Osanpo Batake rental gardens by Akisuke Nagata, Hyogo and Nagata Wards, Kobe
Kobe (兵庫区・長田区), Japan · Operator: 空き助ながた
Overview
A come-empty-handed rental garden run at two sites in Kobe — Kanda-cho in Hyogo Ward and Komagabayashi-cho in Nagata Ward — by Akisuke Nagata, a group that turns vacant houses and lots into neighbourhood assets. Its distinguishing feature is that vegetable waste and prunings are recycled into compost with a local type-B employment support workshop rather than incinerated, with the goal of getting people to use fully matured "craft compost", made entirely from local plant material and inputs, as a matter of course.
Citizen participation
A "come empty-handed" rental garden: residents without tools of their own can take a plot and start growing. Vegetable waste and prunings from the plots are composted together with a local type-B continuous employment support workshop for people with disabilities.
Operating model
Part of a wider effort to turn the problem of vacant houses and lots into a neighbourhood asset by converting idle land into rental gardens. Composting is shared with a welfare employment workshop, with the stated aim of making fully matured compost — from 100% locally sourced plant material and inputs — something people use casually and routinely.
Impact
Notable for tying idle-land reuse, supported employment for people with disabilities, and the reduction of food and green waste into a single arrangement. The source gives no plot or user numbers.
Land tenure
Vacant lots put to interim use as rental gardens. The source does not specify the contractual form.
Crops
- vegetables
Scale
神戸市兵庫区神田町および長田区駒ヶ林町の2か所。面積は出典に記載がない。
In the media（3）
Web articles and features that cover this case.
Sources（2）
This entry is compiled from the public sources, official sites and research below.
Related cases
BK ROT Bike-Powered Composting (Brooklyn)
USBrooklyn, New York, United States
A fossil-fuel-free, bike-powered community-compost enterprise founded in Bushwick, Brooklyn, that collects and composts food scraps while creating good jobs for youth and green space, countering environmental racism and gentrification.
bkrot.org+2
Jaden Tap Tap community garden, Cité Soleil (Port-au-Prince, Haiti)
HTPort-au-Prince (Cité Soleil), Haiti
In Cité Soleil, Port-au-Prince, residents turned over an acre of former rubbish dump into a community garden. Started in 2012 by three local men, it now holds more than 500 brightly painted tyre gardens, plus a flower garden and a moringa nursery, and is described as Haiti's largest urban community garden.
sakala-haiti.org+1
Seseragi Community Garden (Machi no Namagomi Ikashi-tai)
JPHino, Japan
A community garden in Hino City, Tokyo, started by citizens who believe 'kitchen waste is a treasure.' It collects and composts the kitchen waste of around 200 households and grows vegetables and flowers pesticide-free as a food-cycle garden. Naomi Shimpo studied its management and governance in detail in her 2021 and 2024 papers.
acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com+3
NATURE STUDIO, in the former Minatoyama primary school, Hyogo Ward, Kobe
JPKobe (兵庫区), Japan
A community complex created by renovating Minatoyama municipal primary school, closed in 2015, around the theme of "making nature and everyday life". An aquarium, an edible botanical garden, a herb shop, a brewery, a supported-employment facility, childcare and after-school care and welfare services sit side by side, cultivating a place where people, nature and neighbourhood connect. As a partner organisation of the Kobe Compost Project it sets out to work with users to find forms of cycling that are easy to sustain in daily life.
compost.smartkobe-portal.com+3