Speaker 2: Thank you. We are now we have two hearings which we need to do. And so we have both hearings at 715 and 16. They both require an oath. So I'm going to go ahead and have Vice Mayor Andrews begin the first hearing.
Speaker 0: May the witnesses please stand. You see the UN each of you solemnly state that your that the testimony you may give in the course now pending before this body shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help you.
Speaker 3: God. Linda Tatum, director of development services, will be providing the report.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 6: Good evening. Council, we're pleased to present this is the first community garden permit since the Council adopted that new legislation about a year ago. And I would like to introduce Nick Voss, a taste of what the project planner to make tonight's presentation on this item.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Linda. Good evening, Mayor Council. The project site is located on the east side of Redondo Avenue, between 10th Street to the north and eighth street to the south. The property is located in the neighborhood of commercial and residential zoning district. The project site currently consists of a 6250 square foot vacant lot. Redondo Avenue Street consists of a mix office and residential corridor, and the subject is generally surrounded by dense multi-family residences. Vacant lots have the potential to attract nuisance activities such as illegal dumping, lack of maintenance, visual blight and create criminal activity disrupted neighborhoods. In addition, vacant lots may negatively affect the value of adjacent properties. In 2017. And in recognition of these problems, the City Council amended the Long Beach Municipal Code to discourage vacant lots through a vacant light registry requirement to facilitate positive uses such as these urban uses. The proposed community garden will establish use beneficial to both the individual gardeners and people living and working nearby by improving a blighted, vacant lot with the term temporary argues. The improvements will consist of 2210 by ten rentable plots, two five by 15 raised rentable plots intended for the elderly. One prefab tool shed approximately four by four by six feet high, one arbor, eight by 16 by eight. Eight spigots and water hoses. And one compost and one mulch area. The applicant. Long Beach Organics Inc is a local nonprofit organization founded in 1994 and is seeking to operate its eighth location here in the city. Here's a photo of the various sites scattered throughout the city, and they include the Pacific in six Mary Molina, seventh and Chestnut Zafira Aria Junction or Zomba Park and South 40. Some of the community benefits that come with establishing a community garden on a vacant lot include one reducing vegetable blight and protecting property values. Two, promoting safety and reducing nuisance activities such as overgrown weeds, illegal dumping.
Speaker 4: Squatting and loitering.
Speaker 7: Three provides a local and organic food source that eliminates smells of food travels from production to consumption. And four provides more walkable, bicycle accessible destination with non-motorized vehicles and would be consistent with the city's sustainability goals. The general plan land use element and the draft climate action adaptation plan. In review of the required findings needed to be made in the formative staff, has found the project to be compatible for the neighborhood in compliance with all the applicable development standards, allowable hours of operation parking and refuge provisions as provided in your packets. Additionally, the proposed community garden has been conditioned to ensure that the property will continue to be operated in a neat, quiet and orderly manner. So the use will not be detrimental to the adjacent properties and occupants in the area. Its preference and conditional approval number 18. Also conditional approval. Ten and 12 require signage to be posted on the site displaying the operating protocols along with the contact information of the community garden manager. So any problem or question arise. The project's environmental review is classified as a class for mine alterations of land and is categorically exempt from any additional environmental analysis. The project here is also being reviewed in tandem with the city's urban ag program and is part of. A future request. Public notices of her received application was sent to the Wiltshire neighborhood and Greenbelt Heights neighborhood associations on October 31st, followed by additional public hearing notices distributed November 21st in preparation of staff's report. No formal comments were received, however, leading to.
Speaker 3: The tonight's hearing.
Speaker 7: Staff did receive three letters of support and one letter of contention, accompanied by the petition of 93 signatures in opposition to the project, which is also included in your council packet. In summary of those concerns, they were centered around the topic of additional parking impacts, a place to attract homeless and transients leading to criminal activity in a place that attracts vermin. Staff's response to the comments acknowledges these concerns as existing conditions prevalent in the neighborhood and is in the opinion that activating this lot will ultimately be a step in the right direction and and ideally, hopefully reduce those comments or concerns. With that staff is recommending approval of the interim use permit IPU 1901 and C 19 239. This concludes staff's presentation. The applicant.
