no where else to go. Mostly African Americans got the short end of the stick in the process and urban renewal eventually became known as “Negro removal.” Displaced blacks led to the convergence of a lower class community creating the city of Harlem. The tipping point theory proved that the cities were subjected to this vicious circle, where urban renewal fueled segregated, colored communities and these underdeveloped communities fueled urban renewal. The purpose of urban renewal was never successfully achieved.

However, what seemed to work best for New York City was when “immigrant groups set up mutual aid societies that provided services to [their] communities…” An example of this was when Finish immigrant workers built limited equity cooperative apartments. The Housing Act was successful because it allowed for the involvement of the residents. I believe that we should take a deeper look at union sponsored housing developments. There is a lesson to be learned from the crisis of Coop City and organizing a detailed agenda answering questions about privatization, equity gains, and marketing of the projects seems to hypothetically solve the issues of the crisis. For many years, urban renewal has been influenced by the real estate industry and other large corporations, and thus creating a divide between race and class. Eliminating this influence and allowing communities to take control of their own progress and development might allow for a more successful outcome.

Discussion question: How plausible is the idea of union-sponsored housing projects?

Discussion Post 2: Foundation Of Our Cities

What's Taking Shape?

Two-tier urbanism can be traced back two centuries ago.

As cities grew during the industrialization era, urban areas became more populated. However, with the use of steam powered trains and electric trolley, cities became more accessible from farther locations. Thus the suburbs were created for the middle class who could afford a more suitable living space. The lower class, on the other hand were stuck in the dangerously crowded cities. The influx of foreign immigrants brought about another divide within the cities between race and culture. Although New York became the most diverse city in the nation, it had divisions between neighborhoods with residents who were of the same class, culture, and race clustering together.

 

However, it seems that the federal government is the cause behind this two-tier system. The property owners wished to make their building space more profitable and so they created smaller and smaller living spaces for their tenants, creating a more congested city. Inadequate regulation of housing laws resulted in hazardous and unhealthy tenements. On the other hand, the Federal Housing Authority made low interest construction loans for veterans and other individuals who seemed capable of repaying their debt. The middle class was encouraged to move outside the cities and create safe and clean suburban neighborhoods. Consequently, this migration of the middle class meant the loss of the cities’ tax base so the government was incapable of providing much service to the large population of the working class.

 

Discussion Question: How do we appropriately destroy the division of the two-tier urbanism that became the foundation of New York?

Discussion 1

What's Taking Shape?

 

Discussion Question: How do we make an economic transition from the trickle-down system implemented in our nation’s policies?

It is understood that a lot of the progress made in New York City has been short term fixes if any to the growing wealth gap of the citizens. I grew up in Jamaica Estates, Queens. It is a gated community with upper middle-class residents, along with its own funded security patrol. Donald Trump grew up in his childhood home in the very same neighborhood. However, when you walk out of the neighborhood you end up in Jamaica, Queens also known as one of the most dangerous areas in the borough. This is no surprise to a typical New Yorker. We have come to define the city with the characteristic of this “two-tier urbanism.” The real question is how do we make a change to a situation that has become commonplace?

It seems de Blasio’s main strategy is by intervening in unionization laws as well as reexamining the city’s 70 billion dollar budget and allocating funds to social services for the underprivileged. He also plans on raising taxes on the upper class to generate over 500 million dollars in revenue. With proper management of the money, there can be strides in resolving the issue as long as the residents bring the attention back where it is needed.