Yesterday marked the deadline for Westporters to remove items from the Community Gardens.
Instead of preparing for spring, 120 families spent days salvaging soil, plants and structures. Some had been involved since the garden began, 20 years ago.
The site will become a staging area when construction begins on a new Long Lots Elementary School, some time in the future.
Later, it will become an athletic field.
A new location for the Community Gardens has not yet been found.
Alison Freeland and her husband spent Tuesday there, with shovels and a wheelbarrow.
“Many of the gardeners said they felt like they were at a wake or funeral,” Alison says.
The gardens’ demise was especially hard “for a lot of seniors, for whom this was a true community.”
Alison’s photos chronicle the final days of the Hyde Lane Community Gardens.
(All photos/Alison Freeland)
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From the first moment I found out the garden was being considered for demolition till now I have been sick to my stomach and outraged.
I sat at countless meetings watching the long lots building committee have contempt for the audacity of the gardeners to want to keep gardening. Citizens what you must see now is that this: I foolishly thought that because the garden was on the 8-24 that the p and z would protect the garden. However at the last meeting when the building committee presented their plans with no garden on it, I learned as Ira Bloom the town attorney explained to the P and Z that all the first select women had to do was submit a new 8-24 and the p and z would approved it. That simple, done! You also must see citizens that although plans and meetings have occurred for months and months over a year for sure about the fields and the school they have not made any plans for the gardens.
It has had no value. Think about the scene of seniors lugging there hearts out of those gardens, Plants that are 5, 10, 15 and 20 years old being shared and given away so they found a home. Yes it is like a funeral, but a funeral of a murder. The contrite heartless attitudes of people who just said have a garden at your house, just plant somewhere else, stage over the garden are ignorant to what community means, the science behind pollination and preserves, and then what the idea of honesty and transparency mean. I would say most of the gardeners dedicated their lives to PTA, the womnen’s club, different town boards, volunteering hours of their time and other parts of our town for us to basically spit on them. Make no mistake, this will never be seen in the long term of history as a positive move, and it began with our RTM, changing the rules of petitions of how citizens can bring complaints to make a change when they see an injustice. Neil Cohn of the P and Z used the word it’s unfortunate that we are at this juncture, that was a gross understatement. Everyone involved should be ashamed. We profess to be such a progressive town doing so much to protect the environment, our waterways and the air. We had the gold standard of a community garden, and we couldn’t see the forest through the trees to protect it. I am sorry gardeners, I am sorry neighbors of long lots and I sorry children of the future that your parents did not know how valuable that place was to you.
👏👏💕💔 thank you for writing this. I haven’t been a Westporter for long time but I loved my childhood there, and the goodness of the people, and I sure have followed this story. I cry with you good people. And clearly, the Westport I loved is gone and buried. The coldness and totally weird dismissal of the gardens and the gardeners was bizarre, and suspect ….much more was afoot obviously. Let alone this idea being floated out there of being afraid the sweet, dedicated gardners of 26 years could possibly harm the children! That was outrageous to imply that these dear people could be a safety issue after all those years 🙄 totally see through to many I believe.
The children have lost the most in this in my view. They just witnessed a total denial and dismissal of a less powerful group in your community, and very heartless behavior from a group of leaders. Terrible! Many lessons of community, honoring of your roots, your elders, working the land….right in plain site for the children to see and experience! Maybe they could have had some educatuonal walk throughs, and discussions with the gardners to learn about planting, friendship, aging, love of community and so forth. Novel idea and lessons not focused on much these days. Let’s just all turn into state of the art AI.
Bye bye good Westport, hello to your 100 million “state of the art” institution where many of the lessons of the heart and soul ate not a major focus in education which is a loss. In my view of course.
Long time no see on dans blog. So happy to see you again .
Yes a let down of epic proportions in this garden situation.
We fought hard for what was right. I garden at home, but I envied the gardeners at the community gardens their solidarity.
I visited the garden. In fact it was Lou showed me around and I left with a bag of amazing veggies to cook that night for my children and I. Onions, potatoes, tomatoes.. even cucumbers !
But it wasn’t the gift of fresh vegetables I enjoyed as much as the scene there of friendship, the little cute pergolas where residents and gardeners gathered to drink a glass of wine, and chat about their day.
That was what struck me most, the friendships and social life that they had going on.
To deny residents of this town that opportunity, is just horrible.
It’s evil.
