St Paul Community Gardens: A Study of Public Land Use Policies and Relationships with District Councils

Urban Farm DB summary

A research project examined community gardens in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA, against a backdrop of rising development pressure and disappearing vacant space, looking at public land use policies and how cooperation between public agencies and community organizations affects garden creation and protection. Creating an inventory of public land use policies in St Paul and Ramsey County, including the city's water utility policy for community gardens, the project found that gardening is possible on most types of public land and that gardens have had generally successful relationships with most landowning agencies—but also found that a lack of this policy information has been a crucial barrier to garden implementation and has in some cases prevented development. District councils were found to both collaborate with city planners and act as community organizers, giving them, as nonprofits with a direct relationship to city government, access to funding and public lands not available to other organizations.