With thirty-one other local organizations it released a Statement on Urban Agriculture in April 2011 . In response to a directive from the City Council President, CEDA presented a report describing a process for the adoption of new urban agricultural zoning policy including a minor but immediate interim zoning update in October 2010 . In April 2011, the Oakland City Council adopted the interim change, which allowed for urban agriculture in all residential and commercial zoning districts with a CUP . The project of developing the zoning change plan was given to Planning and Zoning, a move that gave McClintock and other OFPC members hopeful after the Deputy Directory Eric Angstadt, “expressed his commitment to facilitating urban agriculture to the fullest extent possible” . Later that year, the City Council Planning approved a change to the code defining “home-based business” to permit the sale of produce grown at home without the use of farm equipment such as tractors . While advocates were hopeful that changes to zoning regulation would be seen by the end of 2011, progress seemed to slow to a stop at the beginning of 2012. Esperanza Pallana, director of the Oakland Food Policy Council, in describing the attempt to work with Planning on making the zoning changes indicated that there was little success over the last two years, “There was some initial action in 2011 and then it just slowly fell off to the wayside and kept getting the time line pushed back and pushed back” . In Spring 2014, the OFPC launched a petition entitled “Growing food is a right, not a conditional privilege”, claiming that “Nobody should have to pay the City to grow and eat your own food!” .
With four hundred and twenty eight signatories, the OFPC presented the petition and their case against CUPs again at the June 4th Planning Commission meeting . City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, who had been actively involved in this advocacy since 2011, spoke in support as part of this presentation. During the meeting the Planning Commission asked the Director of Planning and Building, Rachel Flynn, when an interim ordinance would be implemented . She replied they would be ready to respond in September of 2014. Good news came to the OFPC and other advocates at the September 17th Commission meeting: a new zoning policy meeting many of the requests of the OFPC was introduced. The Planning Commission presented the new zoning policy, which proposed a significantly liberalized code to allow urban agriculture by right . The amendments included three categories for urban agriculture: “community gardens” , “limited agriculture activities” ,greenhouse snap on clamp and “extensive agriculture activities” which have replaced the former “Crop and Animal Raising” Activity Type . “Community gardens” and “limited agriculture” are both permitted without the need for a CUP in almost every zoning district, excluding open space. The Commission went beyond the recommendations of planning to remove CUP requirements in new commercial and transit-oriented development zones. Planning and the OFPC are continuing to work with the Parks Department to address the use of urban agriculture in parks in zoning code and through the Edible Parks Program . In November the Oakland City Council approved the zoning changes, and the OFPC finally saw the fruits of over five years of labor and advocacy. Prior to the Planning Commission passing the new policy, a Zoning Code Bulletin posted by Planning on September 5th intended to clarify existing regulation and lay the ground work for the changes to be approved at the September 17th meeting .
Interestingly enough, Planning identified that the language for community gardens as an activity type had been adjusted in 2011 and since that time policy allowed for gardening for personal consumption and donation without a CUP in residential, commercial, and industrial zoning districts. Further clarification came after argument over current policy at the June 4th, 2014, Commission meeting. There the Planning Director claimed that after 2011 the CUP process had only been necessary for urban gardens that sold produce . This claim contradicted what Planning staff, the OFPC, and just about every other person involved with Oakland urban agriculture believed to be the necessary process for the last three years. Unlike in San Francisco, Oakland city officials took a much slower route to supporting zoning changes in support of urban agriculture. When asked why the implementation of these changes was taking so long, Pallana speculated, “You could say because it hasn’t been prioritized. I think that, in addition, staff have not wanted to put time into something that they think was just a fad that would blow over and be done with and not recognizing that people are actually shifting to this as part of urban culture and practice” . This sentiment has been mirrored in the slow actions to support urban gardening through other city agencies as discussed in chapter 3. While the Parks Department has partnered with six non-profit groups to garden in public parks, activists complain the agreements with these have varied. Despite requests for a simplified and consistent procedure to govern these relationships, Oakland has maintained a flexible, non-codified approach. The Edible Parks Task Force has advocated for more community management of park spaces that are underutilized or undermanaged in order to promote community self-determination.
