Anonymous
By an edhat reader
Santa Barbara’s Eastside Park will be renovated in 2022 and the community garden, there since the land was deeded to the city in the early 1970s, will be pared back. Gardeners have been ordered to leave twenty plots by March 31, so that the perimeter fence can be moved in about forty feet, slicing off a good portion of the garden. Many of the gardeners are not happy. They have created a petition to gain public support to stop the shrinking of the garden.
This garden cutback comes at a time when interest in gardening has increased and the city has only two community gardens left, the one at Yanonali, and another at Rancheria on the westside. Online, one gardener, Danah, noted, “I am concerned with reducing the size of the community garden space as it already harbors a long waitlist of applicants eager to rent a plot.” She adds, “it would make more sense to me to enlarge the community garden space.”
But it gets worse for gardeners. The second phase of the renovation, to proceed this summer, involves razing all the current 200 square foot garden plots in the garden and replacing them with what may be 50 square foot plots. One avid local gardener, Cerena Childress has noted that the proposed 5’ x 10’ plots would only be big enough to grow three zucchini. “What they have in mind is a flower pot,” says gardener Keith Hieber.
This, all in the name of park improvement. “The intentions of those planning this garden undoubtedly were good, but this news is worse than if the city announced they were going to release hundreds of gophers in the garden,” says Fred Nadis, another of the gardeners. “They are trying to build community but in the process they are proposing to put in gardens that are too small for anything but show.”
A group of concerned Yanonali gardeners have begun meeting Saturday mornings at 10 am at the garden to try to shift the tide and welcome other supporters this coming Saturday February 5. Their group, Save Yanonali Garden, insists there is room enough in East Side Park for gardeners and a renovated park area. They would welcome any Santa Barbara resident to sign the petition that urges the city council to rethink the plan: https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-yanonali-community-garden.
uh…what a waste of my tax dollars. my $ goes to fund those gardens, not to have fences installed in the middle of them and reduce the size. what a joke.
i hope the city council steps in.
“But it gets worse for gardeners. ” , they could just Build walls & pave it over, same affect/result?
Rising above the panic, the truth is this.
(1) Yes, the fence line is changing on the NW edge. That’s settled. It’s unclear if this will reduce total size, because the fence may be pushed out on the other side. (2) The plots are a half century old and are in need of razing to improve them. We should be hopeful we actually have the funds to do that. (3) There are absolutely NO proposals currently in existence to reduce plot size. Go to the planning meeting if you are afraid that may be proposed… but right now there is literally no proposal or plans to do that. (4) There is a waiting list for spots, and some folks currently have multiple plots. That’s totally unfair and I will be advocating to abolish that in the future……. grow up and share this scare, precocious, and joyous public resource.
If you care about this, go to the meeting and advocate. For sure. The the armageddon-style panic tone is not based on any understanding in what really is happening here… very little has been planned or decided yet.