15 Community Gardens Could Be Destroyed In De Blasio's Affordable Housing Plan

In October residents volunteered to clean up Morningside Height's Electric Ladybug Garden  located at 239-37 West 111 St. in Morningside Heights. They started clearing it out two years ago after being vacant for three decades. Nine of the gardens slated for development under De Blasio's affordable housing plan are in Brooklyn and six are in Manhattan.  (Photo: electricladybuggarden.org via DNAinfo)

Manhattan/Brooklyn

At least 15 community gardens on city-owned property could be bulldozed to make way for new buildings under the de Blasio administration's affordable housing plan, community advocates said, according to DNA info.

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development published a list this week of city-owned sites that housing developers can apply to build on, shocking those who tend to and enjoy the green spaces.

Developers were asked to submit proposals for nearly 180 sites — which could include rentals for families earning nearly $140,000 a year and paying $3,000 in rent — by Feb. 19.

Locked garden - January 15, 2014. Residents were looking forward to planting this spring. The garden is now on a list of city-owned sites that could be developed under the city's affordable housing plan.  (Photo: Sybile Penhirin/DNAInfo)

John McBride, one of the residents who helped Morningside Heights' Electric Ladybug Garden get off the ground, was surprised Thursday when he found the city had already padlocked his block's space.

"We were just getting ready to start planting for the spring and now it's padlocked," said McBride, 46, who was part of a two-year labor-intensive effort to clear rubble from the vacant lot on his West 111th Street block and replace it with clean topsoil from the Parks Department's Green Thumb this summer. 

McBride said he understood the de Blasio administration's "huge commitment to housing," but he didn't understand why the city was targeting lots with flourishing gardens when it owned other parcels of land that were sitting truly fallow.

Of more than 1,000 HPD-owned vacant lots, approximately 74 have community gardens, according to research from 596 Acres, the nonprofit that helped provide technical support to transform Electric Ladybug.

Nine of the gardens slated for development are in Brooklyn and six are in Manhattan. They range from spots like East Harlem's Jackie Robinson Community Garden, which has been around for more than 20 years, to Williamsburg's La Casista Verde, which opened in September.

"We're not in denial about the terms of the use [since the garden sits on HPD land]," McBride said.

"What we're reacting to is a sense of misplaced priority.  It would be so easy to avoid affecting these gardens when you look at HPD's inventory.

"This garden has allowed people to create a sense of community where it didn't exist before between the old timers and the newcomers. I think people are surprised at how quickly the garden has flourished. It's really given the block a positive tone."

Read More:

De Blasio's Affordable Housing Plan Could Destroy 15 Community Gardens

DNAinfo  - January 16, 2015 - By Amy Zimmer and Camille Bautista  

Coney Island Community Garden Bulldozed For Marty Markowitz's Amphitheater

Under cover of darkness a beloved community garden in Coney Island was bulldozed beginning at 5am Saturday morning to make way for  Marty Markowitz's $ 53 million dollar amphitheater.   The developer – iStar  –  destroyed 16 years of a community gardening effort.

The Parks Department transferred its jurisdiction of the community garden to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) in late August 2013.  

A press conference is being held tomorrow at 11:00 at the site.

Former Garden. 

Brooklyn

A developer bulldozed a beloved community garden in Coney Island on Saturday to make way for an amphitheater — uprooting 20 chickens on a decades-old plot that survived Hurricane Sandy.

Construction workers entered the Boardwalk Garden under the cover of darkness and chucked tools and wheelbarrows, along with farm fowl and a colony of feral cats, activists say.

The chickens were placed in pet carriers on the sidewalk and the felines were left fending for themselves.

“They destroyed life!” fumed tearful volunteer Elena Voitsenko, 60, a Russian immigrant who told The Post she’ll take in the birds until they find a new home.

“‎I came to America to escape from the communist regime,” she added. “This is more than the communist regime! They came at 4 in the morning.”

Workers razed the sprawling, 70,000-square-foot garden on West 22nd Street about a week after the City Council approved plans to convert the empty Childs Restaurant and its adjacent land into a 5,000-seat venue.

The $53 million project was trumpeted by outgoing Borough President Marty Markowitz, who tried previously to build a controversial amphitheater in Asser Levy Park in 2009.

Under the new plan, the city will buy the Childs building from iStar Financial and turn it into a restaurant and concert venue. The adjacent garden is slated to become a seating area.