I cannot imagine how depressing yesterday was for a community of ousted gardeners, who know that shovels won’t even be in the ground til the end of this growing season yet they have been vindictively kicked out..
What a gut punch.
It’s beyond words.
Now I cry…..
At this moment, it’s reasonable to conclude that something is profoundly wrong with our local government.
This travesty is the perfect example of an ‘unforced error’; sorry but this is all on Tooker. The perfection of her failed administration. There had to be a better solution; but NO, couldn’t keep her hands off.
Good luck in her pursuit of state leadership. She has two chances: zero and none.
Shame on you Tooker….who will be patting herself on the back and laughing her way to the primary over this.
Gardeners work very hard to make a garden work. To undo 20 years of community efforts is a crime. The only way someone would be willing to undo that work is if they have never done hard work. There is no way this needed to be done. This is beyond the pale.
This was mishandled from the get go when the First Selectwoman, without justification or explanation, did an end run around the PS&BC which by Charter is the School Building Committee. Her hand picked committee then refused to engage with the Gardeners involve them in a meaningful way in the planning process or acknowledge the public outcry. This is no way for government to behave. A solution could certainly have been found which accommodated all competing interests but the administration was tone deaf to the possibility. And now she wants to bring that style of governance to the State level.
I don’t think that would be a good idea at all.
I’m not a gardener, but I too am very upset about the fact that the town has not yet found a new location for the gardens, yet has made everyone remove what was planted there that they wanted to save. I believe this entire process was handled unprofessionally, in not finding some kind of location for the gardens before they had to dismantle the current gardens, at the very least. I know not everyone will like the proposed new location, but at least designate a location to let them get started. I wish I knew how to help or even how to grow plants without killing them, but no matter how hard I try, I’m no good at gardening. I give a lot of credit to those who are successful gardeners, as it is not an easy thing to do.
I have land at my house to let these gardeners plant there and gather, if that would help, but not as large an area as they had. However, they shouldn’t have to use private property to have a community garden.
I’m in tears and still in disbelief that it’s over. A new community garden will take years to establish and decades to build into a such a majestic and vibrant space. But that’s just a pipe dream with no viable alternative site or plan from our town. Such a dark day for Westport.
Citizens are loosing Governmrnt is destroying democracy. Along the way our personal freedoms are being removed. Please keep a perspective on what is happening. Good luck to all. Tooker is Republican Closet MAGA
I’d like to think that once a new location is found for the Community Garden, provision is made for the Community, that is, the public, to have at least some access to actually visit it (Open Garden periods?) without the need for extensive prior application process with deep background checks.
Tooker is toast.
Tooker’s lack of leadership on this issue disqualifies her from higher office.
While I was not a gardener “yet” I had complete admiration for this gem in our town…’always thought it was a magical place, on so many levels. I attended many meetings to try to save the gardens, even as someone on the sidelines. It is incredible and profoundly sad that this is now just gone, and for a baseball field that will not even be used by the students at the new school.
My heart goes out to all of the gardeners who will now need to rebuild this part of their lives…
(former) community gardener here. We were offered to move and have the gardens built for us at baron’s south along with a complete site plan showing a viable garden layout and grading. As a collective, we the gardeners, voted no to this offer… At this point I feel it is on us. I am hoping in the future this offer remains on the table and we can give it another shot to keep this wonderful community garden program going!!! It really is such a beneficial program to our Town and residents!
Kevin did you want to move there considering the conditions, clear cutting more trees, lack of sun due to the terrain, toxicity of the soil, hills causing water run off? There was no other land offered, yet. But p and z has made that an apparent request of the building committee and administration.
The offer of Baron’s South was a joke. There was nothing “viable” about the plans that we were shown.
Is Tooker related to Trump? She uses the same tactics. Her way or her way. What a shame something so rewarding and quietly as tending a garden is taken away from the citizens of Westport.
My heart is broken over this. I hope P&Z will stick with its commitment to insisting on an alternate site acceptable to the gardeners. The Administration has had literal years to sort this out but blames the gardeners for the current state of play. Who is holding the cards here? “My way or the highway” is not the kind of leadership this town deserves. At this point we will be fortunate if any of these folks wants to come back and start over. We are losing pieces of what makes Westport special, pieces of its soul.
Jen, Awesome photo op, surprised you weren’t there. You are probably waiting for the actual bulldozers to show up. Smart, a much better visual to use in your gubernatorial run.
