Answers below to your partnership questions:
What community gardens have strong partnerships with their municipal
governments? In which cities are they?
Sunnyvale, CA
Approved by City Council January 10, 2006 for five years.
What are the conditions of these partnerships (what are the gardeners required
to do/what is the government required to do)?
Sustainable Community Gardens (SCG) is the non profit that built and manages
this 92 raised bed, 1 acre community garden (Charles Street Gardens). We pay
our water bill for the lease cost. This is remarkable given that we are on a 1
acre Civic Center parcel, across a parking lot from the City library and across
the street from City Hall. Our non profit pays all maintenance, water,
insurance, and the gardeners each pay $50/year for their 4' x 16' raised
redwood bed (one per household). We have 75 residents on our waiting list
already.
Which government agency in each city does the work the government is required
to do in these partnerships?
The partnership is between the non profit and the Parks and recreation dept of
the City of Sunnyvale. They do none of the work around the gardens. During
construction they did purchase and install our backflow device and connect it
to city water (saving us about $1,000).
Who owns the land that is used in each of these gardens? How is ownership
determined? Is there a land trust?
The City owns the land which is comprised of three fairly equal parcels; one
contains a business park, the other the large parking lot and then our garden.
The three parcels were purchased by the City of Sunnyvale 10 years ago for
approx. $16 million.
How is liability insurance handled in these partnerships?
SCG is insured for all liability.
Does the city government offer funding or grants to cover infrastructure or
start-up costs in these community gardens?
The gardens were started due to a private philantropist offering the city $40k
to build a community garden. Sunnyvale turned them down, but I was in the
meeting and offered to form the non profit and get the process started if the
City could find us the land. The City did not want to give us this parcel but
our group fell in love iwth it and created a huge demand in front of City
Council. After working diligently with The Parks and Rec Dept, residents, and
the Council members for two years, we won the right on January 10, 2006.
Josh Salans
Executive Director
Sustainable Community Gardens
P.S. Not 4 months after opening the Charles Street Gardens, a proposal came to
us to build an 11 acre educational, organic farm on an 11 acre site in back of
a Sunnyvale Middle School. The Santa Clara Unified School District agreed to
lease SCG and its Full Circle Farm project, the site for 30 years on February
8, 2007. We are currently breaking ground (literally) to plant cover crop til
April when we hope to get our first plantings in the ground!
____________________________________________________________________________________
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http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
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