The Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (RDA), collaborating with area urban agriculture groups and about a dozen farmers, has launched a pilot program aimed at using city owned open space for greenhouse farming on an interim basis, for up to five years.
Parcels as small as a half-acre and as large as three acres are included in the initial plans. Temporary urban greenhouse farming “is a very new, radically different idea,” said Terry Gillen, the RDA’s executive director and the senior economic development consultant to Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, and since there is no planting in the soil, even brownfields can be used.
One of the goals of the City Parks Association has been to substitute the idea of “blight” with “opportunity,” and to help change the way city agencies think and interact with open spaces; from the most horrific former industrial plot to the prettiest shady glen. That kind of thinking, and additional urban-ag programs down the line, will eventually mean longer-term solutions.
For now, though, the Greenhouse Project, combined with the new Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, shows enormous potential for the groups involved.
Photo credit: PlanPhilly
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