Garden Project's Prospects are Drying Up

Any hopes for harvesting home-grown crops this year from a community garden in Montgomery Village have all but withered away.

Negotiations over the last two viable sites have reached an impasse at one and loom lengthy at the other—and while a new locale has emerged, it faces infrastructural hurdles that even its supporters deem daunting.

"I can pretty much assure you that no garden will bloom this year," said David B. Humpton, executive vice president of the Montgomery Village Foundation, which is spear-heading the garden campaign.

The foundation began its search last year after a survey named a community garden as one of the most popular new features that Montgomery Village residents want to see.

Despite that broad support, efforts have faltered at more than a half dozen sites, either because of logistical challenges, unwilling landowners or backlash from neighbors.

Earlier this year, the foundation chose a parcel in North Village next to William Hurley Park, but swift opposition from the North Village Homes Corp. and heated outcry from nearby residents the foundation’s board of directors last month to eliminate the site from consideration.

That left two candidates, both in East Village. Neither has proven likely to bear fruit any time soon:

• At a parcel in the Pepco right-of-way next to Patsy Huson ball field, Pepco’s resistance has convinced garden advocates that the utility company will never consent. "It’s not that Pepco has said no," Humpton said. "It’s that they’ve put up so many barriers that it just won’t work—no water, no fences, no anything." Pepco spokespeople have not return calls from Patch.

• The Montgomery Village Foundation has started talks with the nonprofit Community Services for Autistic Adults and Children about planting the garden next to CSAAC’s headquarters, on a four-acre parcel that was already set for transfer to the foundation. CSAAC is thrilled by the garden project’s potential, but it could take several months to work out the long-debated details of the deed transfer.

With those two setbacks, the East Village Homes Corp. voted last week to table any garden discussions until a substantial plan takes shape.

Meanwhile, South Village has taken up the cause. The South Village Homes Corp. is evaluating an unnamed parcel that meets the garden's site criteria—except for parking and user access, said Mark Firley, president of South Village’s board of directors.

"If we could figure out how to get traffic in and out, I think we could have something," he said.

The site’s viability should be determined this week. If deemed usable, South Village leaders will gauge the support or opposition of nearby residents before moving the project forward, Firley said. But given South Village’s tightly arranged neighborhoods and already-scarce parking, Firley is less than optimistic.

"Right now if I had to give it odds, I’d say 70-30 against," he said.