I've been aware of the community garden concept for a long time, but never gave it much thought until I heard a recent NPR segment on the topic. What caught my attention was the notion that churches often have some of the largest green spaces in urban areas. Also of interest to me in this report were the variety of approaches different people were taking to the operation of community gardens in these spaces.

As a council member of my local church, it struck me that we have a bunch of open space at our church that would be ideal for a large garden. Furthermore, there seem to be several ways we could approach a community garden:

1. We simply make garden space available to neighbors (probably not effective since our neighbors have adequate space and their economic need is not great enough).
2. We install the garden, church members perform all the necessary duties and we then arrange to provide the crops to local food banks or shelters (the "we do it all ourselves" option).
3. We install a garden and have our church elementary school students use it as both a curriculum opportunity and a community service experience ("we do it all ourselves" with an educational benefit).
4. We provide our space to a local organization who has experience with this kind of thing and who has the distribution infrastructure in place to achieve maximum efficacy (we provide the space and let "professionals" do it better than we can ourselves).

Or... maybe the answer is some sort of mix of the above?

I'd be very interested in any direct experiences or knowledge others can share on this subject. I think our congregation could be very interested in pursuing this concept but I also know that we could expend a ton of energy and fall way short of its potential if our execution is flawed from the start. There seem to be a lot of potential pitfalls if we don't do our homework: What crops are most needed by the demographic in need? Are there health department issues? How would the distribution model work? Are there any liability issues? And as a former Planning Commissioner, I have to wonder about zoning issues? and... what if we end up pursuing this in a way that nobody has ever done before in this area? I'd hate for an effort like this to fall prey to unforeseen resistance or bureaucratic complexity...

Eager to hear everyone's thoughts... and would love to find an "expert" or two who might be willing to explore this with us.
Thanks in advance!

The new brick knee walls are being removed. They were not installed per HPC guidelines - note the projection of the knee walls past the existing brick pilasters. This brick infill, if properly installed would have been recessed a few inches and been a lot less obnoxious. The knee walls were installed this way because the masons allegedly did not want (or said it was not possible) to cut a few bricks in the corner to avoid a sprinkler riser (which the building did not even require). So they ended up projecting the walls to avoid the riser in one isolated location and then the decision was made in the field to do all the walls this way.

I believe the plan is to remove the brick and replace it with an panelized system of wood or wood-like substance which will be painted.

Browsing their awesome site. Looks like there's an awesome** contest to give away several multi-month memberships.

**I don't talk like that, but they do. Hey, a new drinking game!

A couple posts up

It looks awful - I can't believe that this will be the finished product.

Haven't seen it mentioned here yet, but a new Jimmy John's looks just about ready to open on Monroe in the Brassworks building (north side of the building - ground floor). Seems a bit close to the one on Monroe Center, but I suppose that there are a lot of people that will find that location more convenient than dealing with the downtown spot. I think it will be a nice addition to the North Monroe area for sure.

On a personal note, I look out my office window directly at the new site, and it just makes me constantly want a #5 with banana peppers.

On the issue of pedestrian connectivity -- the on-and-off ramps at 44th & 96 have been being worked on. They seem to be finished, and I discovered that there are NO crosswalks -at all-, nor any pedestrian signals. I had to cross a 3/4 lane onramp using the traffic lights as a guide and hope that the light remained red long enough for me to get across.

Beaten trails in the grass leading up to the overpass showed a demand for pedestrian access, but it is not provided. I then had to walk on a 3-foot shoulder along this realistically 50mph road over the bridge because no sidewalk is provided anywhere, and then cross another lane of traffic with no crosswalk or signal.

Other non-motorized trips are difficult to measure due to
lack of data. People are walking and biking but who are they? Where are people going
and what is the purpose of their trips? Related to that, are there amenities available to
serve those who prefer to walk? If not, would the availability of amenities encourage
more walking trips?
These questions are tough to answer except through anecdotal evidence. Within the
Grand Valley Metro Council Transportation Planning Process, comments are received
addressing the need for non-motorized facilities in busy commercial and residential areas.
The provision of connected non-motorized facilities or an integrated network of facilities
has also been cited as a priority in transportation surveys distributed by the Metro
Council.

Haven't you heard of the infamous evil plot to takeover the world starting with small pocket parks in medium sized cities? It's all over the Internets...

Joe

What do you guys think of the new exterior? It's kinda cool with the old painted ads on the brick, but I'm not sure on the mis-matched new brick so much. I thought they'd do something to tie them together a bit more.