I popped down to the Mount Hope community on Wednesday to see the groundbreaking for a new community garden on the corner of Denby and Market streets.
The effort has been a long time coming for this neighborhood and has faced a number of bureaucratic hurdles along the way.
My colleague Adrian Florido explained the challenges in a story in June:
For years, advocates have been pushing for the creation of community gardens to promote local food production and healthy eating in urban communities nationwide. But in San Diego, those efforts were largely hamstrung by restrictions that banned gardens on all land zoned for commercial use and required a $5,000 deposit and lengthy permitting process for those in residential neighborhoods.
That all changed in June when the City Council passed an ordinance that made it easier for gardens such as this one to be developed on vacant city property by removing the costly zoning and permitting restrictions.
You can read about the kickoff event in this Union-Tribune piece.
And here are some photos of the ceremony. You can see in the first image that Diane Moss, the head of the nonprofit that pushed the project ahead, was all smiles.
City Council President Tony Young joined supporters of the community garden at the ceremony on Wednesday.
County Supervisor Greg Cox talks about the significance of bringing the garden to the community.
I’m a photojournalist at voiceofsandiego.org. You can contact me directly at sam.hodgson@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.550.5664.
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