Brownsville's Green Valley Community Garden in Danger of Being Destroyed

BROWNSVILLE, NY — The Green Valley Community Park has been a Brownsville staple, and one of the only sources of fresh-grown local produce in the area, since the 1990s. But the 8,400-square-foot garden at 93 New Lots Ave. is in imminent danger of being wiped out and replaced with a new affordable housing development by the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD).

Gardeners have been warned by the HPD they'll be evicted from the lot by Dec. 31 of this year.

The city's reasoning, Patch has learned, is that much of the garden is situated on "encroachment lots," where the HPD says the garden has no legal right to be, Patch has learned.

City officials sent a letter to Green Valley gardeners in June, saying their garden had the right to just a small lot on the property — and that most of the garden's land had "encroached upon" the HPD-owned land.

Baffled, the community members who run the garden, mostly volunteers, wrote the HPD asking for a deadline extension while they sorted out the case. But the HPD sent back a warning letter in October saying that if gardeners didn't clear everything out by Dec. 31, the city would do it for them.

Of the garden's five lots, the HPD's letters said it only had the right to occupy "Lot 1" — essentially a 1,680-square-foot sliver of sidewalk.

Brownsville residents and green-space advocates in NYC say they're furious the city would clear out such a beloved local garden and farm — especially one chosen by the NYC Parks Department, the mayor and the HPD itself last year to be permanently preserved.

"The long-held view of both users of the space and Parks staff is that Green Valley encompasses the entire area of the garden," said Paula Segal, executive director of the 596 Acres, an organization that helps preserves parks in NYC. (In other words, when city officials agreed to permanently preserve Green Valley, the common knowledge was that Green Valley occupied more than just Lot 1.)

"Green Valley was dedicated last December," Segal said. "The city is obligated to keep its promise of preservation or seek legislative approval."

"The only way this land can be used for anything except Green Valley," she said, "is if the city gets permission to alienate this parkland via legislation in Albany."

A Change.org petition created by 596 Acres, demanding that Green Valley stay where it is, has racked up 117 signatures.

"Green Valley is a key Brownsville institution that provides fresh produce, science education, open space and recreation to our neighbors," the petition says. "Let's not start 2017 by evicting community farms! We need all our strength and places to build together to face the future boldly."

At a meeting Monday night, community members begged representatives of the HPD — as well as Inez Barron, their representative at City Hall — to keep their garden intact, Brownsville resident Brenda Duchene told Patch.

"If we take this garden away from the neighborhood, they're going to lose a lot," Duchene said. "We're in a food desert, and there's no other community-based farm like us."

Duchane told Patch she plans to "fight this to the end." If the city moves the farm to another lot, she'll lose months of business and neighbors will lose months of food, she said, seeing as she'll have to start another garden from scratch. (The garden can't split the land with the proposed affordable housing complexes, she said, because the new buildings would shade the area — making it impossible to grow most produce.)

At the end of the meeting, City Council Member Barron said she would try and work it out with the HPD, according to Duchene.

The HPD, NYC Parks and Barron's office did not immediately answer Patch's requests for comment.

Brownsville community members have been telling NYC Parks representatives forever now, Duchene said, that they'd like to see more community gardens in place of vacant lots in their neighborhood.

"It's ironic," she said. "You're asking us what we want. We're telling you we want farms and gardens. So do you really want to hear what we say, or are you just going through the motions and BS-ing us?"

Lead image via Google Maps