Speaker 4: Is also here in the audience today.
Speaker 7: Who may want to expand. It's nice presentation. Thank you. Mm hmm.
Speaker 5: Yes. Would the applicant like to speak on this?
Speaker 6: Thank you. I'm Valerie Condon. I am currently the president of Long Beach Organic, a nonprofit. We currently have seven community gardens. We're really pleased to be here at this point. We've been working for more than eight, nine months to get this garden approved and off the ground. It's been a lengthy journey from a done identifying location, negotiating with the landowner and actually signing the land lease with him in early summer. In August, we had a fundraiser specifically for the purpose of funding the construction of this garden. We had. $5,000 in net profit from that fundraiser in September. We were fortunate enough to be part of Long Beach gifts and we were able to raise another $6,000 for the purpose of constructing this garden. The cost of developing a garden of this size is approximately $17,000. That includes permits. Lumber, irrigation, fencing, signage. The bulk of our financial support comes not from our active gardeners. We have 170 different. Families units who garden in our existing gardens. The bulk of our support comes from the larger community. Over the years, we've received the matching grants from Southern California Edison and the Boeing Corporation from Wells Fargo and from the Floor Corporation. Home Depot and Lowe's have provided financial as well as in-kind donations. Long Beach Organic has been the recipient of several neighborhood improvement grants, and we have received the support of the City of Long Beach , entrusting us with four garden sites we currently manage on City Park Land. The local community, these organizations and these companies believe in our mission and see us as good stewards of the land. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 7: Honorable Mayor and council members. My name is Joe Corso. I have been garden director of Long Beach Organic for ten years now, but the organization has been around for 25 years with the simple mission of turning empty lots into organic gardens. We currently operate seven gardens in the city, providing 170 household space to grow food for their tables and to experience the joy and health benefits of gardening. In addition, we host two groups for the disabled and the children's nonprofit Adventures Two Dreams, Enrichment and an internship and volunteer program with CSU RB. We're a destination for the annual Make a Difference Day and Leadership Long Beach's Martin Luther King Day of Service. Our education program offers gardening and cooking classes to the broader community, and we recently began a kid's garden program, which will be expanding in 2020. Our gardens, they become focal points in their neighborhoods. Members get to meet each other sometimes for the first time, and an interest in gardening cuts across barriers and cuts across age, gender and ethnic lines. The proposed garden on Redondo would provide this opportunity for 20 more 24 more households on what is now a blighted mine. The demand is very high in this area, as our nearby garden, Safra Junction, has a year long waiting list, and we do plan to prioritize those who live closest, encouraging gardeners to walk or bike to the garden so we don't aggravate the parking situation. So I ask for a yes vote on this recommendation. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Thanks.
Speaker 6: Good evening. My name is Oscar night. I live here in Long Beach. I do belong to.
Speaker 3: The Long Beach Organics. As a little girl, I was raised with my grandma and she taught me how to farm.
Speaker 6: She had a half acre. So by the time I was like seven or eight years old, I didn't even know what a kangaroo creeping was. So I share my garden with my children and also with the kids that I teach a cooking class at Saint Cyprian.
Speaker 3: It means a lot to me. I share with my neighbors who are vegetarians and vegans.
Speaker 6: They really like it. I also cook for them. So it really.
Speaker 3: Means a lot.
Speaker 6: To me and I really would like to see this go.
Speaker 3: Forward. And more land for gardeners because I do live in an apartment, so there's not a lot of area for me to do the gardening that I would like to. So being a member of Long Beach Organic, it gives me that privilege to do so and.
Speaker 6: To expand my.
Speaker 3: Gardening like.
Speaker 6: I would like to do so. So thank you for your time.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Next Speaker.
