Education is what is called for here. There is a terrific paper by a professor at NYU Law School and the Robert Wagner School of Public Policy which sets out the tax increasing potentials of community gardens. See: Vickie Been
New York University School of Law 40 Washington Square South, 314H New York, NY 10012 Telephone: (212) 998-6223 Facsimile: (212) 995-4341 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Her paper is terrific and shows how short sighted it is to try to convert community gardens into "taxable uses." Why not do it with Park Land too? of course we know that well maintained parks increase the tax value of surrounding properties. You might also try The Trust for Public Land. Best, Cordalie ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 12:27 AM Subject: [Community_garden] The City Hates Community Gardening > > A few weeks ago I queried ACGA membership via listserve about the wisdom > of > our gardens administrator (City of San Ramon, CA) deciding to drastically > change the current procedure of assigning our garden plots on an > indefinite > duration basis. The City now proposes to rotate assigned garden plots > among > community gardeners each year on a “lottery” basis; ostensibly to satisfy > a long > "waiting list." [although in fact more than 10 percent of the garden > plots > remained vacant for the past year and were not assigned to anyone on any > waiting list.] > The ACGA listserve response was unanimous and specific: Forcing gardeners > to > participate in a lottery each year to see if they will get a garden plot > for > the following season is against all principles of community gardening and > the > more appropriate municipal answer to a waiting list was to build more > gardens. > After discussing this issue with the City for the past several weeks, > however, some chilling insights have been gained among the gardeners. What > we local > community gardeners initially thought was simply an innocent, perhaps > incompetent, ignorance of organic gardening processes on the part of the > City has > now evolved into a suspicion that the City administrators know exactly > what > they are doing. > By demanding implementation of such ludicrous and inappropriate gardening > procedures the City knows full well that it will ultimately chase off all > serious organic gardeners, allowing the City to have an unfettered hand in > utilizing the land now dedicated to community gardening for other, more “ > municipally-desirable, tax-generating” pursuits such as office buildings, > commercial > enterprises, etc. [In fact the majority of gardeners, many of whom have > been > here for decades, have indeed indicated they will leave, rather than try > to > garden under such a "merry-go-round", rotational type of environment.] > Has anyone in the membership dealt with such political situations before? > If > so, what are the most effective tactics we can employ to preserve our > community gardens against such municipal expansion? Put another way, how > can we get > the City to embrace community gardening? > Thank you. > Jim Conner, > Community Gardener > Crow Canyons Community Gardens > > > > **************Start the year off right. Easy ways to stay in shape. > http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aolcmp00300000002489 > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20080111/f25b3d28/attachment.html > _______________________________________________ > 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: > http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org > _______________________________________________ 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: http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org
