Re:[Mpls] Community Gardens at risk
In the 1970s the notion of "vest-pocket" parks was in vogue and there are a couple of examples that come readily to mind. One is the corner lot at the intersection of Maple Place and Nicollet Street on the north tip of Nicollet Island, established during the early days of the Nicollet Island PAC and still available for that tiny neighborhood's routine use. Another is Clifton Field in the Whittier Neighborhood, tucked away on about a third of block between Clinton and 4th Avenue S. just north of E. 25th St. I don't doubt there are more of these multi-purpose postage stamps around the city. "Vest-pocket" parks are more intimate than the bigger parks and more conducive to interactive participation in some ways - the city mows the grass and whatnot at Clifton Field and in my time on the Island from 1970-1981, we residents kept up the corner lot, mowing the grass, maintaining a rock garden along one edge and a flower garden in one corner of the lot, tidying up after cookouts and the like. We also had a geodesic structure for a while compliments of the School of Architecture. Just last year, Charles Horn Terrace Peace Park was honored with a CUE award as also the Korean Gardens on the West Bank - two additional contemporary examples of the viability of this concept. My own experience over the past decade or so has led me to the belief that there ought to be room in the city's life for both vigorous espousal of affordable housing and also a touch here and there of the notion of vest pocket parks. These ought not be mutually exclusive agendas but rather sensible components of good urban design at the neighborhood level. Details will surely vary, but not every square foot of vacant ground need be either a house or a community garden or an "official" city park. MCDA should have some flexibility in the disposition of its inventory and community gardeners and neighborhood organizations could be a little less linear in their thinking too. These modest gestures might also be a little more achievable than moving in on the sacred turf of the city's regular parks. Fred Markus, Horn Terrace, Ward Ten, in the Lyndale Neighborhood --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.491 / Virus Database: 290 - Release Date: 6/18/2003 TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
[Mpls] Community Gardens in the Minneapolis StarTribune
If you haven’t already, have a look at the article about community gardens and housing development in today’s Minneapolis StarTribune: http://www.startribune.com/stories/1671/3237680.html There’s more information in the print version. -Corrie Corrie Zoll, Program Director GreenSpace Partners A program of The Green Institute 2801 21st Avenue South, Suite 110 Minneapolis, MN 55407 Telephone 612-278-7119 Facsimile 612-278-7101 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.greeninstitute.org/GSP
RE: [Mpls] Community Gardens
Currently, if someone hurts themselves while walking, running, biking, skate boarding, etc., or playing ball or soccer, hockey, etc. on MPRB lands, what is the liability issue and insurance ramifications? Don't kids/parents have to sign liability waivers (for whatever they are worth- or not)? How would community gardens differ? Michael Hohmann Linden Hills > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of > Annie Young > Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 2:57 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [Mpls] Community Gardens > > > I also support new actions for the Park Board to help with Community > Gardens. I have served On CUE (Committee on Urban Environment) > and on the > NRP-ETC Committee of Phillips which has spent years on the community > gardens topics. The issue that raises it's ugly head no matter who you > talk to is LIABILITY. > If people can figure that issue out we might be able to resolve this > dilemma... snip > Annie Young > citywide Park Commissioner > snip ___ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
[Mpls] Community Gardens
I also support new actions for the Park Board to help with Community Gardens. I have served On CUE (Committee on Urban Environment) and on the NRP-ETC Committee of Phillips which has spent years on the community gardens topics. The issue that raises it's ugly head no matter who you talk to is LIABILITY. If people can figure that issue out we might be able to resolve this dilemma because I agree - everyone should have a garden if they so choose and we have lots of parkland that people assume we will take care of anyway so why not have a Green Spaces policy that covers a variety of settings. This has been one of those 25 years in the making government policies - so wouldn't you say, "it's about damned time?" (kind of like bottle deposits on pop bottles) Annie Young citywide Park Commissioner ___ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
Re: [Mpls] Community Gardens/Grave Monuments
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > people owned this property and were forced off the land, along with many others who may have rented from them[...]We should always remember the proper names that go with the improper deeds. We bought the lesson; what shall we learn from the lesson? > Keith Reitman NearNorth Many community gardens serve as monuments to the crime-plagued structures that once stood on their lots. You can find example after example of groups of neighbors that changed abandoned vacant lots once home to drug trafficking and prostitution into centers for community activity. I don't believe many were aware of the positive impacts community gardening would have in these communities plagued with vacant property. Now community gardens are being removed from the lots with the same slash-and burn mentality that destroyed so many residential properties in the 1980s and 1990s. Leases are being revoked, gardens are being mowed down, and lots are being sold to housing developers without anyone informing community gardeners (people who are properly, legally leasing the sites) that their gardens are at risk. (By the way, Mr. Mayor, community garden activists now call this a "Giuliani-Style" community garden policy). We lost too much housing to demolition. Now we have lost too many gardens in the same manner. Soon we will begin to lose the connections between people that were grown in the gardens. ___ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