The community board voted against the project in September, and locals have railed against turning the historic property into a noisy venue.

“The community does not want this amphitheater built on this land . . . but the city went ahead with this anyway,” said Yury Openzik, ‎34. “I’m heartbroken, not only for myself, but for the elderly people that were gardening here every day.”

Throughout Saturday, volunteers recovered their belongings after workers knocked down plots for tomatoes, cabbage, zucchinis and other vegetables.

Residents say they’ve run the garden since the 1980s.

The city Economic Development Corp., which is spearheading the project, referred questions to the borough president. Markowitz’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Bulldozed garden. 

Read More:

City bulldozes community garden in dead of night

New York Post -  By Aaron Feis and Kate Briquelet December 29, 2013

ACTION ALERT: BOARDWALK GARDEN IS BEING BULLDOZED

New York City Community Garden Coalition - December  28, 2013 -  By AZIZ DEHKAN

Residents Outraged By Bulldozing Of Brooklyn Community Garden
WCBS - December 28, 2013

Community Garden Supporters Seek Greater Protections

Community garden activists rally on the steps of City Hall today before a City Council Committee on Parks & Recreation oversight hearing seeking greater protections. This will be the first public hearing since the City adopted its controversial new community garden rules in September. As a concession, the administration announced today that community gardens registered and licensed by the Parks Department will be good for four years instead of two. (Video capture: NY1 news)

Testifying today about the new rules adopted by the city, Bloomberg operative Larry Scott Blackmon, now a Deputy Commissioner for the Parks Department said, "There were those who spread fears that these rules were written as a means to further development. That is not and has never been our intent."

City Wide

Earlier this year, the city took steps to preserve hundreds of community gardens. But some critics say those protections didn't go far enough. NY1's Bobby Cuza filed the following report.

Even activists say the Bloomberg administration has been a friend when it comes to protecting the city's 600 community gardens. But they worry what could happen under a different mayor, one like Rudy Giuliani, who once sought to auction off gardens to developers.

"Some of it is flashing back to a previous administration that wasn’t supportive. And worrying that if an administration in the future is also not supportive, that they’re gonna have to fight for the future of their gardens all over again," said Steven Frillmann of Green Guerillas.

In September, the city’s Parks Department issued new regulations that protect community gardens so long as they're in good standing. But critics, some of whom rallied at City Hall Monday, say they want more permanent protection. They say the process for finding a garden in default is vague and worry it could lead to gardens being taken over by developers.

"We want to make sure that the city, if that’s the intent, that if there’s a problem with garden members, that the garden members are removed, but the garden itself remains intact," said Karen Washington of the New York City Community Garden Coalition.

Read/View More:

Community Garden Advocates Seek Greater Protections

NY 1 News - November 29, 2010 - By Bobby Cuza

Parks Announces Extension Of Community Garden License Agreements

City of New York/Parks & Recreation - Press Release - November 29, 2010

No Permanent Protections For Community Gardens Under New NYC Rules

A Walk In The Park - September 16, 2010

Bloomberg Campaign Operative Hired as Deputy Parks Commissioner

A Walk In The Park - January 11, 2010

Community Garden Hearing - November 16th

On Tuesday, November 16, 2010, the City Council Committee on Parks & Recreation will hold an Oversight Hearing on Community Gardens at 1:00 p.m. in the 14th Floor Committee Room, 250 Broadway. (Across the street from City Hall)

This will be the first public hearing since the City adopted its controversial new community garden rules.

Interested parties are invited to attend the hearing and testify. If you plan to participate, officials suggest bringing twenty (20) copies double-sided of your written testimony. Copies are passed out to elected officials in attendance, a copy is also entered into the official record of the hearing. Non-written testimony is also encouraged.

Please also note that due to increased building security procedures, identification must be presented in the lobby & allot some extra time for entry through the building lobby. Allot extra time also for the large crowed expected and the small room available as a result of renovations to City Hall. - Geoffrey Croft

No Permanent Protections For Community Gardens Under New NYC Rules

"I’m not seeing preservation here; I’m not seeing permanence here. We need a full commitment from the city to protect these spaces.”  - Benjamin Shepard 

More Gardens, Less Asthma - August 16, 2000. E. 137th Street in the South Bronx, the asthma capital of America. (Photo: © Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates.  Click image to enlarge) Mural by Harry Bubbins.

