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Using Land Inventories to Plan for Urban Agriculture: Experiences FromPortland and VancouverWendy Mendes ab; Kevin Balmer c; Terra Kaethler d; Amanda Rhoads e

a Centre for Urban Health Initiatives at the University of Toronto, b Ryerson University's Centre for Studies inFood Security, c GIS Analyst, Con-way, d Provincial Agricultural Land Commission, e City of Portland Bureauof Planning,

First Published:September2008

To cite this Article Mendes, Wendy, Balmer, Kevin, Kaethler, Terra and Rhoads, Amanda(2008)'Using Land Inventories to Plan forUrban Agriculture: Experiences From Portland and Vancouver',Journal of the American Planning Association,74:4,435 — 449

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435

Problem: Urban agriculture has potentialto make cities more socially and ecologicallysustainable, but planners have not hadeffective policy levers to encourage this.

Purpose: We aim to learn how to use landinventories to identify city land with thepotential for urban agriculture in order toplan for more sustainable communities byanswering two questions: Do land invento-ries enable integration of urban agricultureinto planning and policymaking? Do landinventories advance both ecological and socialdimensions of local sustainability agendas?

Methods: We use case studies of twoPacific Northwest cities (Portland, Oregon,and Vancouver, British Columbia), com-paring the municipal land inventories theyundertook to identify public lands withpotential for urban agriculture. We studyhow they were initiated and carried out, aswell as their respective scopes, scales, andoutcomes.

Results and conclusions: We find thatthe Portland inventory both enabled inte-gration of urban agriculture into planningand policymaking and advanced social andecological sustainability. In Vancouver similarintegration was achieved, but the smallerscope of the effort meant it did little forpublic involvement and social sustainability.

Takeaway for practice: Other localgovernments considering the use of a landinventory should contemplate: (a) using theinventory process itself as a way to increaseinstitutional awareness and political supportfor urban agriculture; (b) aligning urbanagriculture with related sustainability goals;(c) ensuring public involvement by creatingparticipatory mechanisms in the design and

Using Land Inventoriesto Plan for UrbanAgriculture

Experiences From Portland and Vancouver

Wendy Mendes, Kevin Balmer, Terra Kaethler, and Amanda Rhoads

In recent years, planners and municipal policymakers have proposed toolsand strategies to achieve greener cities that are both ecologically and sociallysustainable.1 One strategy that until recently has largely been overlooked

is urban agriculture. Urban agriculture (UA) can include community andprivate gardens, edible landscaping, fruit trees, food-producing green roofs,aquaculture, farmers markets, small-scale farming, hobby beekeeping, andfood composting.

A small but growing literature links UA with environmentally and sociallysustainable communities. Commonly cited environmental benefits includethe creation of vibrant green spaces, revitalized brownfield sites, improved airquality, food that travels a shorter distance from field to plate, preservation ofcultivable land, cooler buildings, and improved urban biodiversity (Irvine,Johnson, & Peters, 1999; Mougeot, 2006; Rosol, 2005; Smit, Ratta, & Nasr,

implementation of the inventory; (d) drawingon the expertise of institutional partnersincluding universities.

Keywords: urban agriculture, landinventory, Vancouver, Portland, sustainability

Research support: The Centre for UrbanHealth Initiatives at the University ofToronto provided financial support forwriting up this research.

About the authors:

Wendy Mendes ([email protected]) is a postdoctoral research fellow at theCentre for Urban Health Initiatives at theUniversity of Toronto and a researchassociate at Ryerson University’s Centre forStudies in Food Security. She has worked asa social planner and as a food systems plannerfor the City of Vancouver. Kevin Balmer([email protected]) is a graduate of theNohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studiesand Planning at Portland State University,

and now works as a GIS analyst in businessintelligence for Con-way, a national less-than-truckload carrier. Terra Kaethler ([email protected]) is a graduate of the School forCommunity and Regional Planning at theUniversity of British Columbia, the authorof a report on the Vancouver urban agricul-ture inventory project (Kaethler, 2006),and currently a land use planner with theProvincial Agricultural Land Commission.Amanda Rhoads ([email protected]) is a city planner with the City ofPortland Bureau of Planning, where she iscurrently working on an update to Portland’scomprehensive plan. She was part of theoriginal Diggable City project team.

