Apartment-dwellers David and Melissa Falgout spent 17 months on a waiting list for the chance to rent a precious plot of dirt at Makiki District Park community garden next to the H-1 freeway.
But as of a month ago, the Falgouts are growing everything from Chinese long beans to baby cantaloupes on a 10-by-10-foot parcel for which they pay $10 a year plus $5 in annual dues.
The couple is worried about the environment: The two live in a small apartment, don’t own a car and decided not to have their landlord replace the broken air conditioner. Growing their own produce garden two blocks away from the apartment is "certainly an environmental choice," David Falgout said.
City Council members Carol Fukunaga and Joey Manahan said they’ve heard enough about long waits for plots and want Mayor Kirk Caldwell and the city Department of Parks and Recreation to locate vacant city properties that could add to the inventory of 11 community recreational gardening sites. Of the 11 sites, the city lists only 10, with a total of 1,248 plots, on its website.
"FOR MANY residents, gardening and other community efforts are certainly becoming more of the norm," Fukunaga said.
Resolution 13-146 received overwhelming written and oral support at a Council Parks Committee meeting Tuesday.
Laura St. Denis, volunteer secretary for the Diamond Head Community Garden, said people often wait for more than a year. "Somebody either has to move out or give out their garden," St. Denis said, adding that she’s enlisted the help of area Councilman Stanley Chang to find additional spots in East Honolulu where gardens can be developed. "I would encourage you to have gardens created in other areas around town. It enhances the community in a number of ways."
City Parks Director Toni Robinson said she was told "most of the community garden sites don’t have wait lists, but some do." She did not know which of the 11 had waiting lists and which didn’t, however. Robinson said she was told those on wait lists stay between three to eight months.
As for the call for broadening the community gardens program, Robinson said "we would have difficulty expanding it" due to cost considerations. "We only have one person organizing the 11 clubs, and it’s very tasking to handle that many clubs and that many plots."
However, Robinson said, "public-private partnerships would certainly be something we’d be interested in exploring."
Fukunaga said the nonprofit Kokua Hawaii Foundation’s Aina in Schools program, a partnership with Oahu public schools to educate students about the significance of agriculture and gardening, could serve as a model for the city.
Natalie McKinney, the foundation’s program development director, did not attend the meeting, but told the Star-Advertiser that her group maintains a network of more than 200 volunteers who set up school gardens on each campus and teach students about food and where it comes from.
"We certainly are building a cadre of people whom we hope have the capability to assist in a variety of communities if they do identify properties where community gardens could be built," McKinney said. Additionally, she said, "We can help connect the city with resources and people and also other organizations who are doing tremendous work in the area of food security and food sustainability."
McKinney said the North Shore Community Land Trust is already eyeing 25 acres next to Sunset Beach Elementary School that would be conducive to a community gardens site.
