Little City Gardens

A little over a year after the passing of the celebrated zoning legislation, San Francisco has now introduced another round of legislation regarding urban agriculture. This one, recently introduced by Supervisor David Chiu and supported by the hard working folks at the SF Urban Ag Alliance, focuses on creating an official “Urban Agriculture Program” in SF. (The term “urban agriculture” is defined here as “the growing of food through intensive plant cultivation and animal husbandry in places such as home gardens, community gardens, market gardens, demonstration gardens, gardens at institutions such as schools, workplaces, and jails, urban farms, orchards, rooftops, and greenhouses.”) If passed, this legislation would call for:

• an audit of City-owned buildings with rooftops suitable for both commercial and non-commercial Urban Agriculture
• incentives for property owners to allow temporary Urban Agriculture projects, particularly on vacant and blighted property awaiting development
• a streamlined application process for Urban Agriculture projects on public land, with clear evaluation guidelines that are consistent across agencies
• the creation of a “one-stop shop” for Urban Agriculture that would provide information, programming, and technical assistance to all SF residents, businesses, and organizations wishing to engage in Urban Agriculture
• the development of new Urban Agriculture projects on public land where residents demonstrate desire for the projects
• garden resource centers in neighborhoods across the city that provide residents with resources such as compost, seeds, and tools
• the development of sufficient resources so that SF residents seeking a community garden plot have to wait no more than a year for access to a plot.

A more detailed background and description of the legislation can be found here.

The public hearing for this is scheduled for this coming Monday June 11th at 1:00pm (City Hall, Room 250), and the SFUAA is hoping to once again fill the room with supporters! This could be the beginning of some very positive and exciting steps for the city, so if you have time on your lunch break, please consider attending to show your support (wear green, if you can). We hope to see you there!