[Mpls] Community Gardens at Charles Horn Terrace/Tower
Our Peace Park/Youth Farm Community Garden dedication event is tonight, 3110 Blaisdell Ave. S., 115 W. 31st. St., and 3121 Pillsbury Ave. S. There's an outdoor reception at 6:00 and Council Member Dan Niziolek will cut a ribbon at 6:30. Sans thunderboomers, I hope! Youth Farm is providing light refreshments and I do believe Police Reserve band member and fellow resident Melody Jackson will provide some incidental music early on. The sunflowers started under lights are getting ready to open. Many hundreds of donated plants are safely in the ground. The resident gardeners and their Youth Farm counterparts have been tending individual plots in the community garden. Countless wheelbarrow loads of topsoil, compost materials and woodchips have been trundled about by many youthful hands and one way or another the adjacent lawn and fenceline areas are sprouting places for folks to sit comfortably whatever their time of life. There are too many people and institutions to thank for this bounty in a simple email. Youth Farm has a souvenir program for that and something of a wish list for the future. What strikes me personally is the change in my fellow residents in public housing: there is ownership now where a sense of isolation once prevailed. Lyndale Neighborhood folks have been here twice by invitation recently, once for a pre-primary city council candidate forum last fall and again in January, 2002 when we had a community meeting about keeping the gardens rather than seeing new housing shoehorned into the greenspace amenity. Tonight we are privileged to host the LNA annual meeting, where the point can again be emphasized that we public housing residents are as much a part of Lyndale as the homeowners, other renters, and businesspeople that will take part in this community get-together. Never mind the differences in income, language and culture! This is about reinforcing and celebrating our sense of place: who we are and where we live as a community with many shared values. Stop by if you like this evening. We won't make such a big deal of the outside event tonight but plan for National Night Out on August 6 for a more extended event with live music, plenty of food, a farmers market with locally grown produce, and garden tours when all these young plants are in full bloom. Remember, please, no parking onsite tonight. One solution is to park over by KMart and think about the proposed seven lanes of Lake St. traffic that may well challenge elderly and disabled pedestrians and family members with young children in tow as the Nicollet-Lake development takes form. Fred Markus, Horn Terrace, Ward Ten ___ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
Re: [Mpls] Community Gardens/Grave Monuments
In a message dated 6/21/02 11:05:40 AM Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << Over the past 5 years, Minneapolis has experienced a dramatic loss of community gardens. Community gardening is an important tool for neighborhood stability and community interaction. Losing gardens means losing public green space, neighbor to neighbor connections, neighborhood empowerment, direct access to nutritious food, and much more. Community gardening movements in the United States are often a reaction to social crises, and so it would make sense that community gardening would decline during the period of increasing economic stability of the late 1990s. Witness the dramatic reduction of the number of vacant residential lots in the city that occurred in response to the affordable housing crunch. >> Keith says; I tip my hat to the positive aspects of community gardens. I shudder whenever I revisit how the exponential rise in, "...the number of vacant residential lots in the city...occurred..."!! Now the number of vacant lots, and also community gardens, is decreasing. If anyone wishes to consider community gardens as much more then a temporary place-keeper, like a bookmark, that is fine with me. I watched, pained, for twenty years as the number of vacant lots increased. DFL City Leaders, one after another after the next, and with increasing ferocity, so people as placekeepers and the equivalent of bookmarks as they wantonly tore down this city's infrastructure of affordable housing to create those lots. And sent broken families to the shelters, to pile-on their relatives and friends, or under the bridge. Sharon Sayles Belton, Jackie Cherryhomes, Joe Biernat, Jim Niland, and so many others made manifest, through their focused demolition actions, what must have been their stealth policy goal: Economic and Racial Cleansing. I do not wish to use inflammatory language: I do wish all will calmly look at the actions and the outcomes. And then ask, ' Who did this, and why?' As I drove around the Northside today, along the different streets in our alphabet, I was astounded at the huge number of new housing starts. I was incredulous. It was as if there were two or three new foundations or framing on every block around A, B, C, D, E, F, and G between Lowry And West Broadway. And many more between Highway 55 and West Broadway. So that is the outcome of the demolition policy of the DFL City Leaders. Most all of us survivors, you and I, are going to benefit from our "New Neighborhoods". How long will reasonable, thoughtful people consider and remember that under most all of these new structures there is a story. And for how long will they care, and gain insight from the fact that most all of these lots held older houses, duplexes and apartments. That people owned this property and were forced off the land, along with many others who may have rented from them. These new homes may now be holy sites because of the havoc rendered upon the people who once dwelt there. They are certainly grave reminders and monuments. We should always remember the proper names that go with the improper deeds. We bought the lesson; what shall we learn from the lesson? Keith Reitman NearNorth ___ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
