(Photo via The Korea Times)
One week after Bergen County officials shut down a community garden that 20 Korean seniors had cultivated in Overpeck County Park, the controversy continues, with the seniors who ran the garden opposed to the action. The announcement by the county, which manages the park, that reopening the site is unacceptable since it was run without permission, further worries the seniors.
Why was it shut down
The dispute started after Bergen County authorities on June 7 locked the gate to the garden, which had been in that spot for the past 17 years, and put up a notice of no trespassing. The county authorities said that the seniors had been gardening illegally on the land.
The county government also challenged the group for having collected membership fees. Moreover, they asserted that the site is a contaminated area that used to be landfill.
However, the Korean American Senior Gardening Center, which has 24 members, strongly opposes the county government’s move. In particular, the seniors emphasize that the plot was gardened for 17 years without any problem. The county government verbally pledged at the beginning of this year to let the garden be cultivated until the end of the year. And even though the area is considered contaminated, in fact, the environment is so clean, they said, that snails and worms are found there.
The one-acre area has not faced any sanction from the authorities for the past 17 years while it was gardened by the group.
However, authorities said that they became aware of the existence of the garden when the county started to develop and clear contaminated areas of Overpeck Park at the beginning of this year, considered what measures to take and took this action.
The president of the center, James K. Chung, said, “We received permission to run the garden each time the county executive changed over the years. By sending proposals to the park officials and county officials, [we] practically received the right to run the garden.”
A Bergen County official, in a statement to The Korea Times on June 12, said:
“After learning that unauthorized farming was occurring on a small section of land within Overpeck Park, the Bergen County Department of Parks has closed access to this portion of county property in order to prevent unsanctioned farming operations from continuing.”
Did sloppy administration by the county lead to the problem?
Some fault a lax administration in Bergen County for the problem. [They think] it doesn’t make sense that the authorities hadn’t known about the existence of the garden that was there for 17 years. It also doesn’t make sense, they said, that the garden wasn’t shut down immediately after it was “found” once development began in the park at the start of the year. For these reasons, seniors say they received a “wrong signal” that they had permission from the county to continue gardening.
One person with some knowledge of the situation who requested anonymity said, “The county had overlooked the seniors’ illegal gardening activity, thinking to let it go rather than make a fuss over nothing. And it rushed into dealing with the situation after recently receiving an anonymous report on this issue… I guess [the county] was so afraid of being condemned for neglecting this unauthorized activity that the extreme remedy was implemented.”
However, some others say that the seniors created the problem for themselves. A few years ago, five to six seniors used to plant vegetables in a small group. Last year, with the establishment of the Korean American Senior Gardening Center, the membership grew to 20, and a fence surrounding the whole area and a chicken coop were built. That led the county government to intervene.
“The county is stubborn”
Unable to access the produce because of the closure, the seniors are appealing to county officials to let them finish this year’s cultivation. With the weather getting hotter, they feel especially anxious about not watering the crops. A senior said, “It pains me not to be able to water the crops, which to farmers are like their children. I fervently hope the gate will be opened.”
The county government remains unwavering. Its official position is that it will not permit re-entry since the land was illegally used. However, believing that blindly banning the use of the land for gardening, which had been a hobby for the seniors, isn’t right from a humanitarian perspective, the government is looking for a new path.
A lawyer from the Bergen County Counsel’s office said: “We understand the desire for the residents to have a community garden, and we are studying opportunities to provide access to community garden space in the future.”