Categories: General
      Date: Sep 29, 2009
     Title: Gardens, Chickens and Hoophouses...Planning for Urban Agriculture

Interest in urban agriculture is growing, given the desire for locally grown food and reuse of vacant land.  However, most urban Planning Commissions have not considered agricultural uses in their ordinances and plans.  In addition, there are many urban farming uses in existence today that most commissioners (and many planners) have never even contemplated.

• Side lot residential gardens - A vacant lot adjacent to a residential lot used by individual residents for gardening.  The food is consumed by the growers.
• Block group gardens - Gardens used by the surrounding residents to grow food for use by only those residents in the block.
• Community gardens - Gardened by a group of people, not necessarily in the neighborhood, they are typically owned in trust by local governments or nonprofits. Plots are tended individually or in a communal fashion.
• Market gardens - Small-scale production of fruits, vegetables & flowers (between less than 1 acre and a few acres).  Products are sold by the growers directly to consumers in the area.
• Urban homesteads - Property in the City where households grow food on their property with the goal of being self sufficient.
• Urban farms - Agricultural or aqua-cultural activities for commercial production of farm products. These farms are often hydroponic, utilizing raised beds and irrigation systems and are often located inside buildings.
• Keeping of animals for food, including chickens, goats, and bees.
• Phytoremediation - the use of plants to clean pollution in the environment.  This could also include the growing of bio-fuels for energy production.