Land Use & Planning

The Land-Use and Planning group is working to encourage policies that support urban agriculture and the adaptive re-use of vacant lands for agricultural production policies. Specific areas of work include:

• Creating new land-use category in city code to support urban agriculture
• Increasing parcels that are zoned as garden or urban farm
• Developing a feasibility study for a market garden incubator site or urban agricultural production district
• Complete a survey of City of Cleveland codified ordinances that impact urban agriculture, including Ohio Uniform Food Safety Code, Nuisance Laws, and Zoning Codes.

Specific areas of work that the urban land-use and planning group is discussing include water access for urban gardeners or farmers not enrolled in the Summer Sprout program, improving land access for urban market gardeners, integrating urban gardens into neighborhood planning, conducting surveys of community input and support for urban agriculture in Cleveland, and addressing land tenure for urban gardeners to provide longer-term support.