Journal of the American Planning Association,

Vol. 74, No. 4, Autumn 2008

DOI 10.1080/01944360802354923

© American Planning Association, Chicago, IL.

74-4 06 335659 Mendes QC3 9/18/08 11:26 AM Page 435Downloaded By: [Mendes, Wendy][American Planning Association] At: 14:22 8 November 2008

1996). At the same time, scholars suggest that UA and otherfood policies provide a host of social benefits including:vibrant public spaces, community capacity building,participatory decision making, enhanced sense of place,food security, community safety, physical activity, socialinclusion, and improved health and nutrition (Cole, Lee-Smith, & Nasinyama, in press; Dubbeling, 2001, 2006;Holland, 2004; International Development Research Centre& Urban Management Program for Latin America and theCaribbean, 2003; Mendes, 2006; 2007; Wakefield, Yeudall,Taron, Reynolds, & Skinner, 2007; Wekerle, 2004; Welsh& MacRae, 1998).

However, there is a dearth of research documentingspecific examples of the ways in which planners andmunicipal policymakers in North America intervene tosupport and enable urban agriculture with a view to creatingsustainable communities. Nor is there sufficient analysisof the pressures, processes, and mechanisms that leadmunicipalities to enact urban agriculture initiatives or ofthe practical planning and policy implications of suchinterventions.

This article helps to fill this gap. Using case studiesset in two Pacific Northwest cities (Portland, Oregon, andVancouver, British Columbia) we examine how one par-ticular tool, a public land inventory, was used to integrateurban agriculture into planning and policymaking processesto enhance sustainability. This tool identifies opportunitiesfor UA initiatives on city-owned land and can be used toinform policy promoting UA, and to understand, analyze,and display the potential for UA. In both Portland andVancouver, municipally supported inventories were under-taken not only to identify potential sites for UA, but toenrich understandings of how to plan for environmentallyand socially sustainable communities.2

In this article, we analyze the development and earlyphases of implementation of each city’s land inventory.Our focus on land inventories is not intended to implythat they are the most effective or desirable tool that amunicipality can use to integrate UA into planning andpolicymaking processes to enhance sustainability. We donot wish to imply that land inventories function in isolationfrom other tools and processes; rather, our purpose is toexamine them as one tool to be used in conjunction withothers. We believe they yield insights applicable in othercontexts, but recognize that local conditions will vary.

We compare the Portland and Vancouver inventorieson how they were initiated and carried out, as well as theirrespective scopes, scales, and outcomes. We explore bothwhether the land inventories have enabled integration ofurban agriculture into planning and policymaking processes,and whether they advanced environmental and social/

participatory sustainability agendas in these municipalities.Because both inventories are still in relatively early stages ofimplementation, our findings are preliminary.

The article begins with an overview of existing researchlinking UA with improved environmental and socialconditions in cities. It then moves to the cases of Portlandand Vancouver, first reviewing their respective experiences,then comparing outcomes to date in relation to our twostated aims.3

UA and Sustainable Communities

The decoupling of food production from food con-sumption in cities is a recent phenomenon (Mougeot, 1994).Historically, cities and their food systems4 have been inex-tricably linked, with urban populations depending onproximate food production and distribution systems tosustain themselves. But massive rural-to-urban migrationover the latter half of the twentieth century, combinedwith the rise of mechanized farming, long-distance foodtransportation, refrigeration, and large-scale food processinghave led to a loss of farmland near urban areas, whilemodern land use practices effectively prohibit agriculturalactivity in urban centers5 (Pothukuchi & Kaufman, 1999;2000). In many parts of the world, urban agriculture hasnow become associated with underdevelopment, landsquatting, ineffective urban management, and relatedsocioeconomic problems (Mougeot, 2006). Together, thishas resulted in a false but enduring dichotomy betweenurban and rural food issues, particularly in the global north(Mougeot, 2006; Pothukuchi & Kaufman, 1999; 2000).

