THREATENED GARDENS
our response to ongoing food and land insecurity in Philadelphia
COMMUNITY CONTROL of LAND is the foundation of our collective struggle towards liberation. Whether the issue is food, education, or housing, community control of resources, REQUIRE community control of the land... Our gardens are not just extracurricular spaces--!! They are community-driven acts of resistance and resilience by communities of color in their historically underinvested communities.
We are calling to attention changes that need to happen to create real and transparent pathways towards community control of land. WHO controls land and HOW it’s being used dictates what our communities look like. In the urban agriculture community, we’ve seen too many community gardens and farms lost to Sheriff sales & development in the waves of gentrification across the city. Below are some of the examples of how we take action over the years.
SAY NO TO THE 30+ YEAR MORTGAGE
SOIL GENERATION’s RESPONSE REGARDING THE LAND BANK’S UNJUST 30+ YEAR MORTGAGE POLICY
The following statement was submitted to the Land Bank Board’s collection of written testimonies in preparation for their meeting on Tuesday, March 14, 2023 @ 10:00am.
PHILLY’s FIRST URBAN AG PLAN
Philadelphia Parks and Recreation commissioned the plan in the fall of 2019 and hired Soil Generation and Interface Studio, a city planning firm, to co-develop the plan with input and inspiration from Philadelphia's urban agriculture community. The plan was finally completed and released in April 2023.
There was a strong push back and forth by the planning team to include policy recommendations that addressed the ongoing urgency of threatened gardens, however, in its final stages, the draft plan went through rigorous editing and negotiation with numerous city agencies associated with implementation.
Unfortunately, important recommendations from community input were struck out in the process —such as the legalization of hens and a moratorium on sheriff sales of active gardens. And a lot of language was adapted to be more passive than we originally drafted.
There are, however, crucial maps and data in the introduction chapter that make the case for urban agriculture and the ways land insecurity continue to impact the community. There is also a chapter dedicated to LAND with the goal of increasing land security and access towards land ownership. Policy recommendations include Land Bank reforms that are still intended to improve access and pathways to land ownership for growers.
RESTORE COMMUNITY LAND CAMPAIGN
forged by Councilmember Kendra Brooks
in partnership with Iglesias Gardens, Neighborhood Gardens Trust, Philadelphia Legal Assistance, Public Interest Law Center, Soil Generation, as well as Councilmembers Jamie Gauthier and Helen Gym
This campaign, which launched in May 2022, “has identified approximately 500 at-risk parcels that are actively being used as gardens and side yards, and approximately 475 parcels that could be acquired for affordable housing assemblage. It proposes that the City reacquire these lots, and then partner with District Councilmembers, community stakeholders, and the Administration to prioritize parcels to be acquired by the Land Bank and establish clear pathways for community ownership of land.”
“The proposal puts forth a $10 million line item in the FY23 budget as one viable way to permanently recover the land parcels that they have identified as high priority. It also includes opening negotiations with U.S. Bank by requesting that they immediately pause all sheriff’s sales of lien-encumbered parcels in Philadelphia and begin an earnest discussion with City leaders about how to work together to permanently preserve these vital community assets.”
IMPORTANT NOTE: The success of this campaign would be a huge win, however, land repossessed by the city would ultimately be transferred from being privately owned to publicly owned, and therefore housed and dispossessed by the Land Bank. In order for this to be truly advantageous and beneficial to Black and Brown growers, it is dire that this campaign is pushed simultaneously as major Land Bank reforms are being pushed.
THREATENED GARDENS ACTION
October 25, 2018 marked our first action, demanding community control for our gardens, farms, and green spaces throughout Philadelphia. We invited residents, gardeners, and farmers to self-represent in the fight against land loss after years of power-mapping and strategizing to identify the most common pain points and opportunities for intervention. We took ACTION in front of City Hall and the Land Bank office and demanded three specific changes from City Council & the Land Bank in order to move closer towards COMMUNITY control of land in Philadelphia:
1) End the 10 year tax abatement
This policy created conditions for the aggressive gentrification we are experiencing.
These are funds that could support the Land Bank and point #3 below.
2) A call for a moratorium on sheriff sales of active gardens
If there are active gardens with tax delinquent land that Land Bank cannot yet prioritize for acquisition, there should be coordination with Revenue to put them in protected status, so that the gardens are not sold.
Similar to how there has been a moratorium on houses sent to sheriff sale
3) Provide gardens with REAL security and pathways to community ownership
Longer term leases for gardens
Access to the list of properties in the process of being acquired by Land Bank
Ongoing transparency around the expression of interest (EOI) process
Lease & Agreement transparency
Community notification of property lists that the Land Bank is acquiring
Give out leases to unincorporated orgs (not just non-profits)
As a result of our participation in the Alliance for a Just Philadelphia, these demands were also included in the alliance’s People’s Platform in 2019.
SG THREATENED GARDENS RESOURCE GUIDE
This guide was compiled by the ‘Protecting Gardens’ working group in 2016. We realized there was a need for this kind of information after watching a few of our friends struggle with land tenure for their gardens, even ones who had been tending their land for decades. We started by conducting interviews with people we knew who had gone through land tenure struggles—some successful in protecting their gardens, and some unsuccessful. But while we originally thought this guide would be helpful for gardeners whose land was on the line, the stories we heard helped us realize that organizing your garden toward longevity and community building could be helpful much, much earlier. In fact, the more organized a garden is from the start, the better its position if and when it comes under threat—but organizing your garden will also help make the space more functional, harmonious, and smoothly operational in the face of a threat or not. So, this guide has something in it for every gardener and green space advocate, whether you’ve been gardening for years or are just starting out.