Despite the Bloomberg administration's best efforts at presenting a positive resolution, community gardens will not receive permanent protection, and future administrations will be not required to abide by the new rules announced on Monday. The rules, which go into effect next month, will replace the 2002 agreement brokered by then New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.  That agreement offered firm pledges of protection to 198 gardens.  Critics also point out that the Bloomberg administration has not fully honored the so called Spitzer agreement which expires this Friday, September 17.  Community garden, open space, public health activists are pushing to preserve all gardens.

City Wide

To protect the city’s sparse greenery over the years, New Yorkers have climbed trees, wagged freshly picked beets and carrots in the faces of politicians and barricaded themselves inside gardens.

Hoping to avoid another such battle, the Bloomberg administration on Monday released new rules that it framed as a means of preserving the city’s 282 community gardens, according to the New York Times. 

But the response from garden advocates was mixed, and some said they wanted clearer guarantees that the garden lots would not be turned over to developers.

The rules, which go into effect next month, will replace a 2002 agreement with the state attorney general’s office that offered firm pledges of protection to 198 gardens. That agreement expires on Friday.

The new guidelines include a more explicit pledge that gardens would be preserved if the groups running them were in good standing. To qualify, organizers must keep the gardens well maintained, operate for 20 hours each week and open their gardens to the public.

They also require the city to attempt to help find a new group of gardeners if lots are neglected.

Gardeners had urged the Parks and Recreation Department, which has oversight of community gardens, to follow the spirit of the 2002 agreement and grant permanent protection to the lots. But the department said its powers were limited, and it argued that it was necessary to have some leverage in case a garden was not properly maintained.

Several advocates for community gardens, however, said the rules were too vague and left open the possibility that lots could be overtaken.

Bill Di Paola, executive director of Time’s Up!, an environmental organization, said the rules did not reflect the views of gardeners. “The city needs to recognize that the parks and gardens belong to the people,” Mr. Di Paola said.

Benjamin Shepard, a social worker who has volunteered with Time’s Up!, said he was disappointed that the city devoted so much space in the regulations to detailing the process for relocating gardens.

“I’m not seeing preservation here; I’m not seeing permanence here,” Mr. Shepard said. “We need a full commitment from the city to protect these spaces.”

Read More:

Community-Garden Rules Receive a Mixed Reaction

New York Times - September 13, 2010 - By Javier C. Hernandez 

NYC Unveils New Revised Rules on Community Gardens - No Permanent Protection, Yet 

Tree Hugger - September 16, 2010  - By Matthew McDermott 

Community Gardens Threatened Under Proposed NYC Rules - Push To Preserve All Gardens

A Walk In The Park - July 28, 2010 - By Geoffrey Croft

 Time's Up Response To Benepe's Embarrassing NY Post Community Garden Op-Ed

A Walk In The Park - August 12, 2010 

NYC Community Garden "Compromise" ?

City officials will announce greater protections for community gardens this week, but a source told the Daily News that the new rules stop short of guaranteeing their existence.  (Photo: Keh for the NY Daily News) 

City -Wide

City officials eager to quash a green rebellion are planning to announce a compromise this week on the fate of community gardens, according to the New York Daily News. 

A source familiar with the city's latest proposal says new guidelines would give gardens more protections from development - but would stop short of guaranteeing their existence.

"Legally, nothing is permanent, but we need to make protections stronger," said a city source who saw a draft of proposed new rules.

The rules would require the city to give the community additional notice if a garden might be threatened and would give extra protections to gardens that are in good condition and where gardeners follow city rules.

Read More:

City to add new, limited protections for community gardens in effort to satisfy critics

New York Daily News - September 7, 2010 - By Erin Einhorn

 Time's Up Response To Benepe's Embarrassing NY Post Community Garden Op-Ed

A Walk In The Park - August 12, 2010 

Time's Up Response To Benepe's Embarrassing NY Post Community Garden Op-Ed

August 10, 2010 - Community garden supporters outside the Chelsea Recreation Center before Tuesday's hearing. They are fighting for permanent protections for gardens across the city. (Photo by Rebekah McCabe) View video of the hearing here.