However, the split between food production and citieshas not been universal and shows signs of being repaired(Mougeot, 1994). A growing number of cities are revisingexisting UA policies or formulating new ones (AmericanPlanning Association Food System Planning Committee,2006; van Veenhuizen, 2006), suggesting UA is againconsidered a legitimate concern of city planning. Significantpolicy initiatives indicate a renewed commitment to UAand a new view of its function in cities. For instance, aLondon Assembly Environment Committee (2006) reportcalls for benchmarks to protect and enhance the city’s foodresources. In the same year, the City of Vancouver, includedcommunity gardens as a “community amenity contribution”6

for the first time (City of Vancouver, 2006). In the City ofMontréal, which has the largest municipal urban agricul-ture program in Canada, community gardens have theirown land use designation (Cosgrove, 2001). Municipalitiesare now more involved in UA at least in part because it hasemerged as a strategy to achieve urban sustainability. Local

436 Journal of the American Planning Association, Autumn 2008, Vol. 74, No. 4


governments have begun to recognize that in addition toincreasing local food production, UA contributes to re-source recycling and conservation, therapy and recreation,education and safe food provision, green architecture, openspace management, social inclusion, and public health(APA Food System Planning Committee, 2006; Mougeot,2006). Furthermore, international organizations includingthe International Development Research Centre (IDRC)and Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and FoodSecurity (RUAF) have developed substantial program andresearch resources to support municipalities in buildingtheir capacity for UA.

Reflecting the increasing municipal interest in UA,scholars are examining a number of its dimensions. Theseinclude UA as a strategy to improve food security andnutrition (Cole et al., in press; Dahlberg, 1999; Power,1999), gender and UA (Hovorka, 2003), populationhealth and UA (Wakefield et al., 2007), and the economicimpacts of UA (Norberg-Hodge, Merrifield, & Gorelick,2002; Nugent, 1999a; 1999b). In the growing researchon UA, this article contributes to at least two specific sub-literatures: (1) UA, land use planning, and sustainability(relating to the question of integration of UA into planningand policymaking processes); and (2) UA, participatorygovernance, and community development (relating to thequestion of advancement of a municipal sustainabilityagenda that encompasses not only ecological goals but alsosocial/participatory goals).

Literature on UA, Land Use Planning,and Sustainability

A small but growing literature asks why food has beenoverlooked as an issue of relevance to urban planners(Argenti, 2000; Koc, MacRae, Mougeot, & Welsh, 1999;Mendes, 2006; 2007; in press; Mougeot, 2006; Pothukuchi& Kaufman, 1999; 2000; Rocha, 2001; Wekerle, 2004).Pothukuchi and Kaufman’s (2000) article reports findingsof a survey of 22 U.S. city planning agencies. The studyrevealed a number of reasons why planners have not engagedwith food system issues, including UA. First, planners feltthat the food system was not their turf, pointing insteadto the built environment and land use regulation as theirprimary responsibilities. Second, many planners perceivedthe food system to be a rural rather than an urban issue,underscoring the false dichotomy between urban and ruralfood policy. Third, as public sector workers, planners feltunqualified or unwilling to take the lead on what theyperceived to be a private sector issue. Fourth, plannerscited a lack of funding to initiate and implement programs

and services. Fifth, many planners reported that they didnot perceive any problems with the current food system.Sixth, planners said they did not know about communitygroups they could work with on food system issues. Last,they reported lacking knowledge about food issues.

Since Pothukuchi and Kaufman’s (2000) pioneeringstudy, others have concluded it to be legitimate for plannersto intervene on food system issues (Born & Purcell, 2006;Bouris, 2005; Clancy, 2004; Koc et al., 1999; Wekerle,2004). In 2004, both Progressive Planning and the Journalof Planning Education and Research published special issueson food system planning. On May 11, 2007 a policy guideon community and regional food planning was approvedby American Planning Association (2007).

