[HN Gopher] Winning a London Garden Allotment
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Winning a London Garden Allotment
Author : fortran77
Score : 48 points
Date : 2022-07-29 22:34 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| 867-5309 wrote:
| there's a similar swindle in Zone 1 boroughs e.g. Pimlico for
| "communal areas" - strips of ~20x100m gardens behind 2m high iron
| railings dotted amongst the eyewateringly overpriced townhouse
| squares. the waiting lists are around 15 years, by which time
| your housebound puppy is dead and your asthmatic newborn is still
| wondering what a flower looks like IRL. you either have to wait
| for the greedy elderly bastards to die sooner or move out of
| London altogether
| tomcam wrote:
| Engaging article. Not sure why Brexit caused increased interest
| in allotments?
| DharmaPolice wrote:
| Some of it is (or was) fears about food security. Here's a
| Guardian article on the topic :
| https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/apr/13/how-bre...
| wgx wrote:
| I can't read the article without signing up.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| use tor
| robga wrote:
| >There is no way to check one's position on the list. One simply
| waits, as if for an act of God.
|
| Actually, many London boroughs have good tracking information.
| Here is one. It even shows the application date at the top of the
| list.
|
| https://www.richmond.gov.uk/media/22784/allotment_waiting_li...
| secondcoming wrote:
| Warning: that links to an Excel spreadsheet
| namdnay wrote:
| Is this uncommon in the US? I've seen it pretty much everywhere
| across Europe. Usually they're managed by the town council and
| reserved for apartment-dwellers
| simantel wrote:
| Not uncommon at all. In the US they're generally called
| community gardens, and in larger cities often have similarly
| long wait lists to the OP's.
| 13of40 wrote:
| Not sure if this is a pro-tip that could be repeated or not,
| but I've had a plot for five years. When I signed up they
| contacted me and told me about the extensive waiting list,
| and offered to tear up my check if I didn't want to wait.
| "But it's a cashier's check," I replied. I think they bumped
| me up in the queue just to avoid the hassle of returning it,
| because I was immediately approved.
|
| (Edit: Just to be clear I think the wait time was a year or
| two, not 40.)
| dbt00 wrote:
| Some US suburbs put them in park areas, I live in Palo Alto
| where there are a number of such community gardens.
|
| In bigger cities there have been various community garden
| projects, but they often are wildcat projects using vacant lots
| and constantly facing eviction by property owners to avoid
| insurance and adverse possession claims.
| ch33zer wrote:
| I've never heard of this anywhere in the US (but I've never
| explicitly looked). I got a plot at work once but that was
| private property. A senior center next to me offered gardening
| at a nearby plot for it's elderly members but again nothing
| public. Some city parks have small gardens run by volunteers.
|
| Edit: should have googled, seems my town does indeed have it!
| https://www.mountainview.gov/depts/cs/rec/facilities/garden....
| jen729w wrote:
| Life lesson: time comes around faster than you think.
|
| Melbourne's MCG has a members' club. To get in you have to be
| sponsored by two existing members, fill in a form, and wait. The
| wait list is something like 15 years. [0]
|
| I had this form in 2006 and thought, eh, too long. I didn't
| submit it. But my time is now, and I _remember_ that moment, and
| clearly remember younger me thinking that this day would never
| come. I was in my late 20s, I couldn't imagine being 45.
|
| Well, here I am.
|
| [0]: https://www.mcc.org.au/about-the-club/membership/latest-
| memb...
| josephcsible wrote:
| How much of a practical difference is there between "I have to
| wait 40 years before I can get this thing" and "I can't afford
| this thing"? Is forcing artificially low prices for these
| actually helping anything?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| The difference is that one is distributed to people in order of
| requests and the other is distributed strictly to those who can
| afford the highest bid.
|
| Naturally, people with the most affluence would prefer the free
| market approach. Everyone else would prefer a non-zero chance
| of getting a plot _eventually_ rather than a zero chance of
| being able to afford one at all.
| chrisbrandow wrote:
| It's just a choice of what metric of scarcity to use. Financial
| or time. Time is arguably more equal and since it's not a
| strictly economic good like controlling traffic in the city,
| it's not a worse way to do it.
| michaelt wrote:
| Firstly, you can already get a plot of land you can garden at
| market rate - simply buy a house with a garden.
|
| Secondly, you should be extremely skeptical about the 40 year
| claim. After all, people move, and the popularity of allotments
| waxes and wanes.
|
| Thirdly, the people who allocate allotments are mostly looking
| for someone who is going to _show up and take care of their
| plot_ so it doesn 't get overgrown. Expecting a lot of manual
| labour and then pricing out anyone with a background in manual
| labour might not be the smartest move.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > the people who allocate allotments are mostly looking for
| someone who is going to _show up and take care of their plot_
| so it doesn 't get overgrown.
|
| Couldn't the owners address that by including a clause like
| "if you let your plot get overgrown, you have to pay a
| penalty (maybe 3x what it costs to pay someone to come take
| care of it), and if you do it twice, we're not renewing your
| lease"?
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