[Community_garden] rezoning, park designation and eminent domain

[adam36055 at aol.com]

Again and again, community gardening is 50% gardening and 100% political activism.  As I've learned in 30 years playing community garden ( longer if you figure my teenaged Green Guerilla seedbomb jaunts with Liz Christy) is that you're gardening on land, and land is run by land use, or zoning legislations - especially if you're in an urban setting. 
 
Land Use and Zoning meetings are not fun, and learning the zoning resolutions of your cities and towns a major chore - sort of like pulling cat litter out of the compost heap, but absolutely necessary if you're going to preserve the LAND USE VARIANCE, or inclusion as park land that your community garden will need to keep occupying the land the gardeners are working. 
 
That is why I'm a member of Manhattan Community Board 4's Clinton Land Use and Zoning as well as Waterfront and Parks Committees.  Land Use, especially if you have no "real money," is like the Lotto - you have to be "in it to win it." 
 
You cannot, I repeat, cannot expect anyone else to be looking out for your garden's interests unless your garden has a person versed in your local land use rules AND is actively involved in the local process. 
 
Please get someone from your garden community who is willing to spend the time to do this absolutely essential work - Remember, without available land, community gardens cannot exist. 
 
With that, dear friends, you will have a fighting chance with "rezoning, park designation and eminent domain," issues.  
 
Everbest, 
Adam Honigman
Hell's Kitchen 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: k.jones at uwinnipeg.ca
To: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
Sent: Sun, 26 Nov 2006 7:02 PM
Subject: [Community_garden] rezoning, park designation and eminent domain


Who ever sent this message it was scrubbed as an attachment and I
couldn't pick it up through the url. This is a very important topic. I
know alot of you folks are having a good time in you r gardens but here
public open space of all kinds is falling to development alot of it by
rezoning park land as commercial or residential. Our mayor thinks there
are 2 things a city should do, keep the roads in good repair and make
sure the construction business is happy. It is sad because we are a
small slow growth city. A few people are really benifiting from an
artifical construction boom. When it is over alot of people will suffer.
So zoning is an important issue.   Karen




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