Category — Policy

Urban Ag Study Highlights National Best Practices

Report by Turner Environmental Law Clinic at Emory University School of Law
Authors:
By Mindy Goldstein Acting Director, Turner Environmental Law Clinic
Jennifer Bellis, Sarah Morse, Amelia Myers, and Elizabeth Ura
Student Attorneys, Turner Environmental Law Clinic
Nov. 2011

Excerpt from EcoWatch article Dec 12, 2011

This report represents one of the most comprehensive, objective presentations of current urban agriculture policies being implemented across the country. Some cities have reacted in a nimble manner, creating conditions that have allowed urban food production to thrive. Other cities are struggling to identify the best mechanisms to spur urban agriculture. What is evident is that there is no one-size fits all policy to address urban agriculture. Each community needs its own nuanced approach to balance the land it has available with the needs of its residents.

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Community organizations partner to construct an urban vegetable garden in Ft. Myers, Florida. Photo credit: Gabriel Kamener. Used under Creative Commons license.

The Sustainable Economies Law Center has created an Urban Ag Legal Resource Library

By SELC
The Sustainable Economies Law Center
12.01.11

Excerpt:

Here are a few suggestions for ways that cities can adopt policies to facilitate the growth of urban agriculture and community food growing spaces:

Offer property tax incentives for vacant private lots that are used for urban farming: Cities should offer private land owners a property tax discount during years when an otherwise empty lot is used for food growing. The Williamson Act in California already provides property tax incentives to preserve land as agricultural in rural areas, and a similar policy should be applied in urban areas. Generally, land has higher income earning potential when it is built up with strip malls and housing developments. But it doesn’t always make sense to assess a property based on this potential value when the land is actually being used for a more modest activity, like agriculture. Even if a piece of land will eventually be developed, landowners should be rewarded for putting it to productive agricultural use in the meantime. Such a tax incentive could dramatically multiply the amount of available land for community gardening and urban farming.

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Livia Marqués and Juanita Ewell stand in front of the tool shed at Eat Healthy Live Healthy Urban Garden in the 900 block of Cherry Hill Road, Baltimore City, Maryland. The mural was painted by Towson University student John Rice.

USDA Expands People’s Garden Initiative to Sow Seeds for Community-Based Agriculture across the Country

News Release – USDA
Washington Nov 10, 2011

Projects were funded in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan and Ohio. Grants were awarded to:

Homer Soil and Water Conservation District, Alaska, $110,500
Arizona Board of Regents, University of Arizona, Arizona, $5,000
Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, California, $29,000
Denver Urban Gardens, Colorado, $70,000
Knox Parks, Inc., Connecticut, $50,000
Heritage Ranch, Inc., Hawaii, $110,500
Alliance for Community Trees, Inc., Maryland, $150,000
Towson University, Maryland, $60,000
Calhoun Conservation District, Michigan, $70,000
Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, Ohio, $70,000

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Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

‘If a developer came to you, you’d give out the tax breaks,’ Clarke says

By Luke Broadwater,
The Baltimore Sun
November 22, 2011

Excerpt:

A City Council committee on Tuesday killed a bill to grant tax breaks to nonprofit urban farmers after the mayor’s office said it would set a bad precedent.

The opposition by the administration of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake outraged Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, a sponsor of the measure.

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Pilot program opens door to urban agriculture in Boston, making two vacant city-owned parcels available for farming

Mayor’s Press Office
November 16, 2011

Mayor Thomas M. Menino today announced the adoption of a progressive text and map amendment to the city’s zoning code, which passed unanimously at the Zoning Board Association meeting this morning. The amendment will allow the city to move forward with an Urban Agriculture Pilot project, making use of two vacant city owned parcels in Dorchester at 23-29 Tucker Street and 131 Glenway Street. The updated zoning code will allow the land be farmed to provide fresh and healthy food for sale to local residents and businesses.

“Boston is at the forefront of the urban agriculture movement and with this zoning amendment we are taking a proactive approach that will allow us to further explore the benefits of urban farming,” Mayor Thomas M. Menino said. “This project is an opportunity to take underutilized city land and put it to productive use. Community gardening brings neighbors together and it creates a new way to get healthy, fresh fruits and vegetables into neighborhood stores and kitchens.”

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San Diegans are getting excited as the urban agriculture ordinance works its way through the city’s long and winding government system

By Jill Richardson
Grist
Oct 29, 2011

Excerpt:

An advocacy group formed calling itself the 1 in 10 Coalition, in reference to their hope that — once the rules changed — one in 10 people in San Diego would be able to get at least some of their food locally. One of the group’s leaders was Parke Troutman, who had written a PhD dissertation on land-use politics in the city and county of San Diego. “[It] was a land-use issue, and only a few of us had experience with that,” he recalls.

