Latest dispute with city keeps Arverne community garden from growing
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The Rockaway Youth Task Force has developed a successful community garden in Arverne and is attempting to expand to an adjacent lot. Photo courtesy of RYTF
By David Brand
Like an untended bean pole, the tangled saga of a would-be community garden in Arverne just keeps growing.
After advocating for several years to turn a vacant parcel of city-owned property into a public garden, the Rockaway Youth Task Force, a local service organization, finally got permission from the city to plant on the plot earlier this year. The new piece of land is located next to a thriving RYTF community garden founded in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
Last month, however, the Parks Department barred the RYTF from returning to the property due to “unauthorized construction activity,” according to an email from Bill LoSasso, the director of the city’s GreenThumb community garden program. LoSasso also accused RYTF of violating social distancing orders because multiple people were working in the garden.
RYTF Director Milan Taylor responded to LoSasso by citing Parks’ own direction to organizations that maintain community gardens, which, Parks said, may remain open to members “at the discretion of each garden group, and only for absolutely necessary maintenance and season preparation.”
In the email, Taylor acknowledged that the RYTF did not ask for permission to build a small enclosed greenhouse on the site, though he contends that the organization has followed Department of Buildings and Parks Department guidelines for construction. The three workers on the site maintained appropriate distance during construction, he added.
Taylor urged LoSasso and the Parks Department to allow RYTF to plant fruit and vegetables in the garden and to distribute supplies to fight hunger in the low-income area.
“COVID-19 has hit the Rockaways particularly hard which has exacerbated many existing socio-economic issues we face as a community, especially that of hunger,” Taylor wrote in a follow-up email. “To support our community during these times, we have partnered with local non-profits to use the site as a staging area to distribute fresh and non-perishable foods to homebound seniors.”
More than 20 percent of the households and a third of the children in the Rockaways live below the federal poverty level, according to a 2018 report by the state comptroller’s office. The poverty rates in the eastern portion of the peninsula are even higher, the report found. A quarter of Far Rockaway residents and more than a third of Edgemere residents live below the federal poverty line.
The vacant lot where Rockaway Youth Task Force will build a garden. Photo courtesy of RYTF
In another email, Taylor said the abrupt closure was just the latest measure by the Parks Department to obstruct the organization’s use of the land.
“You've shown no effort to work with us or provide any solutions. Instead you sent emails not showing a single ounce of empathy or compassion to what communities of color such as ours are currently facing,” he wrote.
Taylor told the Eagle that the Parks Department did not issue any warning about social distancing and made just one phone call about the construction before locking the organization out of the community garden.
“A warning would have sufficed,” Taylor said. “To close down a half-acre of growing space for the community only hurts a community that’s already labeled as a federal food desert.”
Taylor said he wants Parks to reopen the plot so that RYTF can begin planting immediately.
In a statement, the Parks Department said community gardens are an “indispensable part of New York City's network of open spaces,” even during the coronavirus pandemic.
“After multiple observations of non-compliance to City and State social distancing and construction guidelines, and in order to protect the health and safety of the community, the construction site at this location has been temporarily closed,” Parks added.
