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Hi all,
Our community garden is on a residential piece of property
and the city did not rezone it to allow the garden. It is on
city-owned property and they gave us a license to garden in it and consider it a
park. That way it is governed as a park and falls under their park
insurance liability policies -- in other words we do not pay for insurance the
city does. We follow park rules (only open dawn to dusk, no parties
without a permit, no alcohol ever, etc.) It also gives the police the
right to go into the garden if they see people violating these
rules.
We also have community gardens on private property and the
city does not seem to care about that at all.
Maria
Suydam Street Community Garden
New Brunswick, N.J.
===================================================== Maria Pellerano,
Associate Director Environmental Research Foundation Rachel's Environment
& Health News P.O. Box 160, New Brunswick, NJ 08903-0160 Phone:
(732) 828-9995; Fax: (732) 791-4603 E-mail: m*@rachel.org; Web site: http://www.rachel.org/=====================================================
----- Original Message -----
From:
A*@aol.com
To: m*@comcast.net ; community_garden@mallorn.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2004 9:53
PM
Subject: Re: [cg] zoning/permits for
community gardens
Dear Mr. Stanley,
Zoning is a political way
to balance the various forms of land use in an area. Because it is
legal, it is based of precedent and the wheels go very slowly, because a
mistake made in zoning can make alot of people unhappy for a long time.
And when you sit on a zoning committee, you really don't want to make people
unhappy for a long time.
The whole Israel /Palestine conflict
has been described as an exacerbated real estate/land use problem. So
understand why your guys don't want to think out of the box.
Please go
to the ACGA website, and read all about community gardens. American Community Gardening
Association . There will be enough examples of how these are run to
show your zoning board. Explain that it will be a kind of public space
as well as a way for neighbhorhood volunteers to get together to raise food
for the hungry in your area. Talk to your local food pantries, soup
kitchen folks, as well as senior citizen organizations that want access to
fresh veggies and maybe even flowers during the season.
Remember -
zoning is political. Everybody in your church is represented by several
local elected representatives. With letters, envelopes and stamps, you can let
them know how important having this community garden is - and plan to make
about three mailings over the course of a month. Tell them that it will 1)
beautify the neighborhood, 2) feed the hungry, 3) appreciate their help, and
would appreciate being copied on the letter they will be writing to the zoning
board/permitting agency to show to other church members/registered voters. 4)
Let you know the name of their "scheduler, " so you can invite them to the
grand opening of the garden, and to arrange for photo opportunities.
It is a lot of work to get folks to think outside of the box. However,
when you talk nice, and twist arms ( in a nice kind of way, of course)
legislators and officials generally get to understand what is in their best
interest.
Everbest,
Adam Honigman
Volunteer,
Clinton Community
Garden
Subj: [cg] zoning/permits for community gardens
Date:
7/20/04 5:07:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: m*@comcast.net
To: community_garden@mallorn.com
Sent
from the Internet
I live in a small town in the
foothills of Northern California. Our church wants to create a
community garden on property that is zoned residential. Does anyone
have any information on zoning practices for community gardens? Our
planning department says it has to be on property zoned agricultural. (There
is a great deal of agricultural land in the county.)
Thank you,
Robin Stanley
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