Speaker 4: Good evening, Honorable Vice Mayor and council members. My name is Tony D'Amico. I'm the vice president of Long Beach Organic District three, resident and co-director of Long Beach Fresh Local Food Policy Council. I wanted to take this opportunity to just give a little context for community gardening and urban agriculture. Sort of a quick debrief of where the city has gone in the past several years. We've seen a lot of growth in the past ten years or so thanks to leadership on this council and community efforts. There are currently 15 community gardens citywide, serving about 700 households and donating about £75,000 of produce annually. Seven of these are managed by Long Beach Organic. These figures have doubled since 2009. Around that time, the city established their first community garden policy, where community gardens were classified as open space, aiming to get gardens and large parks throughout the city. And this is where the requirement for the Interim Park permit was begun. This is proving to be a bit of a challenge because it's a quite an expensive, tenuous and confusing process to establish a community garden in Long Beach. You can't really see all the pipeline in one place for if you're trying to do an urban farm or community garden to understand how that might dictate your choices. And I think there's a lot of room for improvement. With Long Beach Organic, we've been shepherded through this process by development services staff, so we're grateful for that. But I don't know that like a starting group or a start up would really have the same privilege. And I would hope they would continue to work to streamline the process to make it more efficient and less affordable or more affordable for everyone to be able to thank you and thank you.
Speaker 5: Yes. Next speaker.
Speaker 3: Good evening, everyone. My name is Joanne Bentley. I live at the Cooper Arms at Linden and Ocean. It is a high rise condo complex and at the beginning of the year, one of my neighbors asked if I would like to partner with her in a community organic garden. And having spent 12 years in Las Vegas before moving out here in January, I thought, Yeah, I can grow anything there. So we have been stumbling over ourselves, growing artichokes and tomatoes and bell peppers and all kinds of peppers. And then we got another neighbor, Joe Dorn, who joined us, and he can do the hard stuff between the three of us. We're learning. And the cats have tricked us. They killed our artichokes. They thought they were Airbnbs. So we're learning as we go day by day. And our goal, my goal. I think we can do it. There is apparently a food bank somewhere in Long Beach. People have been talking about and my ears went, okay, we can do a ten by ten. My tenant goes to the food bank. I don't know where it is, but we can grow enough food. And I drove past 914 Redondo yesterday. That place has some healthy, tall, green weeds. A lot better than we're doing over on 20th and Santa Fe. And as far as.
Speaker 6: Parking, the parking on Redondo is.
Speaker 3: Better. And we're only there for an hour because there's no bathroom.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much. Yes.
Speaker 3: Good evening. I am Misty. I live in First District support Long Beach Organic and ask the council to vote yes to permit the new garden proposed for ninth in Redondo and greeted my sixth street sixth grade schoolmate one day. He answered Diane a little bit every day. This made me mad. I knew it was true, but we were kids. And that's not what you say when a friend asks how you're doing this year, that friend and others asked me how I'm doing. More than ever I have answered Not great. And hanging in there. My reality mirrors my friends words decades ago laid off from work. Five Rent increases on a fixed income escalating violence at the neglect of the building. I have called home accidental deaths of a 14 year old nephew and within weeks an uncle on Easter Sunday, disability caused by stage four cancer. Months of debilitating treatment and side effects. Mental distress from all of the above unknowns within my body, mind, space and reality have become kryptonite that poisons my Virgo superpower daily. Through this Long Beach, Organic is helping me coping healing in many ways. My neighbors fellow seventh and chestnut gardeners rallying help maintain my plants, share their veggies and make me smile when I barely have the will to do so. I eat broccoli organically grown from seeds I learned I can buy with the monthly $15 I get on an event card, I retreat to the garden safe green space as violence and property destruction threaten me. Despite calls to authorities. When I joined Long Beach Organic, I was working healthy, safe and thank you and I thank you.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much. Next.
Speaker 3: Good evening. My name's Margo McCall, and I'm a Long Beach organic gardener in the area garden. And I've also been a neighbor of the Zachariah Garden for ten years. And when I was looking to buy property in Long Beach, I looked for a property close to an organic garden. And, you know, in all the years that I've lived near the garden, you know, I've never seen, you know, an increase in, you know, homeless people or, you know, vermin. So I think those fears are, you know, maybe not founded. And in regards to the parking, the gardeners, they'll show up. You know, many of them live in the neighborhood. So we'll just walk down to water our garden and that takes like ten or 15 minutes. And those that drive, they'll drive, they'll park and just stay a few minutes and then leave. So I'm not sure that, you know, it would add to the parking, but to me, the benefits are, you know, immense in regards to everyone's already mentioned, you know, building community, cutting across divides. There's also support for the pollinators, you know, bees and, you know, green space. And it's also adding to Long Beach's reputation as like a livable, progressive city. So I hope you support the additional garden because there is a waiting list. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Next week place.
