The city’s Parks Department on May 5 moved to terminate its license agreement with Ridgewood’s Sunset Community Garden, which required members to uphold “community values” including rejections of Zionism, homophobia and transphobia.
According to a Parks spokesperson, the agency told the group that it was out of compliance with the rules for community gardens by requiring prospective members to affirm its political and ideological viewpoints, regardless of the content.
“We’ve been working with the Sunset Community Garden group since September 2024 to address several violations,” Parks said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the group has not abided by the rules upheld by every other GreenThumb community garden even after Parks met with them and repeatedly offered solutions.”
The NYC Parks GreenThumb program supports hundreds of community gardens in the city.
Those interested in membership to the garden on the corner of Onderdonk and Willoughby avenues were asked to fill out a Google form and verify that they have read those values, attached in a document that says it was last updated in May of 2024.
Among the commitments required of members are to show “respect for the land,” uplift those oppressed under capitalism and colonialism and interrupt “violent behavior or rhetoric that expresses all forms of hate.”
The document states also that Sunset Community Garden stands in solidarity with marginalized people “in our neighborhood and across the globe, especially Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Hawaii, and Borikén.”
Sunset Community Garden said in a May 9 press release that its leadership revised the “community agreements” several times as per Parks’ directives, but the agency still said the requirements violated the rules.
The release states that at the center of the group’s conflict with Parks about the “unjust termination notice” is an art installation honoring transgender activist Cecilia Gentili, who died last year.
Parks ordered the memorial’s removal “following complaints from antagonistic neighbors,” the group said. It claims that the agency increased enforcement after a vigil for Gentili was held at the garden, and when members contested Parks’ authority to order the altar’s removal, a 30-day termination notice was posted on the garden’s gate.
According to a Parks spokesperson, the altar does not qualify for permanent installation. The city observes a 20-year waiting period for memorials, and permanent displays on city property must go through a competitive process.
However, the spokesperson said, Parks has suggested ways for the altar to remain on display, all of which the group refused. Alternatives included undergoing a temporary art permitting process to show the altar in the garden for a year and displaying it permanently at a non-city garden.
“As we have emphasized to the garden group and local stakeholders, the decision to terminate the license agreement has nothing to do with members’ political beliefs or gender expression, but rather the repeated refusal by group leadership to address outstanding issues,” Parks said in a statement.
Civic activist and area historian Christina Wilkinson said that although the group was given options to keep the altar on display, members “decided the rules didn’t apply to them.”
Wilkinson, who played a major role in establishing the garden, also expressed disapproval of the group’s requirements for membership.
“My intention while working for nine years to bring the garden to fruition was to give local residents who lack yards a place to grow their own food and plants,” she said.
The New York Post reported last September that some Jewish residents felt uneasy about the group’s pro-Palestinian events and social media posts, especially given the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
“I am saddened to see the current stewards of the space demand that participants sign political and ideological pledges in order to garden, as well as fail to open the garden during posted hours, use open flames without authorization, and host events that are not only exclusionary but clearly meant to intimidate members of the community who have alternate viewpoints,” Wilkinson said.
The garden group said that, in response to complaints from a “small group” of individuals from the Facebook group “Zionists Brooklyn,” Parks has “fast-tracked enforcement” by invoking a clause in the license agreement that allows “unilateral termination without due process.”
Members have called to abolish that clause, also demanding that Parks rescind its termination notice; withdraw its order to remove the memorial; drop all “unjust violations”; guarantee community appeal rights against “retaliatory closures”; and revise agreements to protect gardens from “predatory tactics and harassment.”
“We have facilitated free fresh food harvests, cooking demos, Narcan training, land stewardship, herbalism workshops and farming education, all while providing a safe sanctuary for marginalized populations such as trans, BIPOC, and immigrant neighbors,” garden member Sasha Schaafe said in the release.
A Parks spokesperson said the space will remain a community garden, but public access will be limited temporarily as the agency seeks to reopen it under new operators.
“No other city-owned garden is run this way, and they have only themselves to blame for this inevitable termination notice,” Wilkinson said.
The garden opened in 2023 on a previously unused portion of Grover Cleveland High School’s athletic fields. In addition to Parks, the city Department of Education, state Department of Environmenral Conservation and GrowNYC were involved in creating the space.