By Tara Kyle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
CHELSEA — A mother reminiscing about watching the blue jays and beekeepers at the East Village's Green Oasis Garden was one of 80 attendees who showed up at public hearing Tuesday on new rules proposed for community gardens.
After the 2002 Community Gardens Agreement expires on Sept. 17, advocates fear that the city’s nearly 300 small gardens will be too vulnerable to housing developers. They believe that the current city regulations proposed to replace the agreement would not assure the long-term lifespan of these green spaces.
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who attended Tuesday's meeting, asked for revisions to the new rules.
“There is more work to be done to ensure the long term protection of community gardens,” Quinn said at the Chelsea Recreation Center, where the overflow crowd left dozens waiting in line to enter even an hour into the hearing.
Quinn asked for specific provisions to the new rules including the automatic renewal of licenses for gardening groups that are fully compliant with Parks Department rules, the translation of relevant public notices into all languages necessary for the communities supporting them, and a mechanism that would allow GreenThumb — a Parks Department group charged with overseeing community gardens — a 180-day grace period to find and license new patrons for gardens abandoned by the groups operating them.
In the future, she suggested exploring additional steps including long term leases and designating community gardens as parkland.
Prior to the hearing, the New York City Community Garden Coalition held a rally in front of a small garden space near Chelsea's Robert S. Fulton housing project.
“We like everything [about the gardens],” said Fulton Houses resident Hilda Sonera, holding her 2-year-old twin daughters in a stroller. “There’s vegetables, flowers, everything.”
Chelsea resident Xavier Rayan, 34, remembered how the care he gave to a garden on West 47th Street between Ninth and Tenth avenues helped him recall childhood activities in Orange County, CA, and provided a safe place for his family and others.
“In Hell’s Kitchen, it was actually a sanctuary,” said Rayan, who works as a graphic designer. “Especially in a city like this, it’s a nice oasis away from all the hectic work.”
