[Community_garden] Town Lease/Liability Insurance

[Jack Hale]

Please don't panic.  Panic and gardening don't go well together.

Here in Hartford, we do insure all our gardens (14), and we list the
property owners as additional insured.  We do that in some cases because
the property owners require it, but also because it protects us, the
organization running the gardens.

It is obnoxious that a town would require a baby nonprofit to protect it
from harm, but towns have the power to do that, and often they have risk
managers or other staff who feel it is their job to protect the town
from any conceivable problems.  They obviously draw the line somewhere.
For instance, they probably don't require evidence of insurance before
they let people play on town playgrounds, and playgrounds are much
riskier places than gardens.  It would be just too hard to enforce the
requirement.  Unfortunately, you folks are an easier target. 

Your other problem is that you have just one garden.  In our case, with
a bunch of gardens, the cost per garden is substantially lower than the
$750-1,000 you are seeing.  Insurance agents/companies just don't want
to write a policy for less than that.

So, there are lots of reasons/arguments why you should not be required
to provide this insurance and why the town should just deal with it, but
you are moving into the political arena.  Most likely, the folks who
have laid this requirement on you believe they are just doing their jobs
to the best of their ability, and they may even feel they are doing it
exceptionally well because they picked up this "problem."  They may need
somebody above them to tell them that there may be other, more important
considerations, like helping people to raise their own healthy food.  As
Adam says, "community gardening is 50% gardening and 100% politics."
It's probably time to get political.

Good luck.  And let us know how it goes.

JH


Jack N. Hale
Executive Director
Knox Parks Foundation
75 Laurel Street
Hartford, CT 06106
860/951-7694

-----Original Message-----
From: community_garden-bounces at list.communitygarden.org
[mailto:community_garden-bounces at list.communitygarden.org] On Behalf Of
Denise Fisher
Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2007 10:50 AM
To: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
Subject: [Community_garden] Town Lease/Liability Insurance

Hello,

We are a new community garden that has been in existence for one year.
The town leases 2.5 acres from a private property owner for the purpose
of the community garden with the stipulation that the management of the
garden is entrusted to a non-profit organization.  The Town leased the
property so that the community garden would be covered under the town's
liability insurance.  The lease is year to year.  We were expecting a
simple renewal of the lease this year, but today we found out that the
Town's insurance company is recommending that the non-profit
organization provide its own liability insurance which is $750 -
$1000/year listing the town as an additional insured.  We're not sure
why this change from last year.  We can't afford the insurance unless a
benefactor steps up.  If a benefactor steps up and our non-profit
organization does buy the liability insurance, then it seems to me there
would be no need to involve the town or to list them as an additional
insured.  We could lease the land directly from the landowner.  I would
like to know if there are other community gardens out there that are
also covered by the liability insurance of the municipality and if
they've had any problems.  What are the issues?  How does this work in
other towns?

Orientation is next week, and even though we have been in communication
with the town administrator, she never gave any indication that there
would be any obstacles to the renewal of the lease, so we are caught off
guard.  We are in a bit of a panic about what to do.  Any
thoughts/advice/help would be greatly appreciated!

Denise Fisher



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