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The Harare City Council now has the blessing of the Zimbabwe Republic Police to slash crops grown in the city in an effort to curb environmental degradation brought about by urban farming. The move has received with mixed feelings from residents and political parties.

By Seven Nematiyere
The Zimbabwean
09.11.11

Excerpt:

With the coming of a new growing season, all places without buildings on them are being cultivated. These include football, netball and basketball pitches, road-sides and recreational parks as well as wetlands. This has resulted in serious environmental degradation including soil erosion and siltation. Most drains in the city in such places like Glen Norah, Tafara, Highfield, Kambuzuma and Mufakose are blocked with soil resulting in flooding that sometimes affects the sewerage system.

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Forward by Boris Johnson, Mayor of London

By Olivia Varley-Winter
City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development
Capital Growth
Oct 2011 – 59 pages

Excerpt from Executive Summary:

This report aims to:

show that many community food-growing groups and other urban agriculture projects provide community-based learning and training opportunities, and are an effective way to develop employability for people in general,

outline how such projects can help people who face difficulties in finding and keeping work in particular, and

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One of the proposed sites. 1.63 acres at 2518 Ridge Court, adjacent to the Douglas County United Way building.

14 sites totaling about 70 acres that could be used for the program

By Chad Lawhornon
Well Commons
October 31, 2011

Under her proposal, the city and county would “license” the property to the growers for a three-year period, although the city and the county would have broad authority to end the license. Horn said more discussion would be needed to determine what growers should pay the city and the county for use of the property.

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Mayor Gregor Robertson debates with NPA mayoral candidate Suzanne Anton.

The urban agriculture movement is gaining strength across B.C., enthusiastically adapted by everyone from businesses to backyard growers to pot-growers. So why is it being used as a wedge issue in Vancouver’s latest election?

By Peter Ladner
Crosscut
Nov 7, 2011
Peter Ladner is the founder of “Business in Vancouver” newspaper and a former Vancouver City Councillor. He is currently a Fellow at the Simon Fraser University Centre for Dialogue. His new book is named: The Urban Food Revolution: Changing the Way We Feed Cities.

Excerpt:

As the Nov. 19 municipal election deadline nears, the struggling right-of-center Non-Partisan Association (NPA) has been challenging the ruling Vision Vancouver party’s misspending through its Greenest City Action Plan. The one project singled out for high profile ridicule is the “wheat fields” — a modest $5,000 grant to the Environmental Youth Alliance dedicated to planting enough wheat in numerous front yards to harvest 100 pounds, redefine the notion of the “city farm,” and teach young people how bread is made. It’s definitely a stretch of taxpayer dollars, but hardly significant for a city with a $1 billion budget.

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Will Robb of Burlington, head of the city’s urban agriculture task force, is photographed Thursday beside a garden on South Winooski Avenue. Photo by Joel Banner Baird, Free Press

Our recommendations will reach the City Council and the new mayor’s desk in March 2012.

By Will Robb
Burlington Free Press
Nov. 4, 2011

Excerpt:

Farmers, small-scale food enterprise and backyard growers of all kinds are putting together programs, cultivating land and growing and serving food in a number of innovative ways. The city should be prepared to listen, to step in with support, help practitioners negotiate a maze of state, federal and local regulation, and to facilitate connections to resources and land.

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‘Vision Vancouver’ – Community gardens and food security

By VoteVision, Press Release
Vision is a Vancouver, BC, political party
Oct 25, 2011

Take a walk through the expanded Cottonwood Community Gardens on Raymur Avenue or the newly formed Mount Pleasant Gardens on Ontario and West 16th and you’ll see the potential for growing food in an urban setting. Tomatoes, bok choi and apple trees abound! Vision Vancouver sees the potential too – we even built a community garden at City Hall.

In 2010, Vision Vancouver established 450 new community garden plots in the city. It’s just one of the ways Vision Vancouver is support urban agriculture and food security. Vancouver now has approximately 3260 community garden plots.

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Written by Heather Wooten, MCP (PHLP) and Amy Ackerman, JD (Consulting Attorney)
The National Policy and Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity (NPLAN)
October 2011 – 40 pages

Introduction – Excerpt

Communities can support, promote, and preserve urban agriculture through land use laws. Land use policies can assist in securing access to and ensuring the preservation of land for agricultural uses. Zoning regulations can ensure that agriculture occurs in suitable locations and under the proper conditions. But there is no one-size-fits-all urban agricultural land use policy. Urban areas vary in availability of land for agriculture, population density, soil suitability, and resident interest. This toolkit sets forth a framework and model language for urban agriculture land use policies that communities can tailor to their particular context and needs.