This is a Time where the Town of Wesport and the School district need to STEP UP and give back to the special residents and gardeners who have given their support and big tax dollars to build the wonderful school facilities that have been provided for the youth of Westport, considering many do not have children in the system.
Find this wonderful place and activity and find and provide the space and support that community gardens deserve !!
Remember that the FS’s own 8-24 still calls for the relocation of the Gardens within the new Long Lots “campus.” But even though that was her plan, she still continued to foist a ridiculous and unworkable location on the Gardeners while her handpicked LLSBC didn’t even include the Gardens in their plans, even though they were on the 8-24.
Part of the call for the closing of the Gardens a season before necessary is so that they can resubmit a new 8-24 without the Gardens and say “the Gardens are gone, anyway.”
It is time for P&Z to step up and not reward the Administration for lying about the situation from Day 1. As Big Daddy said, there ain’t nothin’ more powerful than the odor of mendacity.
While this may have been the Administration’s gift for the sports dads, the BOE has been complicit in what has happened. Lee Goldstein may have not asked for a sports field in excess of what the school needed, but she was happy to support it if it would expedite the building process. This lack of character is not the kind of model that we would want the children of Westport to follow.
The Gardeners, who have contributed nothing but good to Westport for twenty years, should demand a fair solution and, if they don’t get one (either on the collective Long Lots site or a sensible location elsewhere) they should petition the expenditure for the school and ballfield project to a referendum, which will most certainly add another year to the re-build process.
What a shame! Another Tooker failure not to find a solution
So many heartfelt messages here about a garden. And saltiness looking for a scapegoat. Root cause is a NEW school – full stop. The second a new vs remodeled school was decided upon – and apparently there wasn’t much debate or critical thinking on the choice – the dominoes started to fall. No way a new school is built with a lot of disruption – neighbors beware, it’s going to be noisy and messy so no surprises. Town now deals with consequences, the least of which is moving a garden. Going to take big $ to complete this project. Not to mention the overruns which are very predictable.
The Westport differentiator is the schools, otherwise Norwalk and Fairfield are cheaper, and TBH filled with nicer people.
It was never about the school. It was about the attempt to foist a larger ballfield into the project. The information gained through FOIA requests totally support that statement.
The school didn’t want the parcel that the Gardens are on when it became available and was purchased by Town twenty years ago. Town bought it for future municipal uses and the use chosen was the Community Gardens (the prior one of which was also removed for ballfields).
I was on RTM when all of this happened and I can assure you that there was no “we will put the Community Gardens here until the BOE wants the land.” They didn’t want it. Full stop. I ask you this, If that land was sold to a private party who built a house there, do you think that a school rebuild wouldn’t happen? Every claim is simply an excuse to get a bigger ballfield that will benefit children older than those at LLES AND embed that ballfield cost in a school building project.
Why others have to pay the consequences for the lack of foresight is beyond my understanding. We’re all proud of our schools and we all pay to support them. But it would be nice if the BOE would show some gratitude for a change. As I said in my first comment, they made a deal with the devil because they thought it guaranteed expediency. They will find out otherwise – and surely they will blame others.
The Gardens are one of many reasons why the FS was going to lose a reelection race by a landslide. (The run for governor is a hoot.) But the GOP must be salivating at the likelihood of a BOE member running against whoever they nominate for FS. Because in the Fall, when we’re still at least a year from construction beginning, “he’ll do for Town what he did for the Community Gardens” is going to resonate with a lot of people.
Says a guy with no kids…
Go plant your cucumbers somewhere else, these 5 elementary schools are why your property values are high and your mil rate is low.
Says this guy who pays property taxes that support the schools, despite having no kids.
And why is it that you are bringing up schools when I made very clear – as did the community gardeners – that it wasn’t about the school?
Go tell the sports dads to pay for their own big new field if they want it. Or remove a different Parks & Rec facility for a garden. Maybe some of the under-used tennis courts.
The gardeners can as easily justify their use of Town land as any other hobbiest who benefits from Town land and facilities.
This school is going to benefit a small part of the Westport school population and will have a cost of $100,000. But, yeah, just rubber-stamp that and pretend that our property values will go down if we accommodate the community gardens.
On behalf of my nephew, thank you Mr Loffredo for standing up for the children and the future.
The garden is gone. Let’s move on.
