A case study: Legalizing commercial agriculture in Boston – A logical step towards integrating farming into urban life

Abstract

In 1830, after many years of city farming, Mayor Harrison Gray Otis outlawed grazing on the Boston Common. In the 1920s, the Common was converted to victory gardens. In 1943, Boston’s first community gardens were set up by the city, lining the Back Bay Fens and spreading out across the City of Boston. Today, Boston is home to nearly 200 community gardens, six urban farms comprising twelve plots, dozens of community orchards, and over 100 school gardens. However, commercial urban agriculture wasn’t mentioned in Boston’s existing zoning code prior to 2013, and was, therefore, implicitly not legal. In the fall of 2013, the City successfully passed a new zoning article, Article 89, which allows for commercial urban agriculture, and defines use regulations in the city’s various zoning districts (http://www.bostonredevelopmentauthority.org/planning/planning-initiatives/urban-agriculture-rezoning). The anticipated outcomes of Article 89 are far reaching—local employment opportunity, increased access to nutritious food, a more resilient food economy, and an increase in fresh food access—to name a few. The 3-year process that led to Article 89 featured extensive community conversation with advocates and dissenters, organizations and individuals. After an extensive pilot project and community outreach effort, eleven neighborhood meetings, a twitter chat, eighteen Urban Agriculture Working Group meetings, and multiple drafts of Article 89, it was passed by the Zoning Commission in December 2013. The adoption of Article 89 represents Boston’s first substantive policy decision that supports urban agriculture, reflecting the expansion of an urban agriculture movement in Boston, the state, and the nation.