Speaker 3: Hi. My name is Patricia Davenport. I'm a 20 year Long Beach resident, and I live adjacent on the map that you just put up there on the board to the property over at 915 Newport. Hi, Suzy, good to see you again. My concern and I'm here to speak against your approval for this garden on behalf of myself and 97 other people in the immediate area who signed and submitted a petition to stop this garden. None of us has objections to community gardens in general and their ability to add to the community. We just don't feel that this is an appropriate site. This is a standard residential lot. It is not like this. Alfred Theresa Gardens, which are on a community, are community gardens on a real easement, much larger and safe interior, while it is a wonderful community garden, has not been without its issues. And I'm not talking about vermin, I'm talking about break ins and theft and vandalism. My concern on this area is it's a very small lot. And as your representative pointed out, it's only 6200 square feet. And if you set out plots that are ten by ten, that's roughly the size of a white canopy. Not a lot of space to grow things in. The parking in the trash have already been brought up. There are only two access points the Alley and Redondo Avenue. Most of the business owners on Redondo Avenue would describe to you their difficulties in having parking for their customers. The alley has been a nightmare, I can tell you personally. Thank you. Fires that have happened in the last five years. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Joseph Dorn and I also live at the Cooper Arms building on Ocean and Linden.
Speaker 7: Downtown Long Beach.
Speaker 1: I'm a recent I'm actually a California native. Can you hear me? Sorry, I'm not used to, Mike. First, I'd like to excuse my appearance. I'm a carpenter, and I came here not wanting to be late, so I'm a little bit humble in my appearance. I'm sorry. As a new resident of Long Beach, I'm very much for this program. I was raised by people. My grandfather, my maternal grandfather was part of the Bracero program back in the 1930s, a works project type program developed by the government. I've always had my hands in the dirt and but by living here the last few years, I didn't have a place to do that. And now I do. And I'm grateful for that. That life is blighted now, and I understand the concerns of the previous speaker. It's very real concern. But I don't believe this type of project brings any negatives to what is there now. And I think even in the short term, if we can consider putting this garden in there, maybe it sometime in the future reconsider it. But for now, this is a positive and I'd like to support it. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much. Thanks.
Speaker 6: Speaker Hi, my name's Lourdes Patrick Grayson, and I'm a resident of Miami for 36 years. I have a bachelor's in child development and I'm also a master gardener through UCLA Extension Program. I taught preschool at the Apogee CC for 12 years, teaching everything from reading and art to gardening. Through my years of gardening and teaching, I've learned many of the benefits of gardening in early childhood. However, tonight I'm here to talk to you a little bit more. My Personal Experience on the therapeutic benefits of gardening. My son was born on December 18, 2018. He was born with a very rare genetic brain disorder called Ponto cerebellar hypoplasia. It's a short. Unfortunately, my son passed away on November 2nd and I reached out to Long Beach Organics and I was fortunate enough that they were able to have a pop for me to that. I'm sorry. The garden's allowed me to be.
Speaker 3: Able to dig and pull weeds.
Speaker 6: And have a place to go to where I'm upset. But, you know, I have community.
Speaker 3: Gardeners and friends.
Speaker 6: And a place where I can just remember him and be happy. So please remember that gardening is not just about food and community, it's also about their peace as well. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Thanks. Here.
Speaker 3: Hi. My name is Jacqueline Case and I am here to support when everybody is here is for Lomita Organics. And I hope too that you can actually reach out to the animal shelter as well. If if animals become an issue, that communities can work together and we can support not only the the actual Long Beach Organics, but also make sure that stray cats or any animals that can impede the the gardens that we can work in tandem together.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Next Speaker.
Speaker 6: Good evening. My name is Dee Johnson and I am a Long Beach Organic Gardener. I'm alumni also from Cal State, Long Beach and I have been in separate garden for.
Speaker 3: Over 16 or 17 years. Since its start.
Speaker 6: It has been extremely. Therapeutic.
Speaker 3: I find it to be a growth factor for learning about composting, about holistic eating.
