Hi, Folks!
If your community garden is on land owned by a Housing Authority and/or land with public housing, could you e-mail me the name of the housing project/Housing Authority, your garden's name and the state and town where you are? If you work for an agency that runs community gardens on such land, please e-mail me the number of gardens, their location, etc. If I could have this information by next Friday, May 25, it would be tremendously helpful. Okay, why do I need this information? Our community garden/labyrinth has been at the Fairview Housing Project in Phoenixville, owned by the Chester County Housing Authority, for the past 10 years (we were 7 years at a previous location). The current administration wants us out so that they can build. Build "what" is the question - rumors are flying that it's a private deal to get rid of the current housing project and put in private "affordable housing" that will benefit financially benefit Board members and friends of Board members - but no one knows for sure, since the Chester County Housing Authority won't actually talk about what they are planning - just that they want to build and we have to leave. So, there's going to be a sit-down between the Housing Authority and St. John's United Church of Christ (which runs the garden and labyrinth), moderated by our state Senator's Chief of Staff. I just KNOW the Executive Director (this is the woman who turned off in the middle of a drought, minutes before I arrived to work with adjudicated youth, then accused the church of stealing water from the Housing Authority and told me I was "disagreeable person" and "why won't you just leave?") is going to say that the Housing Authority's mission is only to build housing, not to have gardens. If I can lay out a sheet of community gardens on Housing Authority/public housing land, it should take the sails out of THAT argument -- and I need all the help I can get, because if the rumor is true, this community garden is the only thing standing in the way of a lot of very well-connected people making a lot of money. Thank you so much for your help. As Adam as said in the past, "Land use is a blood sport" After 17 years, we're playing for keeps. Dorene Dorene Pasekoff, Coordinator St. John's United Church of Christ Organic Community Garden and Labyrinth A mission of St. John's United Church of Christ, 315 Gay Street, Phoenixville, PA 19460 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20070518/1cb12d32/attachment.html