I should have used the whole quote. “There ain’t nothin’ more powerful than the odor of mendacity. You can smell it. It smells like death.”
I very rarely weigh in here. But I have to reply to David Loffredo. Our 5 elementary schools contribute to our high property values, for sure. So do our 2 middle schools, and our high school. And our beaches, Longshore, Library, Wakeman Town Farm, Sustainable Westport, Earthplace, playhouse, restaurants, and so much more. Our Community Gardens were one of those things too.
Our low mill rate is a combination of many factors, including a great residential/retail/business mix.
And, like Chris Grimm, I have no kids. But I am happy to pay taxes to support everything that makes this a special place, that attracts residents and visitors, and that I can be proud of.
I’m honored, and I mean no disrespect.
The beaches in Fairfield are better, the SONO vibe is better. Westport has a mostly intolerable post COVID populace, ask your favorite realtor offline.
The crown jewel is the elementary schools, because the real elite then send their kids off after that.
So I get that the childless crowd doesn’t get it. But the parents do, and they could not care less about the gardens.
The “childless crowd” completely gets it. (Do you think you’re Elon Musk?)
The breeders get the same property value benefit as those without children. The difference is (at going per-pupil rates) the breeders get a free quarter-million dollar 12-year education for their children.
If you don’t want me to opine how my tax dollars are spent, feel free to cut me that $250,000 check and I won’t speak of the school budget again.
It’s easy to generalize that something isn’t important to town if it isn’t important to you. I try to not be that selfish.
Claiming it is about the school is completely disingenuous. This was about the gardens (our only one) and ballfields (we have more than twenty).
As an aside, I realize that, of course, I misstated the likely bill for the re-build. It isn’t $100,000, rather $100,000,000. In round numbers, that’s $10,000 for every household in Westport, for a building that will serve around 400 students at a time. But, yeah, childless families should have a say.
C’mon Dan. There are a lot of things that make Westport “special”, the community gardens of course being one of them along with the Minuteman Statue and the Black Duck among many, many other things. But there aren’t (or weren’t) many people moving to Westport because of the community garden, particularly since, I gather, there was a wait list for a plot.
Schools and accessibility to NYC followed by taxes and relative price point are the primary draws to Westport and what drive property values. Some might add restrictive zoning that “ensures the character of the town” to that list though it is unlikely that anyone will admit that given what those code words mean.
On the list of top 10 reasons to move to Westport, I have to believe the community garden is nowhere on the list with, to David’s point, the schools being #1, #2 and #3. On the list of top 20 drivers of property values in Westport, the community gardens was, at best, #25.
Loss of the community garden, while unfortunate, is not going to turn Westport into Norwalk or Fairfield,
That’s why I said “many factors” and “and so much more” with regard to the Gardens, Bill.
And David, please define “the real elite,” and offer proof that they “send their kids off” after elementary school.
Oh c’mon Dan, google your favorite Westport rich guy. Connecticut is blessed with some of the top day and boarding schools on the planet, and yes the graduating ranks at Hopkins, Choate, Hotchkiss, Taft….are filled with Westport kids.
Kids who moved here usually from NYC and after elementary school moved on. Staples is fine, but the crown jewel is the 5 elementary schools.
The garden can live on somewhere else, and a decade from now no one will care. But if you want to drive the Westport economy you need to evolve and protect those five schools at all cost.
My favorite Westport rich guy is Doug Bernstein. He has 6 kids. Guess where they went to high school? Hint: The same place he did.
Because he’s from Westport Dan. Try harder. Also, awesome family, but they’re OGs.
That one was a layup I knew you’d pick. Westport is home to a dozen billionaires and several A-listers. Maybe one of 20 went to Staples but they all went thru k-6 in Wepo.
Facts please, David. Please list Westport’s “dozen billionaires,” “all” of whom went to elementary school in Westport. Then, please let me know the percentage of Westport high school students in private schools, compared to those in Darien, New Canaan and Greenwich. Thanks in advance.
Proximity to the city is #1 and schools are #2. It’s a big drop to #3. But the next time there needs to be a Longshore golf club renovation, people will be coming out of the woodwork saying that it is big reason why people move to Westport.
I wouldn’t personally say that the Community Gardens drew people to town. Many communities have them. But they were a jewel that residents put twenty years of work into building. 20+ ballfields are sacred but one community garden was disposable? It’s simply a disgraceful level of selfishness. It would be nice if more town “leaders” had thought, “first do no harm.”