Speaker 6: Health, good health, organics, care of bees, care of orchards, care of soil. Also, there have been quite a few children.
Speaker 3: That have been raised or have participated in the garden.
Speaker 6: Those children have been growing around us, and you can see how eager they are to come to the garden, roam the garden, learn about planting, learn about growing, seed care, etc.. So I just wanted to say tonight that I would like the Long Beach City Council to.
Speaker 3: Continue to support Long Beach Organic and.
Speaker 6: All the neighboring gardens.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Next speaker.
Speaker 3: Hi. My name is Ashley and I live on 909 Newport, which actually backs up to this vacant lot that is currently there. I think what I would just like for you to consider is we've had a lot of discussion about the community garden and obviously all the assets that it brings, and that is undisputable. But we haven't talked a lot about the location of this particular place. And I can tell you that vermin homelessness is a massive problem in that area and especially with an enclosed space. I had an enclosed I have an enclosed space with my friends and I've had people try to live there, homeless people living there, look through my fences backyard so that there's no dispute that the gardening is an absolutely great addition to our community. But I'd really, really appreciate if you could consider this location the lot on Redondo, a busy street. And again, there's a big problem with the homelessness and alley and tons of rodents. So thank you.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Next speaker.
Speaker 3: Thank you. My name is Jose Jenniskens. I am an original gardener at the Zahran Zakariya.
Speaker 1: Junction Garden Farm. Originally the Wild.
Speaker 3: Oats Gardens there on 10th.
Speaker 1: And Grand.
Speaker 3: My husband and I.
Speaker 4: Garden there since 2004.
Speaker 3: We were also both on the.
Speaker 4: Board of Long.
Speaker 3: Beach Organic for a period of.
Speaker 1: Time. My husband Spencer.
Speaker 3: Was the president for a while while we were on the board. We had the great.
Speaker 1: Fortune to usher in.
Speaker 3: The Wrigley.
Speaker 4: Garden, which was on.
Speaker 3: 20th and Pacific, I believe, which is.
Speaker 8: Similar. It was mixed use, quite a bit of commercial there.
Speaker 3: And when Long Beach Organic took that lot over, it was a mess and it.
Speaker 8: Was filled with.
Speaker 3: Weeds, it was filled with trash. And the neighborhood, I think, was at first a little bit suspicious about it, but very quickly came to embrace the garden. It became a haven for people in the neighborhood. It became a gathering place for people in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: It was beautiful. It provided a place, a place.
Speaker 3: For local residents to.
Speaker 4: Garden.
Speaker 3: And to meet their neighbors. And it was it was a sad day when the landowner decided that she needed to sell and we had to give that garden up. I just wanted to also point out that both the police and the fire department were appreciative of the fact that it was in use and being watched.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Thank you very much. This is the last speaker I'm looking.
Speaker 3: My name is.
Speaker 5: Not you, the young man. You're the loudspeaker. Okay.
Speaker 3: Go ahead. My name is Susan Pound. My address is 908 Redondo Avenue, which is right next to 914. And I'm against this neighborhood garden. I have lived in this neighborhood for more than 30 years. I have seen the amount of rodents and homeless people in this neighborhood and the like escalate to the point is no longer acceptable for a safe and healthy neighborhood. Transient people walk through the alley, digging through trash cans, turning the trash cans over, leaving trash over the alley, ruin subtracted it is trash. Cars are vandalized as well as garages in the alley, the commercial garden with its growing food to attract these homeless people and rodents, as well as more homeless people and rodents. And we really have here this commercial garden will create a place for these drones to come, to feed, to breed and to multiply. What is the commercial garden's plan to contain this problem? Okay. And people are saying that parking is okay in this neighborhood. I have witnessed this point now where I have to walk as many as five blocks away to park at times and whatever the weather is raining or nice, I have to walk home in the dark. And if I'm alone neighborhood so far away from my home in the dark. If I arrive after 5 p.m., there's often no parking, even five blocks away. Other streets close by, such as Newport, have the same problem. When I'm walking home from parking, I've seen people riding bicycles in the street, tossing the handles on cars, trying to break into them. Will there be more of these bicycle riders attracted to commercial garden? For whatever reasons, this neighborhood cannot support any more cars at all. Even if one person from the commercial garden has to park on Redondo Avenue, it will displace a person who lives in this neighborhood from parking their car, let alone all the vehicles who will need to park from the demolition program and construction of this pool and this garden, this commercial garden is supposed to have the effect of increasing perceptions of neighborhood safety. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Thank you very.