Often implicit in these developments is attention to thelinks between UA and sustainability agendas. For instance,recent research examines the use of community gardens torevitalize brownfield sites through urban greening (Rosol,2005). Earlier scholarship examines the design implicationsof community gardens in medium to high density urbancontexts (DeKay, 1997). Links between ecological restorationand community gardening now also appear more commonlyin the literature (Irvine et al., 1999). Increasingly, theselinks reflect concerns over the urban impacts of climatechange, peak oil, and a new global food crisis.

Literature on UA, ParticipatoryPlanning, and CommunityDevelopment

The second subliterature relevant to this article focuseson links between UA, participatory planning, and commu-nity development. UA has been shown to support a host ofsustainability goals including environmental protection,public health and nutrition, poverty reduction, communitycapacity building, participatory decision making, socialinclusion, and community economic development, amongothers. As a result, UA typically involves a wide range ofpeople, and has been identified as an exemplary “networkedmovement” because of its cross-sectoral nature and itscitizen-led approach to knowledge and solutions (Wekerle,2004; Welsh & MacRae, 1998). Its benefits have beenfound to accrue not only to community members, butequally to municipal authorities, who, by involving multiplestakeholders in decision making, are more likely to developpolicies that meet the needs of both the municipality andits constituents, particularly marginalized groups (Mougeot,2006). At the same time, more inclusive and participatorydecision making has been shown to promote citizen partic-ipation and buy-in at all levels (Dubbeling, 2006; Holland,

Mendes et al.: Using Land Inventories to Plan for Urban Agriculture 437


2004; International Development Research Centre & UrbanManagement Program for Latin America and the Caribbean,2003; Mougeot, 2006; Wekerle, 2004.). The literature alsotheorizes that UA contributes to social capital and civicengagement. A growing body of research examines com-munity garden sites, finding that social capital is produced,accessed, and used by a network of community gardenersand seeks to understand whether participation in com-munity gardening enhances civic democracy and the publicsphere (Glover, Shinew, & Parry, 2005).

Thus, the literature has explained why planners did notintervene much in food issues for many years and why thatis changing now. It also indicates that UA can benefit notonly the natural environment, but also the social environ-ment. The remainder of the article focuses on land invento-ries in Portland and Vancouver, and how they were used toidentify potential sites for urban agriculture and to plan forsocially and environmentally sustainable communities.

Case 1: City of Portland DiggableCity Project

Regional ContextPortland is the center of a growing metropolitan area

in the Pacific Northwest. The city of 130 square miles ishome to almost 540,000 people, with over 2.1 millionresidents in the region. Portland is shaped by the Oregonstate land use planning system that requires each city ormetropolitan area to set an urban growth boundary (UGB).The UGB limits and controls what then-Governor TomMcCall colorfully referred to in the 1970s as “sagebrushsubdivisions, coastal condo-mania, and the ravenousrampage of suburbia” (McCall, 1973),7 while protectingfarm and forest lands. This system has met these goals overthe past three decades. A study comparing the Portlandmetropolitan region and 14 other cities between 1990 and2000 found that without urban containment Portlandwould likely have expanded over an additional 88 to 279square miles of rural land (Northwest EnvironmentalWatch, 2004). However, for the same reasons the systemworks to protect farm and forest lands outside of the UGBs,it also calls for efficient use of land within. Metro, theregional government for the Portland metropolitan area, isrequired to maintain a 20-year supply of buildable land forresidential development. This policy has worked in favor ofdenser development, but puts a premium on land inside theUGB. Other forces, such as increasing housing demand,employment, and wages have contributed to increasingland values in Portland (Nelson, Pendall, Dawkins, &

Knaap, 2002). This has made available land more preciousto developers and economic development advocates. Conse-quently, urban agriculture has struggled with the perceptionthat it is an incompatible and inefficient use of urban landthat could command higher financial returns.

