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Threatened Community Garden Could Become Park Through Eminent Domain

By Rachel Holliday Smith | January 26, 2016 1:40pm | Updated on January 27, 2016 8:36am
 State representatives Velmanette Montgomery and Diana Richardson introduced legislation that could preserve the Roger That community garden in Crown Heights as a state park.
State representatives Velmanette Montgomery and Diana Richardson introduced legislation that could preserve the Roger That community garden in Crown Heights as a state park.
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CROWN HEIGHTS — Local gardeners are putting pen to paper in a letter-writing campaign this week aimed at saving a community garden through eminent domain, according to two state legislators sponsoring bills that would make the green space a state park.

The Roger That Garden at 115 Rogers Ave. and Park Place in Crown Heights has been in and out of court for years with TYC Realty, the company that bought the property in 2013 and has since filed plans to build a four-story building on the lot.

But since a judge threw out TYC’s eviction case in November, siding with gardeners who have maintained and planted the space since 2011, members of Roger That have been pursuing a different course for protecting the garden long-term.

Last month, State Sen. Velmanette Montgomery and Assemblywoman Diana Richardson each introduced bills in the legislature that would seize the Roger That plot through the use of eminent domain, turning it into state parkland “to be managed by neighborhood volunteers through the New York City parks department Green Thumb program,” the bill reads.

Both bills were referred to committee in early January, according to senate records, but have not yet been calendared for a vote.

To help push the legislation along, members of Roger That planned a letter-writing campaign at a Crown Heights bar on Tuesday to urge politicians in Albany to consider the eminent domain action.

“It’s important that they see that people care about Roger That and know what’s going on in our communities,” the group wrote in an email to supporters this week. “The people do not want luxury condos. We want healthy communities, volunteerism and open space.”

This is the second recent attempt by a local community garden to use an eminent domain bill to permanently protect green space. Last October, State Sen. Jesse Hamilton introduced a bill to seize the Maple Street Community Garden by eminent domain amid a back-and-forth legal battle between the gardeners and two brothers who claim ownership of the Prospect-Lefferts Gardens property.

Both Roger That and the Maple Street garden were featured in a recent New York Times report about imperiled community gardens in all five boroughs, including more than a dozen city-owned green spaces set to be replaced by affordable housing.

In the report, attorney Paula Segal of 596 Acres who represents Roger That and Maple Street, told the Times, “community gardens are the most vulnerable spaces in the city.”

“If you are a developer and looking for the opportunity to evict 16 families from their homes, or evict 16 community gardeners from where they grow their food, which would you choose? If you’re looking for the easy pickings, a garden is easier to evict,” she said.

On Dec. 31 the city stepped in and made 34 city-owned emperor community greenspaces under threat of demolition parks. Neither Roger That nor Maple Street are city-owned.

Letter writing on behalf of the Roger That Garden will take place on Tuesday, Jan. 26 from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Two Saints bar located at 753 Nostrand Ave.