Response to Benepe Op-Ed

Time's Up! read your 8/11/10 NY Post Op-Ed with great dismay.  There is a certain Orwellian ‘war is peace’ quality to it that separates fact from reality.  You write that "not a single Parks garden has been lost." You are clearly making a distinction between Green Thumb Park Department protected gardens and others which are not.  A distinction you have chosen to omit and which is also inaccurate because you have also admitted that the Parks Department has been "swapping" protected gardens.  In fact you have "swapped" 36 protected gardens to HPD for development in trade for 22 gardens that could also have been saved.  In addition, over 130 gardens have already been destroyed under the Bloomberg Administration. The fact that Parks Department gardens aren't being developed, is a strong argument why these should be permanently protected by the Parks Department.  Both you and Mayor Bloomberg deny the permanent status granted to hundreds of gardens under the 2002 Preservation Agreement that is set to expire on September 17, 2010, even though the City’s 2002 press release clearly states that these gardens are permanently protected.

Yesterday, we spent all day with citizens of New York City concerned about the new parks rules.  The word “transfer” can be found throughout the document, implying that gardens can be transferred to housing and development.  Moving a garden is no easy matter. Digging up what was cultivated and paid for by volunteers can be heartbreaking. Clearing decades of debris, rebuilding the soil, replanting and/or investing in new plants and garden structures, access to water, reconnecting the community of dedicated volunteers, some of whom are likely to be children and seniors unable to walk the extra distance - each of these issues are significant.

The word PRESERVE is remarkably absent from the document.

While your editorial says, “The city is committed to more robust protections for community gardens” your document does not show us how. Gardeners want permanent protection for the small bits and pieces of green space left in this city.  Vital to our urban future, community gardens combat global warming and support social innovation, cross-cultural understanding and community development.  While you suggest these rules create “more options for alternate sites” there are few vacant lots left in neighborhoods in NYC.  However, there are many empty apartments and commercial buildings.  Once a lot has a building on it, the opportunity to make it a green space is lost for decades.

You state that the reason the gardens can't be designated as permanent parkland is because community members are primarily responsible for the gardens' upkeep and maintenance, not city taxpayers.  However, community members and private groups are already primarily responsible for maintaining hundreds of park properties throughout the city.  Thousands of acres of parks, playgrounds, ballfields and recreation centers - are privately maintained – including Central Park, The Highline, Bryant Park and more. The Bloomberg administration has repeated stated that public private partnerships are a priority of this administration, a fact that Mr. Benepe conveniently omits from his argument.  Why, in the case of community gardeners, does this policy not apply?  And with PlaNYC's promise of a park within 10 minutes-walk of every home, community gardens become even more valuable to the vision of a greater, greener city.

In trying to justify the the City's unwillingness to recognize 198 gardens permanance, you recently attempted to down play the importance of permanent protections.  "It's difficult to call anything permanent, including community gardens.  Even parks are not permanent," you told the Wall Street Journal on Aug. 5, 2010.   While certainly not perfect - as the people in the South Bronx found out when the City allowed the NY Yankees to take 25 acres of parkland to build a stadium - having mapped parkland provides infinitely more protections than not. 

Commissioner Benepe, we need sensible leadership, not spin. Your argument that you are protecting gardens by “transferring” them to alternate sites which do not exist does not pass the test of common sense.

Scrap the rules as proposed, preserve all the community gardens, and create more gardens now.

Times Up! Environmental Group 

August 13, 2010
www.times-up.org

August 10, 2010 - (Above) Community garden supporters gather across the street from the Chelsea Recreation Center before Tuesday's hearing. (Below)  Inside the hearing opponents of the proposed new rules, and of the hearings themselves, displayed signs. (Photos: Brennan Cavanaugh/Time's Up! Environmental group) 

Protecting gardens and communities

New York Post - August 11, 2010 - By Adrian Benepe 

Public Hearing for Community Gardens NYC (Video)

August 10, 2010

New Community Garden Rules Offer Weaker Protection Than 2002 Agreement: NY State Lead Attorney

Tree Hugger - August 12, 2010 -  By Matthew McDermott

Activists Call to Safeguard Community Gardens Against Development

The indypendent - August 12, 2010 -  By Mary Heglar 

 

Gardeners say city’s new rules will sow disaster 

The Villager - August 12, 2010 -  By Lesley Sussman

Gardens of Fear Community planters fret over new rules

New York Daily News -  August 11th 2010- By Erin Durkin

  

City Gardeners Vocal Over Proposed Rules

Wall Street Journal - August 11, 2010 -  By Melanie Grayce West

Stop the city's garden grab: Community gardens belong to those who tend them, not to City Hall

New York Daily News -  August 10th 2010 - By Sharon Zukin

Residents Speak Out Against Proposed Rules Governing Community Gardens

NY1 - August 10, 2010 - By Roger Clark

Community Gardeners Fear New Rules - Protest At City Hall

A Walk In The Park - August 5, 2010 

Community Gardeners Fear New Rules - Protest At City Hall

Community gardener, Yonette Fleming, protested proposed city gardening rules outside City Hall yesterday.