Advocates see possibilities in the Adopt-A-Park program where the city is shifting park management responsibilities onto individual volunteers. Instead of individual volunteers the Task force would like to see communities more engaged in managing public land. This is not a vision the city has embraced. City planner Heather Klein states, in reference to the Edible Parks proposal, “obviously long-term maintenance is going to be an issue with that, as well as, there’s the water and the services, but parks change; sometimes you’re going to want this use, sometimes that population changes and it becomes more family-friendly.” . Her message has been clear; changing park priorities and their physical landscapes has long-term consequences and impacts the broader community, not just urban agriculture advocates. She, in addition to others, has viewed this wave of urban gardening as not always coming from within Oakland communities, “it goes back to who’s the community, and how is the community defined. Some people see that, those groups as just sort of taking over those resources” . She goes on to describe a concern that organizations will abuse the social purpose of parks. Klein noted that many gardening groups in Oakland frequently have a more commercial intent, which both requires more attention and regulation from the city and is not an appropriate use of public space: “most of the groups are selling. They’re doing farm stands, sometimes there is a sliding scale, but for the most part it’s a commercial business. And we generally — unlike I think other cities — have very, very rarely have commercial businesses located within city parks” . But overall Klein has been supportive of the growth of urban agriculture in the city. Commenting on the remarkable energy and ability of gardening projects to spring up and not rely on city infrastructure, she remarked, “They seem to be able to move these things forward on their own. I think with the city’s limited resources, it’s just difficult for us to be able to commit to providing some of the things that I think that they want to have us provide. And knowing, again,snap clamp that somebody still has to manage it and keep track of it and make sure that it’s being run correctly and follow up; that’s like a whole level of review that we just don’t have staff for or the capacity to do” . Klein’s observation is keen. Food justice and urban agriculture are flourishing in Oakland despite unclear and sometimes antagonistic relations to city departments. Non-profit organizations with connections to city government and significant support have developed agreements with the city for land use. Less institutionalized groups have attempted to fly under the radar and avoid complaints to evade city regulation. Overall the city, which must acknowledge the gentrification and out migration of historically African American populations, has held a tentative relationship to urban agriculture advocacy. Uneven development has created ‘vacant’ lots that are now growing gardens with increased property values. Oakland’s Planning and Parks Departments have remained committed to serving the interests of Oakland residents, not all of whom may be interested in new gardens expanding quickly then falling into neglect.
Their position hasn’t been to oppose the development of urban agriculture , for little enforcement of regulation against gardeners breaking the rules has occurred, and informal public-private partnerships have succeeded. Recent changes in city zoning policy may signify a shift toward more active support of this “special interest group”. San Jose, like San Francisco, has taken an active approach to supporting urban gardening, embracing public-private partnerships as an effective municipal strategy. As the largest municipality in Silicon Valley, San Jose has been impacted by both the uneven economic development brought by the tech industry and the immense charitable giving of industry companies and individual employees. The growth of health related foundations and non-profits, funded in large part through tech money, has dominated the food access advocacy in municipal and activist circles. Gardens have been used as a strategy to improve healthy food access for the majority minority population . Over the last three years San Jose has made changes to policy and community gardening practices that have allowed for the expansion of urban agriculture in the city. Overall, the city has created a more permissive policy environment for a variety of urban agricultural practices ranging from home gardening to commercial production. In addition, the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Neighborhood Services has piloted models of public-private partnerships to both reduce the financial and managerial responsibilities of the city and empower local non-profits. Non-profit advocacy and program administration have played a key role in these political shifts over the last half-decade. Policy changes supporting urban gardening as a permitted land use began during the reenvisioning process for the General Plan. In 2007 the City of San Jose began an outreach processes to engage San Jose residents and stakeholders in updating the existing General Plan, Focus on the Future San José 2020 . From 2007 to 2011 a City Counsel appointed task force of thirty-seven community members met fifty-one times and held multiple community workshops to gather input to advise the City Council in the development of the Envision San José 2040 General Plan . Through significant advocacy from The Health Trust and members of the Silicon Valley Food System Collaborative, food gained a prominent position in the new plan. The Envision 2040 plan identifies “Design for a Healthful Community” as one of twelve primary strategies in improving San José life . This strategy highlights San Jose’s physical environment as a site where officials and residents can encourage access to healthful foods, as well as support the provision of health care and the physical health of community members.Urban agriculture is identified as a means to increase access to healthy food and to a lesser extent, sustainable food production. In the General Plan, urban gardening is repeatedly highlighted as a means to change the landscape of health: “As a key factor to encourage the health of its residents, the Land Use/Transportation Diagram, and the Quality Neighborhoods and Land Use policies address improving access to healthful foods, particularly fresh produce. To this end, the General Plan also supports the development of urban agriculture and the preservation of the existing agricultural lands adjacent to San José to increase the supply of locally-grown, healthful foods.” Much of the language dedicated to the urban agriculture goal applies to the protection of agricultural land “remaining within San Jose’s sphere of influence”. The language referring to urban agriculture within the city identifies the goal to “support” and “encourage” gardening in home gardens and other locations, including the use of food gardens in development to support residents and workers . To achieve these goals the plan outlines the need for the City Council to develop specific policy to increase access to healthy food through expanded sales of fresh produce and increased urban production, and the need to revise the Zoning Ordinance to allow for expanded urban agriculture. In addition the plan talks specifically about the expansion of community gardening. The city identifies developing partnerships with local non-profits, the County, and school districts as the primary actions to achieve this goal .