Those advocating protections for green and openspaces faced similar resistance in the past; after passage ofSenate Bill 100 (the law which established the Oregon landuse planning system), little attention was given to theimportance of open spaces within UGBs. However, publicopinion came to favor protecting wildlife habitat and openspaces in the 1990s, after much advocacy work. Realizingthat jurisdictions are unlikely to protect green space if suchprotection reduces their buildable land, the Metro Councilpassed Resolution 97-2562B in 1997, which allowed anexception for the decline in net buildable land from greenspace preservation consistent with Title 8 of the GrowthManagement Functional Plan.

Local Political ContextPortland is a city that has long been on the forefront

of sustainability, and its commitment reflects the localpolitical context. Portland was the first U.S. city to adopt astrategy to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide in 1993 andone of the first municipalities in North America to makesustainability a priority, creating an Office of SustainableDevelopment (OSD) in 2000. This office initially focusedon solid waste and recycling, green building, and energy;its purview has since grown to include renewable resourcesand sustainable food systems. Innovative policies on globalwarming, recycling and composting, green building, andtransportation options have institutionalized sustainabilityissues in city code, setting the stage for incorporatingsustainability into the city’s new comprehensive plancurrently under development.

Thus Portland’s support for UA exists within thecontext of a preexisting commitment to principles ofsustainable development. Further, Portland’s culture offood has expanded in recent years. Long known for itsmicrobrews, Portland’s wine industry has developedconsiderably over the past years. Many of the trendiestrestaurants buy local produce, meats, cheeses, and winefrom local farmers. The region boasts 32 separate farmers’markets, 20 community-supported agriculture (CSA)operations, and the City of Portland alone manages 30community gardens, with many more maintained bychurches, community groups, and suburban communities.National food-related organizations such as The FoodAlliance and Ecotrust are headquartered in Portland, withdozens of grassroots food advocacy groups also active in thecity. Many of these efforts are focused on helping to create



a greener, healthier, more self-sufficient city, and combined,they create fertile ground for food policy to take root incity government.

Food Policy CouncilBeginning in the mid-1990s, local food activists began

working with the City of Portland and Multnomah Countyto raise the profile of food policy and food issues in thecommunity. One outcome in 2002 was the establishmentof a food policy council advising and reporting to bothgovernments on food policy issues. The resolution the citypassed to create the council (Multnomah County alsopassed such a resolution) said “urban land use policiesand rules negatively [affect] local food production anddistribution” (City of Portland, 2007a). Since 2002, thePortland/Multnomah Food Policy Council has worked onsuch far-reaching issues as local institutional purchasing,small-scale food system assessments, support of immigrantand refugee farmers in the Pacific Northwest, developingcommercial food composting, bringing electronic benefittransfer (food stamp) capability to local farmers markets,and researching policies to protect farmland. In 2005, theCity of Portland for the first time funded a full-time staffperson to work on food issues; this funding has been re-newed yearly since that time. More recently, a communityvisioning project in Portland spoke with over 17,000Portlanders and identified sustainability as one of the corecommunity values. In that context, many Portlandersspoke of the importance of access to community gardensand locally produced organic foods.

The Diggable City (DC) ProjectInspired by a successful community garden project on

property surrounding a municipal pump station, in Novem-ber 2004 Portland Commissioner Dan Saltzman proposedinventorying all city-managed lands to determine whetherthey would be suitable for community gardens or other UAuses.8 The council unanimously supported the resolution,which included statements indicating the importance of UAto the city. These included the following benefits:

• Community gardens are important neighborhoodgathering places that contribute to the city’s parksand open space system and support neighborhoodlivability;

• Urban gardening supports self-sufficiency andaccess to healthy food for Portland residents;

• The Community Gardens Program encouragesorganic gardening, building healthy soil, new andheirloom plant varieties, composting, cover cropping,food sustainability, [and] intergenerational activities.