(Photo: Keith Bedford for The New York Times)

City-Wide

Members of a citywide community garden group and the City Council speaker,Christine C. Quinn ,called upon the Bloomberg administration on Wednesday to help make permanent hundreds of community gardens scattered across the city, according to the New York Times.

About 75 members of the group, called the New York City Community Garden Coalition, gathered on the steps of City Hall, some waving signs, others holding aloft beets, bunches of carrots, eggplants and ears of corn. They said that rules recently drafted by the Department of Parks and Recreation and theDepartment of Housing Preservation and Development did not offer enough protection to some 300 city-owned gardens spread across the five boroughs.

City officials vigorously disagreed, saying the rules proposed by the agencies were meant to benefit the gardens, but added that the language in those rules could perhaps be adjusted to assuage concerns.

Ms. Quinn and Melissa Mark-Viverito, a councilwoman representing districts in Upper Manhattan and the South Bronx, joined the gardeners.

“We are here today to say that we want our community gardens to become a permanent part of New York City,” Ms. Quinn told the crowd. “We want to end garden existence in a state of limbo.”

Both Ms. Quinn and Karen Washington, the president of the garden coalition, praised the city for its willingness to have an open discussion about the future of the gardens.

“However,’’ Ms. Washington said, “the consensus of our coalition membership is that the proposed rules and regulations don’t go far enough in protecting and creating more community gardens.”

Read More: 

Coming to the Defense of Community Gardens

New York Times City Room - August 4, 2010 - By Colin Moynihan

Gardeners Root For City Patches

The Wall Street  Journal - August 5, 2010 - By Melanie Grayce West

Demonstrators Disapprove Of Proposed NYC Park Rules

1010 WINS -  August 4, 2010

Community Garden Advocates Demand Parks Protections

MSNBC - August 4, 2010 - By Maria Eugenia Miranda 

Green groups fear new community garden rules

Am NY - August 4, 2010 - By Heather Haddon

Community Garden Protester Occupies Tree In City Hall Park

A Walk In The Park - August 2, 2010  

‘The Bulldozers Are Coming’: Garden Crusaders Hop on Their Bikes

New York Times - August 1, 2010  - By Colin Moynihan

Community Garden Protester Occupies Tree In City Hall Park

City Hall Park  - August 2, 2010.  A community garden supporter climbed a tree in front of City hall today to draw attention to the need to preserve all community gardens.

Manhattan

Police are currently deploying a tall ladder to forcibly remove a demonstrator named Jessica Sunflower (if that is in fact her real name!) from a tree in City Hall park, according to gothamist.

Sunflower and other activists converged there this morning to protest a change in city rules that would cost community gardens legislative protection against housing developers. These rules will replace a 2002 agreement that allowed some gardens throughout the city to thrive over the last decade.

Garden activist Susan Howard says, "Contrary to the City's statements, the proposed rules are not identical tothe 2002 settlement agreement, which required the City to do a State Environmental Quality Review of the gardens before bulldozing and required the City to preserve 198 gardens under the Parks Department or land trusts. The proposed rules would violate this agreement and open all the remaining gardens to development. Since the agreement was reached in 2002, the City has destroyed over 130 gardens. Department of Housing Preservation and Development has moved all gardens under their stewardship to development, with only 20 remaining now pending development."

