Community Gardens Want to Sell Produce

Metro Council members will take up a bill tonight to allow community gardeners to sell their produce.

“[crunch, crunch]. LASSITER: I’ve been nibbling a little bit today. BUTTORFF: Mmmm.”

Pea pods are in season at the West Nashville Community Garden. The rows of vegetables cover the lot behind a motor parts company in a small neighborhood wedged between Briley Parkway, Charlotte Avenue and the Cumberland River.

Kate Lassiter is with Nashville Urban Harvest. The community garden is funded by neighbors who help purchase supplies in return for vegetables. She says it’s often illegal to grow on lots like this and growers can’t sell the produce though many are doing so already.

“The Nashville code hasn’t kept up with what people are doing in other cities as well as here in Nashville, so it’s technically illegal to grow agricultural specifically-including vegetable products–we’re not talking about livestock—to be able to grow it and sell it for commercial purposes.”

Councilman Jason Holleman is sponsoring a bill to clean up vagueness in the code. Backyard vegetable gardens are allowed, but gardens in vacant lots are not. Holleman’s bill will also allow community gardeners to sell what they grow from these types of gardens in the city’s urban neighborhoods.

The Metro Council will take up the bill on the first of three readings tonight.

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At any given time, there are 10-12 active community gardens like the one in West Nashville. The code for gardening activities technically only allows it on land zoned for agricultural use in the General Service District, which encompasses more of the rural parts of Davidson County.

In the Urban Services District, growing a garden is not an allowable use for property if it’s the primary use of the property. Councilman Holleman gives an example where a house may have been torn down and the now-vacant lot is being used for a garden. The garden becomes the primary use of the property which is illegal for land zoned residential.

Holleman’s bill will allow gardening by right everywhere, but in smaller plots of land it will have to be permitted so that it doesn’t interfere with neighboring residences.

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