Speaker 3: Much. Can I just say something? The police have not been able to control these problems in the neighborhood. So why should a commercial garden be able to make it safer?
Speaker 5: Thanks, Mika.
Speaker 1: Hi. My name is Raj. Where actually, I mean, owning businesses over.
Speaker 7: 18 years in Long Beach in the same.
Speaker 1: Sector on the corner. I love the idea of the gardening.
Speaker 7: And I support all the.
Speaker 1: Nonprofit.
Speaker 7: Organizations.
Speaker 1: In Long Beach and they meet at one of my restaurants right now where we get what I.
Speaker 7: Have right now to ask is we have a lot of vandalism, no parking. And a couple of the people here who spoke for the project.
Speaker 1: Know they've been living in the neighborhood for a long time and they knew that there's.
Speaker 7: No parking lot of vandalism, homelessness, if you guys are going to take care of that situation. And I have no issues with that. So I recommend seriously think about before you guys put a.
Speaker 1: A.
Speaker 7: Garden in the location. Just take care of that first and then go from there.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Thank you. Now, I would like to go behind the glasses.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. So just a couple of questions. I want to thank everyone who came out tonight, but for our and Nick, wonderful job. Is this your first city council presentation?
Speaker 4: Well, yes.
Speaker 6: You killed it. It was awesome. Nice job. So can you tell me a little bit about the parking on Redondo itself, if you know. Is there public parking on Redondo?
Speaker 7: So on. Redondo There is public parking a limited amount. It's a free for all. And of course on the.
Speaker 4: Site there is nothing there at the moment.
Speaker 6: So people would have to park on the on street parking.
Speaker 4: Correct.
Speaker 6: And there are I notice in looking through the proposed permit that there are maintenance standards and trash standards, lots of conditions there that have to be complied with by the operator. True.
Speaker 7: That is correct.
Speaker 6: And do we retain would the city retain the right to revoke the permit if the conditions were not complied with?
Speaker 4: Councilmember Christopher comments. So yes, like any other entitlement or.
Speaker 1: Permit, we retain the ability to revoke.
Speaker 4: We would need to make a finding of fact and provide the applicant some due process.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day we have the ability to seek them to correct. And if they don't correct to revoke the permit.
Speaker 6: Okay, great. Well, this this property has been vacant for many years. I want to say at least four years that I'm aware of. We've received complaints, a lot of complaints regarding the maintenance or lack thereof of the property as it currently stands. And so for years, we've tried to work through code enforcement, I know, to try to address some of the concerns, I'm sure, of those who live adjacent to the property. And, you know, while I understand the concerns of those who live around this proposed site and some of the fears that you have about maintenance and access. I'm supportive of this permit and I'm going to be supporting it tonight. And I'll I'll share with you why in a moment. But I do want to ask the residents who live adjacent to this property to take a copy. If you want to email me tomorrow, I will send you a copy of these conditions. I need you guys to help be my eyes and ears in terms of maintenance and what's happening there and what we can do to try to improve any situation that might present itself, whether it's related to parking, security risks or maintenance. I think this is a really great opportunity for us to be able to take this vacant, blighted property and turn it into something positive. I also know that I'm I'm happy to hear that you had a robust fundraising effort. The third council district is also going to give you guys 20 $500 towards your efforts. So we want to support you. And we also want to be able to have our interns involved in sustainability projects. So my office I'm going to ask you guys to to send me an email tomorrow, if you wouldn't mind, so that I can be in personal contact with you. We can talk about how that relationship might work, because I think it's a great opportunity for our students at Cal State Long Beach to get to see how sustainability works and this whole concept of the community coming together. So, you know, a couple of times a year we can bring them there, maybe even have a third district plot where we can grow, grow some things and share with the community. But we would love to be engaged on that level. When I was a student at Cal State Long Beach, we did have a community garden right there at Bellflower where now sits vacant area. And really I couldn't agree more with everyone here in regards to the benefits of a community garden and I support it. I will say that as a council member, it's very difficult to have a community garden built in your district because of all the reasons and concerns that some of the residents raised. Sometimes community gardens are not maintained as well as the ones that Long Beach Organics is maintaining. And for me, that was a pivotal decision making point in terms of who's going to be involved in helping maintain this community garden. Because sometimes when those conditions are not followed, then it looks even more blighted than it did when it was a vacant lot. So I know that we have good partners, and because you operate them throughout the city and the city has chosen you as a partner on other occasions. And so I'm grateful for this opportunity. I do ask the residents who live near there to please keep me in the loop. We want to make sure this is not a detrimental impact on you. And a lot of that is speculation, right? So that's one of the things where we implement something. We need to watch it and monitor it. And I and I ask everyone to partner with us on doing so.