Read/View More

Video: Police Remove Community Gardens Activist from Tree

gothamist - August 2, 2010 - By John Del Signore  

Taking Over a Tree to Save Community Gardens

New York Times City Room - August 2, 2010 -  By Colin Moynihan

Community Gardens Threatened Under Proposed NYC Rules - Push To Preserve All Gardens

A Walk In The Park - July 28, 2010 - By Geoffrey Croft

Community Gardens Threatened Under Proposed NYC Rules - Push To Preserve All Gardens

More Gardens, Less Asthma - August 16, 2000. A young girl walks down E. 137th Street in the South Bronx, the asthma capital of America.  Photo: © Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Advocates (Click image to enlarge)

New rules written by the Department of Parks and Recreation and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development omits language that guarantees the protection of gardens preserved by the existing 2002 Spitzer agreement.  Since that agreement, over 130 gardens have been bulldozed (over 250 gardens have been destroyed since 1998) and 20 gardens are in imminent danger of development, according to garden activists. With the agreement set to expire on September 17, community garden, open space, public health activists are pushing to preserve all gardens. Currently, only 282 gardens are protected under the Parks Department. A public hearing on the proposed rules is being held on August 10, at the Chelsea Recreation Center in Manhattan and a number of events are being planned.  

Hearing: August 10, 2010, 11 a.m. Proposed Garden Rules Public Hearing

Chelsea Recreation Center, 430 West 25th Street, Manhattan,10001 (between 9 and 10 ave) To testify at the hearing, notify Associate Counsel, Ms. Laura LaVelle via telephone at 212-360-1335 or email at laura.lavelle@parks.nyc.gov by August 9.

City-Wide

By Geoffrey Croft

According to garden activists the City has not complied with a number of stipulations contained in the original settlement agreement, these include: 

1. 198 gardens be preserved by offering them to parks or land trusts 2. A SEQRA review be performed. 3. All gardens subject to development go through Garden Review and ULURP. As the terms of this agreement stands, even after Sept. 17, 2010 the proposed rules would violate the terms of the agreement.

Critics also point out the new rules offer the option of alternate sites when the City is aware that there are few, if any, alternate sites available. They contend this language is inaccurate and misleading. 

 

They point out that Attorney General Spitzer's suit made it clear that not only was the City violating SEQRA by changing their policy of creating gardens and supporting Greenthumb, but that many of the gardens qualified as Dedicated Parkland under the law of Implied Dedication. The proposed rule would ignore the gardens parkland status, the contend.

Critics also contend that the lawsuit made it clear that community gardens were not standing in the way of affordable housing, as few, if any units of affordable housing have been created as a result, and there are numerous other avenues for the City to do so including renovating abandoned buildings city wide.

"This is worse than what (Rudy) Giuliani tried to do ten years ago," said Harry Bubbins, a veteran of the community garden movement and founder of Friends of Brook Park in the South Bronx.

 "The garden movement was undercut then by private organizations that bought over a hundred gardens. Although the auction was stopped the rest of the gardens remained vulnerable as many of us pointed out at the time.  Only a law that fully protects them will ensure that the gardens which our communities desperately need will be preserved."

Community Board 3.

Last night Manhattan CB 3's  Parks, Recreation, Cultural Affairs, Landmarks, & Waterfront Committee voted unanimously to update and amend their District Needs Statement.  The statement Included strong support to protect its community gardens, and pointed out the lack of open space in the community. 

"Community Board 3, like most districts in the City, does not meet the City Planning Commission's guidelines for per capita open space. The open space/population ratio is approximately 0.7 acres per 1000 people. By comparison, the Governor's Open Space Report recommended 2.5 acres per 1000, and New York City averages 1.5 acres. The open space that we do have is not evenly distributed throughout the district. The area west of Avenue A and the Chinatown area lack adequate open space. 

 

A few community gardens have been transferred to the Parks Department, but at the same time, the fate of many others is still uncertain. For sites not being transferred to the Parks Department, the City should consider transferring them to local community organizations that can maintain the locations as permanent open community space. Once open space is lost to development, it is very unlikely that it will ever be replaced." 

 

The community board also issued a strong statement regarding the lack of park maintenance and the need for increased spending:

"It is one thing to have land set aside as a park, but our parks also need constant maintenance by trained DPR professionals. The number of park workers is at a 30-year low and funding for park maintenance is equally scarce. Many of the parks in our district have suffered from years of neglect and deferred maintenance, and now are experiencing increasing levels of usage. Increasing the number of full time, permanent park workers and staffed playgrounds will allow for fuller use of our parks and play areas." 

Press Release: For Immediate Release 

 

“Green Means Gardens: Preserve., Preserve, Preserve.”