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First lady Michelle Obama visits Growing Power Urban Farm, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011, in Chicago with Mayor Rahn Emanuel. The farm is a seven acre site on the city’s South Side that produces healthy food year round. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

Michelle Obama Urges Mayors to Adopt Chicago’s Food-Desert Fight

By Blair Euteneuer
Bloomberg
Oct 25, 2011

Excerpt:

The first lady joined Emanuel and eight other mayors, along with chief executive officers of several food retailers. Emanuel announced one of Chicago’s major urban farm networks, Growing Power, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Walgreen Co. and Aldi to sell locally grown produce. The farms would offer job opportunities and economic development.

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Kitchen Gardeners International

Roger Doiron is founding director of Kitchen Gardeners International, a network of people taking a hands-on approach to re-localizing the global food supply. Doiron is an advocate for new policies, technologies, investments, and fresh thinking about the role of gardens. His successful petition to replant a kitchen garden at the White House attracted broad international recognition. He is also a writer, photographer, and public speaker.

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Here, herbs growing at the edge of sidewalks, traffic noise and the looming skyline identify it as City Farm, a 1-acre farm on unused city property in downtown Chicago. Photo by Brett T. Roseman for USA TODAY.

The city’s new rules “put urban agriculture on the map,” says Andy Rozendaal

By Judy Keen
USA TODAY
9/20/2011

Excerpt:

In Salt Lake City, the City Council voted this spring to allow the sale of produce without a business license and eased rules for greenhouses and plastic-covered “hoop houses.”

“We have a great tradition of making the desert bloom here,” says Councilman Luke Garrott. Besides the nutritional advantages of locally grown food, he says, “there are also the community considerations. Social capital gets built.”

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Children growing on church land amongst the tombstones. Photo by Arthur Edwards.

“By growing and sharing their own food, people are building independence from global supply chains and a degree of resilience, cushioning the impact of shortages or price rises.”

By Julian Dobson
Urban Pollinators
October 2011

Excerpt:

‘You have to act to hope.’ Todmorden shows how such action can become viral.

The town’s schools are just one example. Every local primary school was given a disused pleasure boat to use as a planter. One school got permission to grow vegetables in a graveyard. All of them have now clubbed together to plant their own orchard.

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Esperanza Pallana, a leader in the Oakland urban farming movement, picks Brandywine tomatoes in her backyard, where she grows Fuji apples, figs, berries and other crops. Oakland now allows her to sell the produce, but Pallana also has animals she would like to slaughter for meat for herself. Photo by Manny Crisostomo/Mcrisostomo.

“It doesn’t matter what animal you own, whether it’s livestock or domesticated cats and dogs, you need to be a responsible neighbor and clean up after your animals.”

By Grace Rubenstein
Sacramento Bee
Oct. 9, 2011

Excerpt:

However, eco-friendly arguments don’t soothe residents like Ian Elwood, co-founder of a group called Neighbors Opposed to Backyard Slaughter. Well-meaning as urban farmers might be, he said, their ignorance and inexperience leads to animal suffering.

“People are learning through do-it-yourself,” he said. “But when you forget to water the chard, the chard dies and it’s not that painful for anyone.” With a chicken, Elwood said, such errors amount to abuse or neglect.

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“If you’re living in an owned or rented unit you will be able to legally sell produce that you grow on the lot.”

By Lee Romney in Oakland
Los Angeles Times
October 4, 2011

Excerpt:

“With this simple but important change, Oakland residents will now be able to start their own locally-grown food micro-enterprises,” said Esperanza Pallana, owner of the home-based Pluck & Feather Farm and co-founder of the East Bay Urban Agriculture Alliance.

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Illustration: Tavis Coburn.

While we’re busy teaching our kids to tend school gardens, they’re failing provincial tests in reading, writing and math. The folly of the new enviro-propaganda

By Jan Wong
Toronto Life
October 2011

Excerpt:

This fall, hundreds of Toronto students are harvesting beets and zucchini from their school gardens. I say: nice photo op, bad idea. The argument for school gardens assumes that by grubbing in the dirt, kids will learn to love eating vegetables. They won’t think chickens hatch into this world as deep-fried nuggets. And they’ll develop a respect for nature.

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