However, the council did not budget funds or commitcity staff to carrying out the resolution. Thus, Commis-sioner Saltzman’s office sought the aid of graduate studentsin the Urban and Regional Planning program at PortlandState University. A team of eight individuals with variedplanning backgrounds in environmental and communitydevelopment and GIS, as well as media and design, assem-bled to complete the task. Within six months, the projectteam delivered a GIS-based inventory of public land andan extensive GIS methodology. The team also recognizedthat this project could potentially engage a large audienceon the implications of urban food production. To this end,students also analyzed the local and regional context for UAincluding relevant state and local land use laws; consideredthe challenges of and opportunities for using public landsfor UA projects; documented stakeholder interviews onvideo; and prepared and presented a final set of recom-mendations to the city council. They named the project“The Diggable City,” capturing its spirit.

To develop the land inventory, the project teamworked closely with GIS staff at four city bureaus whoseresponsibilities gave them management control of somecity-owned lands. They formatted and assembled existingmap data into a single, legible, data table (Balmer et al.,2005). Once consistently formatted, the team comparedhigh-resolution aerial photos to these bureaus’ propertymaps to assess and assign relevant attributes to each record,including tree canopy, the presence of buildings and parking,the type of agricultural potential, a subjective suitabilityrank based on a visual assessment of the site, and notesdescribing other characteristics of the site. Using thisinformation, the team classified properties into the simplecategories shown in Table 1 based on likely potential UAuse. Aggregating various agricultural uses into four gener-alized categories allows flexibility in the future, since eachcategory includes many possible uses that share similarrequirements. A total of 430 separate properties wereincluded in the inventory; when adjacent properties werecombined there were 289 locations.

Upon initial analysis, many of the sites did not appearto be ideal for agricultural purposes: Some were completelycovered with tree canopy, others were in industrial areas,and some were located in floodplains or contained areas ofsteep slope. Nevertheless, such sites were neither removedfrom the database nor from consideration for future urbanagriculture projects. For example, a site covered with trees,while not suitable for row cropping, was retained in theinventory for possible alternative farming techniques (e.g.,forest farming, berry or mushroom cultivation). Likewise, apaved property could be used for container gardens, green-houses, or a farmers’ market site. In this way, the inventory



maintained opportunities for a wide variety of uses, andincluded all of the city-owned lands rather than excludingsome (Balmer et al., 2005).

A technical advisory committee made up of cityemployees and community members helped developevaluation criteria and advise on progress. The DC projectteam also organized focus groups of individuals active inthe local food system (area farmers, community activists,permaculture practitioners, and academics); conductedsurveys of community gardeners and farmers’ marketshoppers to determine their interest in potential UA projects;and interviewed many additional stakeholders. Theseoutreach efforts greatly informed the criteria the projectused and its recommendations, and expanded the under-standing of the potential for urban agriculture in Portland(Balmer et al., 2005).

At the project’s conclusion, the DC project teamrecommended the following:

1. Develop an inventory management plan. ThePortland OSD, the Portland Office of Neighbor-hood Involvement, and the Portland/MultnomahCounty Food Policy Council should develop a planfor administering these sites that is just, equitable,and sensitive to the needs and characteristics ofsurrounding communities. Inventory data shouldbe accessible to community groups, educators,farmers, and residents interested in using the landsidentified.

2. Expand the inventory and develop evaluationcriteria. To fully realize the potential of UA inPortland, the city should expand the inventoryfurther by involving more city bureaus in reviewing

parcel suitability and in developing criteria morecompletely.

3. Form an Urban Agriculture Commission. The cityshould create an Urban Agriculture Commission ofresidents and a city representative to review plansand policies and make recommendations on urbanagricultural issues, similar to its Urban ForestryCommission.

4. Adopt a formal policy on UA. Given stakeholderawareness of the inventory and support for UAactivities, the city should craft a comprehensive UApolicy addressing its environmental, health, andsocial benefits and providing a vision for the futureof UA in Portland.

