Bed Stuy shouldn't be forced to choose between its home-grown community gardens and affordable housing. Please sign this petition to ask New York City Housing Preservation and Development and Mayor Bill de Blasio to select alternative sites for affordable housing to save Patchen Community Square. 

Patchen Community Square is a GreenThumb garden that was founded in 2012 and transformed from a dump site to a vibrant green space in the community. We are a place where all neighbors are welcome to come, to grow food, to learn and to promote positive change. We've welcomed school groups, block associations and non-profit organizations into our space and held community events.

This garden has been slated for a rental housing program that would create 10 units of housing in this space which 1/3 of the units would go to people making less than 165% of the Area Medium Income which means these units would be about $3,200 per month for a family of four. The remaining 2/3 of units would be luxury units. Patchen Square believes a vibrant neighborhood includes both fair housing and access to green space. 17 of the 181 sites selected by HPD for this program are active community gardens. Over 750 sites in HPD's inventory were not included.

We urge HPD to remove all 17 active community gardens from this list and not force the people of New York City to choose between the right to fair housing and the right to public green space.

Website: www.patchensquare.com | Twitter: @PatchenSquare

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PatchenCommunitySquare