City Council Work Session

Rusty RussellThank you. Delaine Wilkes is going to take on a subject that actually only became a concern of ours on the committee when Councilmember Peterson was chair of the committee, and that is urban agriculture.

Elaine WilkesGreat. Thank you. So urban agriculture is not new, but it is a growing field, especially I would say in the past year, having locally sourced and affordable food that is reliable and accessible to everybody has become much more of a topic, although it should have been a topic always. And so we are adding ETS, as you can see, to a key area of focus for the ESC. It also aligns with the comprehensive plan around healthy and affordable, locally grown food for everybody, right? So not just selective, but for everybody to have access to this. It is relatively measurable, looking at the number of community gardens. That has been a very popular program. There's a wait list for those. A way to expand those as well would be key.

The solid waste survey results that you've heard a little bit about already from FISA. And the city database of gardeners that we would seek to compile because there are a lot of folks within the city who do garden. And so being able to have as a resource for the broader community, we thought would be a great way to measure that. In terms of actions in order to adopt this methodology, we want to continue to review the regulatory opportunities to expand urban agriculture. The city has already adopted a zoning ordinance last, I would say last year, but 2004, close enough to last year, where we had Area 2 farming come into the city. Opportunities to expand that kind of business would be something we would seek to do for a variety of reasons.

Thomas PetersonWell, it'd be great to follow up. I think that was a discussion point that we reached some agreement on with staff, and it'd be great for you all to maybe collaborate with that. On urban agriculture, I think hiding in the back, we may have an urban agriculture person. Is that right?