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Like fresh produce in spring, community gardens continue to sprout up throughout Kansas City.
Emily Miller, an associate of the Food Policy Coalition, stopped by the monthly Second Fridays meeting at Trailside Center last week to discuss the upcoming Urban Grown Farms and Gardens Tour, which will be held on Saturday, June 22 and Sunday June 23 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The tour, which only occurs every other year, is currently in its fifth installment and is designed to highlight more than 60 community gardens that have been started throughout the city. Those interested in checking it out can opt for a bus tour as well as bicycle tours. Individual tickets are available for $8, and can be purchased at www.cultivatekc.org.
Miller
and the rest of the Food Policy Coalition hope that the tour can help inspire
people to join or start community gardens of their own. Some stops on the tour
will provide workshops and lessons
for the whole family, and those on the tours will have access to some of the
freshest produce in the city.
Miller
noted that her organization is getting stronger, mostly due to the increasing
local support behind efforts to grow fresh, locally produced products.
“Our
coalition is made up of people who eat food, people who grow food, people who
sell food, and people who distribute food,” said Miller. “There are a lot of
people who are doing community gardening.”
Some
of the groundswell of support in favor of community gardens is actually coming
from city government, and the Land Bank that it created.
“One
of the objectives of the Land Bank is to promote urban agriculture, to promote community
gardens in
those areas,” added Miller.
Although
interest in community gardens has increased significantly, Miller noted that
there were still road-blocks to adding more gardens throughout the city. One of
the biggest issues, according to Miller, is access to water.
“They
have lots of folks that want to hand over lands for community gardens,” said
Miller. “But there’s no water access to those lands, so there’s no use for them
right now.”
It’s
a problem that 6th District councilman John Sharp has also noted.
“At
this point, I think water is the big issue,” said Sharp. “Hopefully we’ll be
able to work with the water department to come up with a solution.”
Also
at the meeting, Kansas City Public Works project manager Damon Hodges stopped
by to discuss progress
on the Longview Road project. Hodges noted that although the project suffered
through a late and chilly winter, his people have been working overtime to make
sure that the project was able to get finished by early summer.
“Initial
construction started on December 28. We were trying to get started, but as you
know we had a later winter this year,” said Hodges. “That threw a big wrench in
things. Our contractor was working 70-hour weeks for the two weeks before
Memorial Weekend. So they did a good job.”
Those
long work weeks paid off, as Hodges and company worked tirelessly to at least
get Longview Road open and serviceable for the summer swimming season at The
Bay Water Park. Now that Longview Road has been successfully opened, Hodges can
turn his attention to Stage 2 of the project, which has already begun.
“Right
now we’re in phase 2, which is to realign Food Lane,” said Hodges. “There’ll be
a new traffic signal there. We’ll actually be putting asphalt down there by
mid-July, maybe a bit sooner.”
Hodges
also noted that Food Lane would be a two-lane street that also included a turn
lane. In the past, big
vehicles had seen some trouble navigating those turns. Aside from the street
repairs, homeowners who experienced flooding recently will be happy to learn
that the city is working on the water mains as well.
“One
of the initiatives from the city manager was that each time we do a roadway
project, we fix the water
main,” said Hodges. “Right now, we’re having pretty good weather, and we’ve
been staying on schedule.
The objective is to get the roadway open as soon as possible.”
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