Community Gardens to Be Classified as “Open Space” on City Planning Database

The bill will help protect community gardens and allow them to remain in the City. On March 29, 2020, Introduction 1652-A was enacted into Local Law 46 of 2020. Local Law 46 requires the Department of City Planning to reclassify tax lots currently used as GreenThumb community gardens on the Primary Land Use Tax Lot Output (“PLUTO”) database. The PLUTO database has information on the City’s tax lots. Currently, tax lots with GreenThumb … <Read More>


City Planning Approves Parks’ Acquisition of Community Garden with Community Support

The City Planning Commission approved the acquisition of 6,000-square-foot community garden and passive recreation lot to place under jurisdiction of the Parks Department. On July 16, 2017, the City Planning Commission issued a favorable report on a joint application filed by the Department of Parks and Recreation and the Department of Citywide Administrative Services to acquire private property at 237 Maple Street in the Prospect-Lefferts Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn. The acquired property would be used … <Read More>


New community garden preservation rules released

Parks intends to preserve community gardens under its jurisdiction. There are more than 600 community gardens participating in the City’s GreenThumb Program. Since 2001, gardens on City-owned lots have been administered pursuant to practices memorialized in a 2002 agreement between the City and the State Attorney General’s Office, which expired on September 17, 2010. Prior to its expiration, the Department of Parks and Recreation published a new set of rules that codified and strengthened the … <Read More>