Speakers defend neighborhood community gardens and raise land-bank ownership concerns

Public comment at the March 24 Cleveland City Council meeting included appeals to protect community gardens and to guard against developers taking over garden plots on city-owned or land-bank parcels.

Fauzi Badur, introduced as representing a Coalition for a Better Cleveland and speaking from Ward 11, described the proliferation of community and private gardens across Cleveland and objected to developers attempting to take over gardens on land-bank parcels. "I mean, for somebody to come to be able to take a community garden must be get help from this city because the community garden usually owned by land bank in this city, and that's wrong," Badur said. He described one garden on West 96 in Madison that operates year-round and sells eggs and honey, drawing customers from other suburbs.

Badur said community gardens began as an idea under Mayor Michael White and stressed their social and nutritional value: "They create life in that ground... Life and spread health." He said his own private garden includes fruit trees and herbs and that he holds a deed on his plot.

Why it matters: Community gardens can provide food access, local small-economy activity and neighborhood green space. Speakers asked the council to consider protections when property held by the land bank is redeveloped and to respect deeded garden plots.

What the record does not show: No staff response, proposed ordinance or formal council direction on garden protections appears in the transcript excerpt; the extent to which specific parcels are in active dispute or under development is not specified in the meeting record.