CROWN HEIGHTS — A local community garden has a new owner and, with it, some serious protection from future development.
This week, the 1100 Bergen Street Community Garden in Crown Heights became the 34th city garden to join the Brooklyn Queens Land Trust, a nonprofit organization that acquires open spaces in order to protect them from sale or development.
The garden has been operating in a lot on Bergen Street between Nostrand and New York avenues since 1980 and has been independently owned by its gardeners since 1989. But when the group got an “unprecedented tax bill” from the city last year, they wanted to “minimize the risk that they would lose the property” through debt accrual and foreclosure, said Paula Segal, attorney for the garden.
BQLT paid about $2,100 in debt for the garden in transferring the property to the land trust on Tuesday. Now that the garden is owned by the land trust, it cannot be bought, sold or developed, said Meg Fellerath, BQLT board president.
"It's been so satisfying to work collaboratively with everyone over the past year to make this happen, and we couldn't be happier to welcome this garden into the BQLT family!” she said in a statement.
Segal said the garden members had been holding bake sales for the past year to cover the debt on the property while pro-bono attorneys worked on the deed transfer.
"This is such a relief. I can sleep now. Before, I was worrying and worrying that we would mess up the paperwork and lose the garden," said Hazel Hurley, vice president at 1100 Bergen.
For more information about the 1100 Bergen Street Community Garden, visit the garden's Facebook page.
