WHERE WE STAND
The community gardens of New York City are a true representation of our city, and are as beautifully diverse as its people. They produce food. They enlighten and entertain. They reconnect us with each other and the Earth. And they are feeling threatened and ready to find solutions. Again.

Currently twenty-seven community gardens still remain classified as “Subject to Development” by the Agreement, meaning that they are presently under the jurisdiction of the Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD), and could potentially be developed for housing or commercial purposes. Could that happen to other gardens when the settlement ends?

Today we unite with our allies to plant the seeds for legislation and policies that will make ALL our community gardens permanent, and lead the way for the creation of many more.

City agencies including GreenThumb and HPD have worked with us to keep our valued community gardens safe under the 2002 agreement. We are grateful for their ongoing participation and investment in the preservation of community gardens and in supporting the creation of new urban farms.

As the agreement expires, NYCCGC and community gardeners city-wide are united behind the precept that if one garden is threatened, all gardens are threatened. Today we unite those agencies that have helped us for so many years to plant the seeds of policy and legistlation that will make all community gardens permanent - and create many more.

HOW WE GOT HERE
Our community gardens are one of – if not the only – positive outcomes of New York City’s decline in the mid 1960’s to its complete financial collapse in the mid-1970s (the city declared bankruptcy and was denied a federalbailout in 1975). The city administration was a mess: firehouses were closed, sanitation and other services were curtailed – most notably in poorer communities. Arson became a popular way for unscrupulous landlords to cash in on insurance policies instead of renovating their properties. People were fleeing the city in droves as abandoned lots grew in number, turning into dumping grounds and dangerous hotspots for all kinds of illegal activity.

A people’s grassroots movement to reclaim these neglected neighborhoods slowly took shape as citizens joined together to transform trash-strewn lots into urban oases. Many of these gardens were (and are) tended by African-American or Latino families and groups growing fresh food and creating safe gathering places for their communities. These neighborhood heroes who built the gardens with their own blood, sweat, and tears, are now our “garden elders,” and we extend to them our deepest gratitude and respect.

The movement grew, and in 1978 a city program, “Operation GreenThumb,” was launched. It took back legal control over all community gardens by issuing short-term leases to the gardeners and encouraging creation of new gardens on city-owned lots. Our present GreenThumb serves the largest body of community gardens in the country with materials, programming and other support.

Trouble for the gardens began brewing in 1998, when Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani placed all community gardens, over 700 in number, up for disposition to private interests. Over one hundred community gardens were put up for auction in May 1999. The city’s gardeners couldn’t help but feel singled out, as it was brought to light that the city owned some 11,000 empty lots from which to choose for development.

A groundswell of greening and gardening groups - including a nascent NYCCGC - coalesced into a force to be reckoned with, demonstrating at City Hall, creating colorful parades, and capturing headlines with passionate protests and acts of nonviolent civil disobedience. United with nonprofits and land trusts, they were adamant in their demands, their voice strong. At one point there were multiple simultaneous lawsuits against the city, with over two dozen organizations representing the gardeners.

On the eve of a scheduled auction, two groups, The Trust for Public Land and New York Restoration Project, negotiated purchase of 59 and 55 gardens, respectively. While we celebrate the preservation of these gardens we are mindful that they are now under private rather than public community control.

Throughout 1999, an encampment of protesters at el Jardin de la Esperanza in the East Village became a symbol of resistance for the endangered community gardens. On February 15, 2000, a federal judge, responding to then Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s lawsuit charging that the City had skirted environmental impact review laws, ordered a “cease and desist” order to halt andevelopment on or sale of garden land. The mayor’s lawyers delayed entering into the judges chambers until police had arrested 31 garden defenders and bulldozers had razed the garden to make way for a new condominium project. The judge’s restraining order lasted for over two years.

This dramatic era climaxed in September 2002 with a mixed victory for our city, as Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced the signing of a “Memorandum of Agreement” we know as the Community Gardens Agreement (available on our website), which called for the preservation of 198 gardens, while 110 gardens were classified as “subject to development following the garden review process.” Thirty-eight gardens were scheduled for development for housing or other projects -- and we have lost nearly that number of gardens since 2002.

In the almost eight years that have passed since the signing of the Community Gardens Agreement, the city’s gardening scene has exploded yet again, with the gardens of New York being looked at in a new light by a new generation of gardeners interested not only in improving their local communities, but in addressing the larger issues of making our city and world a greener, more livable, and more sustainable one for all. Across the country, New York is looked to as a mecca of urban agriculture, and we vow to live up to the expectations that accompany this admiration and respect by ensuring that our gardens continue to grow and thrive for generations to come.

These are some approaches to making our gardens permanent currently under consideration by the NYCCGC. We look to you, Forum panelists and participants, for your ideas and cooperation in making permanently protected gardens a reality. This is new territory we are charting – we could be the first major city that has a well-developed program for operating hundreds of permanent, community-run gardens on city land!

Short-Term Solutions
Extending Garden Registrations. The Parks Department has offered the possibility of extending all 2-year city-owned GreenThumb garden leases to four years, meaning gardens wouldn’t need to register again until 2013. We want to know more about how gardens can be fully protected throughout that lease period.
Extending the Garden Settlement for Three Years. This will allow us time to draft and implement the best possible policy or legislation to protect gardens in the future. We hope that gardeners can be part of the discussion for drafting these new policies. The Agreement is a good foundation for developing State and City policies and legislation that promote and protect gardens. Amendments could be suggested from gardeners through NYCCGC or other methods.

Creating New City Policy/Legislation Matching Settlement Protections Gardeners need to be assured that any new city policy replacing the settlement has staying power, allows community gardeners autonomy, and legal standing. Any inactive garden, or a garden that has its lease revoked, should be entitled to a transparent review process and be offered to area community members, groups, and land trusts for a full year before being considered for other community uses. NYCCGC and other independent groups could help with this process.

Long-Term Answers
Mapping Gardens as Parkland: City Council Resolution 1890 (introduced by City Council Member Helen Foster), State Assembly Bill 6800, and Senate Bill 104, all introduced in 2009, would resolve that the Department of City Planning “map” community gardens in New York City as parkland.
The reasoning is that to remove land from Parks’ jurisdiction requires an extensive State process, making it difficult for the city to sell or give away gardens to developers. Mapped community gardens would need to be clearly defined as community gardens so as to distinguish them from traditional Parks properties (especially in terms of oversight). Of these three proposals, Resolution 1890 has the best chance of succeeding. While City Council resolutions are non-binding, they can bring needed attention to the issue. Resolution 1890 would need to be followed up by revisions to city policy, or a bill calling for legally mapping the gardens.

Rezoning/Creating a New Zoning Category: Community gardens could be protected and supported by an act of the legislature to create a new “community garden” or “urban garden” category as part of the NYC Zoning Code to ensure that community gardens and urban farms are preserved and encouraged to meet the needs for local food production, community health, community education, garden-related job training, environmental enhancement, preservation of green space, and community enjoyment.

This category would be associated with designated main and accessory uses, regulations, definitions, and a clear process by which a site zoned as a community garden can be changed – at minimum changes should require the City’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP).

Creating New Community Gardens and Urban Farms: One important aspect of long-term solutions is the incorporation of legislative policies that would provide for the creation of new gardens and urban farms.
New community gardens and urban farms could be supported by developing private owner incentives for new gardens and farms, and creating public open space policies at city, state and federal levels for community-managed gardens. Also to be considered are requirements to create new gardens for development on available city lands.