Chris, you’re clearly not a commuter because proximity to the city is not a Westport strength. I was part of the crew that petitioned Metro North to add a pre 5am Westport stop so we could be at our desks by 7.
It’s the schools. The elementary schools. Everything else is a commodity.
BTW, I appreciate your posts, always have.
Thank you Dan for adding your comment on a problematic statement. The inability of so many, working so hard, including me, to preserve the Gardens have caused me to give up on Town government.. The conduct of the Town, Jen Tooker, David Floyd and his Parks & Recreation Commission, former Parks & Rec. Director, Jen Fava, the P&Z Commission, the RTM, Lee Caney and the BoF and even the BoE are all to be faulted. Our government truly failed and used the need for a new school and the desire to allow sports to supersede the gardens is so very sad. My Save the Gardens sign will be buried, but never forgotten.
Let’s get a good lawyer on this and make a noise that can be heard around the country!!
This whole situation is unfortunate:
-The Building Committee wanted the Community gardeners kicked off the Long Lots Campus.
-The First Selectman wanted the Community gardeners kicked off the Long Lots Campus.
-The Board of Education wanted the Community gardeners kicked off the Long Lots Campus.
A narrative was created that the gardens were a security risk and the gardeners could be potentially dangerous.
And to boot them off now at the beginning of the growing season when NO ground will be broken this year on the New Long Lots is just plain vindictive.
Be very clear: this was the intention from the start.
The death and destruction of our community gardens is the tragic and inevitable result of the FS consciously deciding to implement in Westport the playbook of the Trump Administration’s “governing” by Anti-Democracy Authoritarianism.
Its fate was sealed when the RTM 29, exactly like the current House Republican majority at the national level, cowardly abdicated their mandated roles of providing local co-governance and oversight by turning their backs on over 300 years of recognizing and hearing petitions submitted by the Electors. The right to petition one’s government is the very cornerstone of a functioning democracy. And the FS had her attorneys shockingly argue that the Right of Petition no longer existed in Westport!
The pathetic RTM 29 lead by its Moderator, Jeff Wieser, our own local Speaker of the House Mike Johnson wannabe, willfully abandoned their sworn oaths and their consciousness and obediently voted to end the Right to Petition the RTM – including the Community Gardeners. Let there be no misunderstanding, that is how we arrived at this disgraceful moment in history.
John, it is a tragedy and of epic proportions.
Hopefully it assures the FSW fate to never ever govern our state.
As disgusting and dispicable as the gardens, the parking, jesup green, has been. The 100 million on a new school that never had to be let get into that state- all on her watch, and now the hamlet..
it’s a shit show.
Our town is being manipulated imho, and divided on issues we actually should all be united on.
Yes we want great schools. But not at the cost of a community garden.
Not at the cost of neighbors peace.
And nobody is against progress, but these excessive greedy developments such as hamlet are not appropriate for this town.
It is a takeover being allowed and permitted by the PZ .. and that needs to be fought and fixed IMMEDIATELY.
A new text ammendment and enough of the bullying by towny investors..
gaslighting and misinformation allowed the text ammendment In first place. That can still be changed just like it was then !
we do not want you – hamlet
Go someplace else..
and WHEN is the RTM going to return to that historical petitioning model? SOME RTM now realize the error of their ways BUT who will be BOLD enough to fix it! Let’s GO! FIX IT RTM!
Just vile and gross behaviour by our administration and unacceptable behaviour of PZ or at least the commissioners who voted for this crap.
Already knee deep or hip deep in criticism of the Apparantly “done deal” INSULT OF THE HAMLET, supporters of which assure the destruction of Main Street- not to mention the existing saugatuck businesses with their heads buried in the sand. This will assure their bankruptcy.
PZ needs to go back and say NO to a new plan excluding the gardens and no to the disgrace happening in Saugatuck.
Between the accusations of gardeners being axe murderers and pedophiles if at least allluded to.. oh even school shooters.. what is going on here.
It’s beyond unacceptable.
It’s one travesty and business destroyer after another.
You cannot even make this up.
Gardens need to be given an awesome spot somewhere else or on the property..
hamlet needs to shrink their project in half AND account for parking.. with their employees parking onsite..
that trick and nuance of parking elsewhere is a bare faced lie.
Once they are employees we cannot legally stop them from parking in commuter spots..
that is what everyone needs to remember here..
the lip service.