Speaker 5: Yes, Mrs. Spears. Okay. All right. Okay. Ms.. Longo.
Speaker 9: Thank you. I want to tell everyone how proud I am of you for taking this big step. I am not a green thumbed person. Inside my house is all silk plants. However, when I became a councilperson, I had always admired the community garden in my neighborhood, and I was strongly encouraged by my neighbors to take a chance and try. There was a comment made that a ten by ten plot doesn't produce very much. Once you have a ten by ten plot, you will feed your entire block spinach, tomatoes, squash the size of cantaloupes if you'd like, or watermelons if you get out of control. The community garden that I belong to donates £50,000 of vegetables to the homeless community and to the soup kitchens. And I think that talking through and I don't know a lot about this particular community garden, but I'm just going to say a couple of things. The entire city has vermin issues. Not nearly what some of the bigger cities in L.A. County have. But within the garden, when you have an active group of people, they watch for and support and trap and help control the garden as long as it's within state guidelines. And so, again, working with animal control is key. Parking during the year will probably not be a problem. But for your leadership of this garden to talk about your planting deadlines for spring and winter, that's what a majority of the cars arrive to do. Their planting maintenance throughout is going to be very, very light. And the turnover of cars and walking of people to and from the community garden reduces the number of people experiencing homelessness in the area and the mischief that goes on. Because when you have someone who goes into a facility for, let's say, a dental appointment, people know that those cars are left unattended for a longer period of time. A community garden has no designation. Any criminal who's watching can't tell if you're going for 10 minutes to water or an hour and a half to tend to your garden. And so it actually has a turnover and a security that at least in our community garden area, we have almost no homeless issue. The areas around us that are not as widely monitored do. But they they don't have the same opportunities. I want to comment and support the comments related to therapy. We have a lot of individuals in our garden who use gardening for therapy. We also have a lot of elderly individuals who it keeps them active and coming out. And so this is more than just vegetables. It's it's a bigger opportunity. And so for many of those reasons, I'm very, very supportive. You talk about trying to get rid of crime or trying to get rid of elements that you're not familiar with. There is nothing that works better than activation. You could never hire enough police officers to compensate for activation unless you had 24 hour police coverage standing on site. And still, sometimes that would be less productive than activation. And so I'm here to support. We've had a lot of lessons learned in our 65 years as a community garden. I don't know all those lessons, but there are people that are willing to help out. There are also many successful gardens under Long Beach organic, and I hope that one day, while there have been occasions over the last three years where many of the gardeners from multiple gardens have gotten together. I hope that we grow that and flourish it even more as more gardens come up. So thank you for working so hard on this, Councilwoman. It is very difficult to activate a space like this and it takes a considerable amount of work. And Suzy and her staff deserve a big vote of gratitude. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Yes, thank you very much. And with that, please cast your vote.
Speaker 0: Motion carries.
Speaker 5: We go back to item seven.
Speaker 0: Item seven is on the consent calendar. Would you like item?
Recommendation to receive supporting documentation into the record, conclude the public hearing, and approve an Interim Park Use (IPU) permit (IPU19-001) with Long Beach Organic, Inc., a local nonprofit organization, to establish a community garden at 914 Redondo Avenue in the Neighborhood Commercial and Residential (CNR) Zoning District; and

Accept Categorical Exemption CE19-239.  (District 3)