Phoenix urban garden mysteriously closes amid land dispute
PHOENIX (AP) — A sprawling urban garden on a vacant lot where Phoenix residents have grown everything from melons to okra closed Friday after the gardeners were mysteriously ordered out as a federal agency reassumes ownership of the land, stupefying and angering gardeners who called their eviction a classic case of government dysfunction.
Families, senior citizens and refugees spent the last week harvesting their final crops and expressing frustration that the U.S. Department of the Interior won't say why they have to leave — or what it plans for the 15 acres of land in the shadow of high-rise apartment buildings.
The garden was born from a city effort to get rid of eyesore vacant lots that emerged throughout Phoenix following the 2008 financial crisis that hit the city's then-hot real estate boom extremely hard.
Haugrud is running the department pending a Senate confirmation vote on President Donald Trump's interior secretary pick, Sen. Ryan Zinke, a Montana Republican.
Joanne Beard started growing broccoli and kale as a form of physical and mental therapy after she suffered a heart attack in 2013, and is angry that the empty space she helped make useful is going away.
The land is probably worth at least $32 million now and would be a good site for apartment complexes in strong demand by young professionals seeking an urban lifestyle, said Don Arones, a managing director in the Phoenix office of the Cushman & Wakefield real estate agency.