I went to a briefing by the researchers. They used the data from Council on the Environment's Community Garden Mapping Project to locate the gardens and determine the dates the gardens started. In fact the study would have been much more difficult and time consuming without the CGMP data. I read the paper and this is a serious academic, real estate /law study. As the researchers explained to us, the real estate developers / industry has the money to pay for studies to show the economic benefits of building on a parcel of land. Communirty Gardeners don't have the money.
Mike McGrath pointed out, the best paragraph we can take from the study clearly shows that cgs have a positive impact on the value nearby residential properties. (Not such a clear impact on commercial properties). (Paragraph copied below) Another great quote from the study, "Our results show that such gardens can lead to increases in tax revenues of around $1 million per garden over a 20 year period. " These are NYC real estate numbers so the impact may be less in other cities... According to the researchers these are conservative estimates and take into account costs incurred by the city in the creation and maintenance of the garden. As many people may realize those are not easy figures to estimate. "We find that the opening of a community garden has a statistically significant positive impact on residential properties within 1000 feet of the garden, and that the impact increases over time. We find that gardens have the greatest impact in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. Higher quality gardens have the greatest positive impact. Finally, we find that the opening of a garden is associated with other changes in the neighborhood, such as increasing rates of homeownership, and thus may be serving as catalysts for economic redevelopment of the community." I have asked ACGA to post the paper or a link on the ACGA website. Lenny Librizzi ______________________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden
