Every community garden needs land, and not just any land. It needs land that is suitable, accessible, and secure enough to support long-term investment (human and financial capital). Land that belongs, in law, in spirit, and in community memory, to the people who grow on it.
Why this matters
Let's be honest about where we are starting from. The reason so many Black, Brown, and low-income communities lack access to land for growing food is not an accident of geography or a gap in the market. It is a direct result of discriminatory policy: redlining, racially restrictive covenants, urban renewal demolition, and decades of disinvestment that stripped generational land wealth from communities of color and concentrated it elsewhere. When we talk about "land access" this includes reclamation; the slow, stubborn work of return to communities what was taken.
This is the soil beneath the soil. Any honest conversation about land for community gardens has to start there.
What thriving looks like
A strong land strategy is not just about finding available parcels; it is about building durable sovereignty over place. That means;
- Long-term legal protections: leases, land trusts, ownership. Agreements that put community interests in writing on record.
- Community land trusts are a model for removing land permanently from speculative markets and holding it for collective benefit across generations.
- Meaningful input from the people who will grow on the land (in site selection, design, and governance) so that community self-determination shapes every step.
- Soil quality, physical accessibility, proximity to water, and the cultural suitability of a site for the community it is meant to serve.
Time matters here. Soil improves over seasons. Trust grows gradually. Relationships deepen. Traditions form. Trees mature and bear fruit. All of that becomes impossible when the land beneath a garden can be sold, developed, or revoked at someone else's convenience.
Where gardens struggle
Many gardens begin on land that is available and uncertain later; informal arrangements, short-term permissions, verbal agreements with landlords or municipalities that offer the appearance of stability without the substance.
In communities already facing displacement pressure, this vulnerability is compounded. A garden built on insecure land is not just at risk of being lost; it is at risk of becoming a tool of gentrification, a green amenity that raises surrounding property values and prices out the very people who built it.
Leaders in these communities often lack the legal resources, organizational capacity, or institutional relationships to pursue stronger protections because the systems are not designed to make this easy.
What to start doing now
Review the status of every garden site. What agreement is in place? How long does it last? Who holds power in that relationship? What are the conditions under which it could end? Then ask the harder question: what would it take for this community to truly own this land, not just use it?
Start where you are. Strengthen agreements wherever possible. Connect with community land trust networks in your region. Explore the pathways to permanent protection. The goal is not just to grow food on land. The goal is to restore a community's right to the land itself.
