Daily Sitka Sentinel

Proposal for Gardens Gets Airing At Hearing

By GARLAND KENNEDY

Sentinel Staff Writer

A proposal for creating community gardens at two locations in town received an initial public hearing and some feedback, Monday evening.

In the current plan, a parcel on Osprey Street near Vilandre ball field and another on Jarvis Street near the city transfer station would be developed into gardens and subdivided into plots so locals, from novices to horticulturalists, could try growing food.

About two dozen people filed into Centennial Hall to hear a presentation summarizing the plan by Joel Hanson, a project organizer. City Planning Director Amy Ainslie also spoke, discussing the role of the city in the process of developing gardens on half-acre plots owned by the municipality.

Along with the presentations, members of the public inquired into topics as wide ranging as food security, water drainage, fencing and bear security.

The desire for food security in town is a crucial aspect of the gardening project, Hanson told the audience.

“We would like to see both (sites) developed; we believe that there is a sufficient need for food security in the community to warrant the development of both sites,” he said. “And one of the reasons we developed designs for two sites was in case there were irreconcilable circumstances with one of them, that we would still have another one that we could hopefully develop.”

Joel Hanson, community garden project organizer, talks about the proposal for creating community gardens at two locations in town, Monday at Centennial Hall.  About two dozen people attended the presentation. (Sentinel Photo)

Both suggested locations would be subdivided into about 50 10x20-foot gardening plots, with a handful of additional spots for vertical gardening as well. The plan, Hanson said, is eventually to form a steering committee to administer the gardens. At the moment, the nonprofit organizations Transition Sitka and the Sitka Local Foods Network are spearheading the project.

The goal is to launch a new cooperative organization along the lines of a similar group in Juneau.

“We’re modeling this project after the Juneau Community Garden Association, which has been in operation for about 25 years,” Hanson said. “They’ve had a site up in Mendenhall Valley, a two-and-a-half-acre site, for about 15 years… It’s been working for them in their community association. They don’t take any money from the city; it’s an independent, cooperative organization. And that’s the kind of thing that we would like to do here as well.”

Along with gardening plots for individuals, plans also call for fruit trees, vertical beds, bathroom facilities and fencing.

If the gardens are to become reality, organizers will have to convince the city to lease the requested land - a move which would require an ordinance to be voted on twice by the Assembly.

“I thought it would be helpful for the policymakers that would be looking at this lease proposal, those members from the Planning Commission and from the Assembly as well to have some input early on in the process about what the community is interested in or looking for, (as well as) concerns they might have, what things we might be able to kind of work out on the front end in terms of solutions, or mitigations, that make everybody happy and keep in these community gardens as a asset for the community,” planning director Ainslie said.

Along with gathering information early in the process, the city also will conduct site visits and a Planning Department review, after which the proposal would move on to the Planning Commission, Ainslie said.

The commission would make a recommendation to the Assembly, which would provide direction on whether and how to go about leasing the desired parcels.

Ainslie and Hanson also fielded questions from the audience, which nearly filled one of the side rooms in Centennial Hall. People inquired about drainage on the property, parking concerns, fertilizer and more. While one commenter noted that there is some opposition to the garden on Osprey Street from within the nearby neighborhood, no one spoke in direct opposition to the project at Monday’s meeting.

Regarding drainage, because the city owns the land at both sites, “we have our standard permitting processes for grading, drainage, that sort of thing,” Ainslie said. “And so there would be other checkpoints along the way, in terms of the development and what, you know, what happens with drainage.”

As for parking, the Osprey garden design indicates spaces on the north side of the plot, with no street parking on Osprey itself. The Jarvis location would include a handful of spaces to the south of the garden. A bicycle shelter would be present at both sites.

The city will conduct a parking analysis soon.

Speaking on a previous attempt to establish a community garden behind Blatchley Middle School, Hanson noted that that site was much smaller than those proposed now, which prevented the old garden from reaching “critical mass.”

“The reason for that (bigger area) is you need to have a critical mass of membership, participants, gardeners in order to successfully carry out the cooperative association concept,” he said. “... The smaller the garden is, the fewer the participants, the fewer chances you have of finding the core group of people that you need to carry the gardening project out into the future.”

In a separate document handed out at the meeting, it was noted that the lack of fencing at the old Blatchley garden – which shut in 2016 – contributed to “pilfering and vagrancy.... Gradually, minor grievances and misunderstandings led to the conclusion that the garden as it was organized and operated at that time was not a good fit.”

That project was run under the banner of Community Schools, then a Sitka School District program, which created administrative headaches, Hanson noted.

Replying to a question about pesticide use, Hanson said chemical pesticides and outside compost would not be permitted. Both locations would be fenced, though only the Jarvis site would include an electric fence to mitigate bear intrusion.

In terms of finances for a future garden, a plot would likely cost about $35 or $40 to use, and grant funding may be available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he added.

“There are substantial funds available for these kinds of projects. It may take a year or two to get sufficient funds together to have the sites fully developed,” he said.

The Planning Commission will meet July 19 to discuss the garden plan.