Green Thumb Puts Up Red Tape in Community Garden

October 15, 2019 | By Diane Bezucha

*Annette Ervin has been keeping a garden plot at the Rockaway Youth Task Force Farm on Beach 58th Street since the farm opened five years ago. Photos by Diane Bezucha.*

Annette Ervin looks up from the collard greens she has grown all summer and gazes into the distance.

“The city really needs to do something about that lot,” she says.

Ervin’s garden is in the Rockaway Youth Task Force farm—a thriving community garden on Beach 58th Street with lush produce, clucking chickens, and an 85-person waiting list for individual plots.

Just over the fence is a vacant, city-owned lot, overgrown with plants and filled with trash.

The organization has asked for years to expand into the unused space, but keeps encountering red tape from Green Thumb, the city agency that oversees community gardens.

“We’re not asking the city to cut us a check. We’re just asking the city to allow us to clean up a vacant lot that they should be taking care of. It’s not rocket science,” said Executive Director Milan Taylor.

He started the farm five years ago to expand the Task Force’s efforts in the community. They have a weekly farm stand and recently opened a second location in Downtown Far Rockaway as part of the Revitalization Project.

“We see the farm as a true form of sustainability,” said Taylor. “Our young people that work for the organization, they can actually get paid and create their own jobs if they had the access to that space and they were able to sell the produce that they grew.”

*Over the past five years, the Rockaway Youth Task Force has built a lush and thriving farm that provides individual gardening plots, community event space and employment opportunities for local youth.*

The lot adjoining Rockaway Youth Task Force's farm is vacant. The group has been asking the city for permission to expand into the lot for years but have been consistently met with red tape. The lot was initially leased to Culinary Kids, a local org… — The lot adjoining Rockaway Youth Task Force's farm is vacant. The group has been asking the city for permission to expand into the lot for years but have been consistently met with red tape. The lot was initially leased to Culinary Kids, a local organization that has another garden in the community, but never developed this lot on Beach 58th Street.

There are 400 acres of vacant lots like this in Far Rockaway, 256 of which are publicly-owned, but the city does not make it easy to use this land.

The Taskforce first asked for permission to develop the adjoining lot almost four years ago. At the time, they were told they needed to wait for the existing contract with Culinary Kids to expire in 2018. Now Green Thumb says they need to attend a series of four meetings, which were not required the first time.

“It feels like we’re jumping through hoops and starting all over,” said Ervin. “You have a group, like the Rockaway Youth Task Force, knows how, and they’ve done it before, why reinvent the wheel? Let’s get it done.”

Another sore spot with the agency is the 2019 licensing agreement. What used to be a four-page document is now 17, and many gardeners feel the process has become overly complicated.

“We're volunteers stewarding public land. Don't treat us like contractors running a concession on the High Line," said Aziz Dehkan, Executive Director of the New York City Community Gardening Coalition, a vocal opponent of the new license.

A spokesperson for the Parks Department said, “These new license agreements reflect gardener feedback, and we continue to work with gardeners across the city to understand their concerns and answer any remaining questions.”

Taylor disagrees. “Green Thumb sucks. They’re not community-minded.” Rather than supporting gardens, their role seems more focused on compliance.

For Taylor, the 2019 license has not brought any clarity on the next step in securing the adjacent lot.

“It’s unfortunate that we don’t know because we do have the resources to build it out, literally tomorrow,” said Taylor.

According to Green Thumb, the community needs to weigh-in on how the land is used.

Ervin laughs and points to the 2,000 signatures of support they gathered from neighbors.

“I think the community has already spoken.”

“Overall we just want access. We want people to have more access to the land and space to grow,” says Tamera Jacobs, who has been managing negotiations with the city as the organization’s Director of Finance and Operations.

Rockaway Youth Task Force runs one one-site farm stand and recently opened an off-site location as part of the Downtown Far Rockaway Revitalization Project. Most of the produce they sell currently is grown on other farms but expanding the farm into the adjoining lot would allow the group to grow their own produce for sale and provide jobs to local residents.

A picture on the wall in the farm office shows what the corner of Beach Channel Drive and Beach 58th Street used to look like, before Rockaway Youth Task Force built their farm.

A young gardener helps with watering at the Rockaway Youth Task Force Farm. In their vision for the expanded farm, the Rockaway Youth Task Force plans to have an area just for children to explore gardening.

Virginia Freitas is a farmer at nearby Edgemere Farm, who has also expressed Frustrations with Green Thumb. Edgemere operates as a production farm, using produce sales and fee-based tours and events to pay for the farm's operating costs, including the employment of five community farmers like Freitas. Under Green Thumb’s new license, community gardens are only allowed two fundraising events. “We can no longer make enough money to pay people,” says the farm’s owner, Michael Sheehan. “They basically gutted us.”