Not in my back yard

I never cease to be amazed by people. Yesterday was a meeting of people interested in participating in a community garden. Though the site was undecided, one of the points of a community garden is to place it IN THE COMMUNITY so people can walk to it and . . . gasp . . . develop a bigger sense of community.

What a good idea, thought I. A couple of years ago I had mentioned the idea of having a community garden on the Tot Lot which comprises about 4 acres in the center of the Faculty Neighborhood, where I live. People I mentioned it to seemed to think that was a good idea. Well, to make a long story short, the Tot Lot seemed to be one of the remaining open spaces in Durham, and a lot of people from my neighborhood responded to the email soliciting interest in a community garden.

So . . . the predictable happened. Word spread about the garden in the Tot Lot (though it hadn't actually been decided) and a host of abutters showed up at yesterday's meeting to protest the siting of a garden there. What? I was really dumbfounded by the strength of the negative response. You would have thought we were planning to place a hog farm in the space.

People were sure that traffic would be a problem for small children in the neighborhood and parking would be another issue. Hello - the garden is for people who live nearby and can walk . . . Well, deer would be attracted to the area . . . (deer are already in the area and a fence would have to be erected.) Well, mice are a problem, because people who care for the garden would just leave produce to rot . . . and on, and on.

The man who convened this meeting (out of the goodness of his heart and because he is concerned about eating local food, sustainability, etc.) finally got it through to people that if that space isn't going to work, for whatever reasons, we will look for another place to put the garden.

I was pretty thoroughly depressed by this discussion, but refusing to give up (predictably) have volunteered to be on the garden planning committee. And as far as I can tell, since the University of NH owns that land, if we discover that it is the best place to put a garden, the abutters may have to suck it up!