WARREN, Mich. – A Warren community garden that was weeks away from being torn down now has a decade of stability and big plans to grow.
The South Warren Community Garden, run by the nonprofit Urban Seed, secured a 10-year lease after the Warren City Council unanimously approved an agreement last week.
The move came after organizers said months of negotiations with the mayor’s office had stalled.
From nearly closing to full speed ahead
Urban Seed launched the garden last year after the city offered the group a vacant lot on Toepfer Road near Schoenherr Road under a one-year pilot lease.
Volunteers cleaned up the lot, planted crops, and began donating fresh produce to neighborhood families every week.
But when organizers tried to lock in a longer lease, they say conversations with the mayor’s office hit a wall.
“It’s been a rollercoaster. It’s been a lot of work, and then in a moment, everything changed,” said Chloe Lundine, the planning coordinator for the garden. “It’s a garden. It’s an easy win for everybody. We didn’t expect to have all these issues.”
More than 130 residents wrote letters to the city in support of keeping the garden open.
Community members packed a Warren City Council meeting on April 28, and council members negotiated and unanimously passed the new lease.
“Can not be stressed enough how huge council was in bringing this forward and taking time out of their personal lives to get it done and being extra reasonable and making sacrifices where before we were just hitting a wall,” said Jeffrey Matheus, head of the South Warren Community Garden.
Security to invest, grow
With the lease secured, Urban Seed wasted no time.
Volunteers began building new raised garden beds by hand on Toepfer Road over the weekend.
“So, by Sunday, we will have 20 more beds ready to plant,” Matheus said.
The group had also been holding onto a grant from the Whole Foods Foundation, waiting for a long-term solution before investing the money.
Now, that funding is being put to work.
“Now that we have this 10-year lease, we can go as fast as we can,” said John Hofmann of Urban Seed.
The new lease also replaces language organizers found to be restrictive in other drafts— including terms that had limited the garden’s produce stand.
“It’s nice to have a sense of security, especially with the outpouring of support from everybody in the community,” Hofmann said.
Bigger garden, bigger impact
Urban Seed already operates a flagship garden in Eastpointe that has been running for more than a decade.
South Warren was always meant to be an expansion, and now it can be.
Organizers say the garden will produce significantly more food this growing season than it did last year, with a goal of making a lasting community impact.
“We are going to make a lot of food, a lot more than we did last year, and it’s going to have more of an impact,” Hofmann said.
“Very thankful that we have fought for and won the right to garden,” Lundine said.
Get involved
The garden is hosting a community day this Sunday for anyone who wants to volunteer or learn more.
The lease still needs to be signed by all parties before it is fully official.
For information on how to get involved, visit Urban Seed’s website here.