This community garden in LIC, Queens was founded in 2011 as a guerrilla garden and entered a formal agreement with the MTA/LIRR in 2014. This space has been envisioned and maintained as a transformative social project, characterized by its lack of a fence, which stands in contrast to traditional notions of private ownership. Instead of assigning individual garden beds, the entire area is managed collectively, fostering a decentralized leadership structure through a strong committee structure and allowing members to work together to beautify, problem solve and steward the commons. 

This oasis was under threat of eviction for reasons far beyond our control. What we are seeing at the garden is the symptom of societal shifts that are too large for one small organization like us to address on our own.

Kicking us off the land would have done nothing to resolve these issues. 

We have been in contact with the MTA and have had the eviction notice formally rescinded.  

We are still asking the MTA to: 

• collaborate with us to address the safety issues in our neighborhood 
• Offer us a 5 year land use agreement in order to secure funding to improve the garden and offer more permanent infrastructure for gardeners and visitors alike. 

We are calling on our extended community and supporters to step up to this occasion with us as we leverage the community power we have built over the past 13 years of service to the land, to the growing biodiversity of plants and animals occupying the space and to the diverse human populations who have enjoyed this project in-person and from afar. 

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We deeply appreciate your help and we hope to see you down at the ranch.        

Please note that the ask for money at the end of this petition is to promote the petition itself through this platform, it is not going directly to SHHR.