Time’s Up! Statement on New Garden Rules

 

Contacts:

Benjamin Shepard – 917 586-7952

Bill DiPaolo – 917-577-5621

 

With the new Department of Parks and Recreation and Department of Housing Preservation and Development rules the city has taken a huge step backward. Community gardens in New York have thrived since the 2002 Spitzer Agreement which preserved these precious green spaces (“2002 Preservation Agreement”).  Yet, with the Preservation Agreement expiring on September 17, 2010, the city appears to have abandoned its efforts to preserve green spaces.  With the new rules, all the gardens may now be legally transferred for development, rather than preserved.

 

The benefits of gardens are many.  “Community gardening is a way to fight the systemic injustice of poverty and other forms of structural oppression.  Most of the gardens are in poor areas of the city, with much higher rates of asthma and lower rates of open space equity.  From an indigenous/community perspective, gardens offer a way for our community to heal itself and to recover a humanizing sense of itself - its dignity - in an otherwise very hard city," explained Friends of Brook Park gardener Ray Figueroa.   For New Yorkers of all walks of life, the gardens provide much needed green space (particularly in low-income communities of color). 

 

“Don’t destroy our gardens.  Don’t destroy our communities,” declared long time Lower East Side activist Paul Bartlett.   “Gardens helps us connect with both the earth and our communities, in ways which parking lots, coffee shops, and other urban spaces fail to.” 

 

“In the midst of a fiscal crisis, the city could only dream of having such unique spaces which help the city so much, yet cost so little,” explained Benjamin Shepard. “Gardens help stabilize communities and reduce crime.  They are also places where people of all walks of life come together.  They are places of education about the environment and the city, as well as the world ecology.  These are precious public spaces, which should not be privatized.”

 

“This is the hottest summer on record,” explained Lower East Side gardener JK Canepa.  “Community gardens help cool Manhattan.  If you allow the gardens to be turned into concrete spaces, the city only gets hotter.”  After all, gardens promote health and the reduction of heat throughout the five boroughs. 

 

Sharon S., a community gardener in East New York, said he wants to ask the mayor, "What kind of green are you preserving? In Plan 2030, you say you want this to be a green city. Being a green city does not mean catering to developers. To be truly green, Mr. Mayor, we need you to expand green space in every neighborhood, not just the wealthy ones. Community gardens are the only open green spaces that many low income neighborhoods have. Yet you're replacing the good 2002 Preservation Agreement with rules that will bulldoze gardens one by one."

 

“In a time of fiscal crisis when New Yorkers have seen reduction in services and increases in costs across the board, why cut something people love and that costs the city almost nothing?” asked Lower East Side environmental activist Bill DiPaulo. 

 

“Most other cities consider the gardens something to cherish.  This is an opportunity for Bloomberg to demonstrate he appreciates green space is a resource for global cooling and community development,” explained Times Up! Director Bill DiPaulo.  “Why should the mayor sell this space off to developers when there is such an opportunity to create a different kind of green, more forward leaning New York?  Making gardens permanent could be Bloomberg’s legacy.”

 

In the end, those involved with Times Up! and the garden movement urge the city to reject these rules and makes a final commitment to a green city by making all the gardens permanent once and for all. The group plans to organize to defend these precious spaces using a wide range of means, from legal advocacy to direct action.  The group plans to stage a “Paul Revere” Group Bike Ride to the gardens next week to sound the alarm that the gardens are in danger.  

July 2008 - The Baltic Street Community Garden in Park Slope. The 30-year-old community garden, located in Councilman David Yassky's district, was destroyed in 2009 by the NYC Department of Education.  

 

Read More:

Cyclists' advocacy group Times Up! plans to protest outside Mayor Bloomberg's townhouse    New York Daily News - July 29, 2010 - By  Simone Weichselbaum

 

Paul Revere,  Rat Zoos and the GTL Index

New York Times - City Room Blog  -  July 28, 2010 - By J. David Goodman

Proposed NYC Rules Threaten Community Garden

Flatbush  Gardener - July 27, 2010

Proposed New Rules Worry Community Garden Advocates

A Walk In The Park - July 6, 2010

New Yorkers For Parks New Director Angers Some Green Advocates

A Walk In the Park - April 19, 2010 - By Jennifer Riveraton

Baltic Street Community Garden’s future is in limbo

Warren /St. Marks Community Garden

GARDEN DEAL BARES ROOTS OF DISCORD

New York Daily News -  May 23 1999 - By David Lefer