Re: [Mpls] Community Gardens at Charles Horn Terrace/Tower
Greg Congratulations. We (Minneapolis Parks Legacy Society) have an event on Sat. June 22nd Noon to 3:00 at 3954 Bryant Ave S. Former residence for Park Superintendent's. Dedication for the National Historic Register of the Theodore Wirth Home and Admin Bldg. We are hosting this event in collaboration with the East Harriet Farmstead Neighborhood Council HOUSE TOURS START AT NOON - "Picnic in the Park" 1:00 is the DEDICATION Rybak, Niziolek, and Benson with Vivian Mason will be presiding. Please Pass the word on to your neighborhood. FREE COOKIES, LEMONADE AND MUSIC - A COUPLE OF OLD FASHIONED CARS ETC. THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT MARY BELFRY - TANGLETOWN --- Gregory Luce <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hey, this is terrific and congrats to those > involved. One note, which I > find exceptional, is the appearance that Lyndale > Neighborhood > Association may be holding its annual meeting at > Horn Towers, the MPHA > high-rise. If true, that's a terrific example of how > to bring the > neighborhood group to people rather than people > having the onus of going > to the neighborhood group, particularly when it > comes to low-income > tenants. I'm putting this thing on my calendar. > > Gregory Luce > Project 504/Minneapolis (North Phillips) > > Fredric Markus wrote: > > >CM Dan Niziolek will > >be cutting a dedicatory ribbon next Monday, June 22 > (reception at 6:00, > >scissors at 6:30, LNA annual meeting at 7) and > we'll have the place > >shined up for public viewing. > > > >This is a remarkable collaborative effort among > public housing > >residents, their public agency landlord, the > adjoining neighborhood and > >a signal number of non-profits who labor in > sustainable > >community-building fields. > > > > > ___ > Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic > Discussion - Mn E-Democracy > Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: > http://e-democracy.org/mpls = Mary Belfry (612) 822-6028 __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ___ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
[Mpls] Community Gardens
Over the past 5 years, Minneapolis has experienced a dramatic loss of community gardens. Community gardening is an important tool for neighborhood stability and community interaction. Losing gardens means losing public green space, neighbor to neighbor connections, neighborhood empowerment, direct access to nutritious food, and much more. Community gardening movements in the United States are often a reaction to social crises, and so it would make sense that community gardening would decline during the period of increasing economic stability of the late 1990s. Witness the dramatic reduction of the number of vacant residential lots in the city that occurred in response to the affordable housing crunch.Community gardens offer unique opportunities for community organizing, crime prevention, food production, cultural interaction, youth programming, community beautification, and addressing urban health issues. I can describe these benefits in detail if you like. Losing community gardens means losing the same set of opportunities.The development of affordable housing is understandably the single top priority for the mayor and for the city council. Some individuals perceive a competition for space between community gardens and affordable housing development. Approximately 50 community gardens currently operate on city or county owned property. Even if every one of these lots were suitable forhousing development (which is unlikely), the number of units of housing that could be developed in this space is smaller than the number of housing units in a single large housing development.Rather than hindering affordable housing development, community gardens make affordable housing more realistic by providing opportunities for urban dwellers (especially recent immigrants) to create a supplemental source of food and income. Making urban living and homeownership more affordable.Cities like Boulder CO, Petaluma CA, Worcester MA, Durham NC, Hereford TX, Norwich VT, Trenton NJ, and Toronto ONT have successfully combined community gardening with affordable housing development. Other cities have taken awaycommunity garden space in order to marginally increase affordable housing development and face considerable controversy. These cities include Sacramento CA, Eugene OR, and New York City. Again, I can offer more specific examples if you like.I believe that no more existing community gardens in Minneapolis should be taken until a comprehensive community gardening policy can be developed. And when an existing community garden space is taken, a suitable replacement should be found. One example of this would be the Peace garden at Cedar & 94, a garden established to replace community garden space taken for development of LRT shops & yards. I believe that the city of Minneapolis should include development of a set amount of community garden space per unit of affordable housing.I'm curious to hear the views of other list membersCorrie ZollMidtown Phillips (home to 8 community gardens this year)
Re: [Mpls] Community Gardens at Charles Horn Terrace/Tower
Hey, this is terrific and congrats to those involved. One note, which I find exceptional, is the appearance that Lyndale Neighborhood Association may be holding its annual meeting at Horn Towers, the MPHA high-rise. If true, that's a terrific example of how to bring the neighborhood group to people rather than people having the onus of going to the neighborhood group, particularly when it comes to low-income tenants. I'm putting this thing on my calendar. Gregory Luce Project 504/Minneapolis (North Phillips) Fredric Markus wrote: >CM Dan Niziolek will >be cutting a dedicatory ribbon next Monday, June 22 (reception at 6:00, >scissors at 6:30, LNA annual meeting at 7) and we'll have the place >shined up for public viewing. > >This is a remarkable collaborative effort among public housing >residents, their public agency landlord, the adjoining neighborhood and >a signal number of non-profits who labor in sustainable >community-building fields. > ___ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
