By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland is fast becoming a leader in developing urban agriculture: It is ranked second only to Minnesota in its use of locally grown foods.

“About six years ago we had a community garden that was loved and people spent a lot of time there,” said Joe Cimperman, Cleveland city councilman. “Suddenly one night, the gardeners picked up and moved to another block.”

It was a city-owned piece of property. Someone had told the gardeners they had to move because that land was going to be used for housing. Community gardens in the city had no zoning protection, Cimperman said.

The city began calling other cities for ideas but none had a zoning code for urban gardening. So the city of Cleveland created one – the first in the country.

Some people questioned the wisdom of locking up land for an urban garden which might have potential as a site for housing or a business. “But we recognized that the urban garden was really important to the community not just in terms of what was being grown there, but the fact that people felt closer to each other,” Cimperman said.

“Neighborhoods that have community gardens tend to be a little bit safer. People talk to each other more and look out for each other because of that experience.”

Many people began to support the idea. Then more questions came to the councilmen: city dwellers wanted to keep chickens for eggs and have beehives for honey. The zoning codes didn’t allow for these, so they were changed, Cimperman said.

“Any person in any neighborhood in the city of Cleveland can have up to six chickens and two beehives in their yard,” he said.

There was a huge demand for the change but there were also a lot of skeptics. Cimperman agreed to pay for the first $5,000 worth of permits that people would need for the chicken coops and the beehives. Within the first couple of weeks, more than 30 people requested permits.

Cimperman said he did it because he wanted people to see that it would be successful.  A couple of weeks later, The New Yorker mentioned Cleveland as one of the cities in the forefront of urban agriculture.

“That was great, but we realized that the economy drives everything,” he said. “People have to put food on their table and if people have jobs, a lot of things take care of themselves.”
The city decided to give local growers an advantage – and “local” included an eight-county region of Cuyahoga County (where Cleveland is located). When the city buys food for its cafeteria or catered events, vendors who buy from farmers within that eight-county region get extra points in their application to get the contract.

“The reason for that was, it is great to have all these zoning changes and everything else, but we want people to make money. We also want our city to buy from local farmers – we don’t need to buy garlic from China,” Cimperman said.

The week after that law was passed, he received calls from Tulsa, Okla., and a city in Nevada; both wanted to borrow the legislation.

“What we’re doing in Cleveland is demonstrating that we’ve got within our region to grow our own food and to support our own people, and we’re not just putting a button on our jackets saying ‘Buy Local.’ We’re actually changing the laws to make that happen,” Cimperman said.

The city is now looking at legislation allowing people to have farms in the city, to keep cows, sheep and alpacas. Anyone interested in doing that would need to have a certain number of vacant lots together. Several areas in the city would be large enough to support those urban farms.

“They would have all the provisions in there to make sure that people feel that their quality of life and their neighbors’ property is being respected,” Cimperman said.

“What we’re trying to do is create a climate where Cleveland becomes the urban agriculture capital of America. When I say that, it is not just Cleveland – it is also all the counties around Cleveland that grow food.”

Cimperman has farming friends who laughingly remind him that cities were built based on getting away from agricultural usage. The councilman tells them people left farming to come to the city because of industry. With industry waning, Cleveland still has amazing soil and infrastructure, so it only makes sense to look at urban agriculture.

In fact, all of the recent foreclosures have created more vacant land in the city than ever before.

“If Ohio is known for making lemonade out of lemons, then this is some really good lemonade because it recognizes the fact that people can grow locally and sell the produce locally,” he said.

For information, e-mail Cimperman at joecimperman@gmail.com or phone him at 216-215 6765.