5. Conduct a comprehensive review of policy andzoning. The city should conduct a detailed reviewof Portland’s current policy and zoning to identifyobstacles that could be mitigated to improve theopportunities to realize UA.

On June 8, 2005, Portland’s City Council unanimouslyaccepted the DC report and tasked the Portland/MultnomahFood Policy Council with moving the project forward overthe subsequent eight months. The Food Policy Councilexplored recommendations 1 and 5 with an Urban Agri-culture Subcommittee, returning to the council eightmonths later with a new report that was received positively.As part of that subcommittee, the Food Policy Councilworked with one planner in the city’s Bureau of Planningand one from the city’s Bureau of Development Services toreview the student work and to analyze how to removeland use policy and zoning barriers to UA. Some recom-mendations were quite straightforward: For example, in


Table 1. Diggable City urban agriculture categories.

Category Pervious surface area Agricultural uses

Community gardens At least 7,500 sq. ft. Gardens with individual plots; gardens with shared gardening space

Small-scale growing operations Less than 10,890 sq. ft. (¼ acre) Farm stands, educational gardening programs, composting, vermiculture, food bank gardening, herb growing, beekeeping, pocket gardens, floriculture, market gardens

Large-scale growing operations More than 10,890 sq. ft. (¼ acre) CSAs, other urban farms, urban orchards, animal husbandry, immigrantfarmer apprenticeship program, horticulture, native plant production, nursery, beekeeping

Growing on impervious surfaces At least 5,000 sq. ft. Vertical gardening; indoor growing (e.g., sprouts, mushrooms, or poor soil aquaculture, vermiculture); greenhouses, farm stands, community

processing, farmers’ markets, container gardening, hydroponics


some zones, the code allows agriculture but prohibits“outdoor work activities,” so that changing the languagecould remove the prohibition on UA. Other issues identified,such as changing the zoning on specific city-owned parcelsto allow for agriculture, would require more time andeffort, including a public process.

The Food Policy Council also developed a draft in-ventory management plan, which included a request forproposals process for project ideas needing access to land.The plan is currently being tested with several pilot projects,including a community garden in a currently underservedarea; an immigrant farmer apprenticeship program adjacentto and run by a farm currently operating on city property;and a nursery producing container-grown native plants onpaved land for use in Portland area wetland restoration,streamside revegetation, and stormwater managementprojects (see Shandas & Messer, this issue).

The OSD, which oversees the work of the Food PolicyCouncil, is currently working to implement the pilotprojects and this past year identified 40 of the inventoriedproperties (shown as large dots in Figure 1) as havingstrong potential for urban agriculture projects. The firstpriority will be for the community to gain access to anddevelop projects on these sites.

Challenges to developing projects on these sites includethe often long process of finalizing a lease with whichevercity bureau owns the land; the absence of city or otherfunding to support improvements like fencing and installingwater meters (costing together upwards of $20,000 to$30,000 per property); and the lack of concrete goals ora city mandate to develop UA projects.

While the number of projects built to date as a resultof this inventory remains small, the DC project continuesto generate interest among both policymakers and com-munity members, many of whom perceive UA to havesocial, physical, and environmental benefits. The Portland/Multnomah Food Policy Council and the general publichave kept the project active for the past 2 years, and citybureau managers appear to have grown more comfortablewith the idea. In September 2007 visionPDX, the com-munity-wide visioning process, identified locally grownfood as a priority, linking UA to community connectedness,sustainability, and social equity.

Preliminary Assessment of the Portland CaseWe are interested in whether land inventories have

enabled integration of urban agriculture into planning andpolicymaking processes, and whether the land inventoryprocess advances a municipal sustainability agenda thatencompasses both environmental and social dimensions.In Portland’s case, there are preliminary indications that

both of these questions can be answered affirmatively.Multnomah County, which includes the city of Portland aswell as additional land, took its cue from the DC inventoryto create the County Digs project. County Digs promotesopportunities for UA by making appropriate surplus countyand tax-foreclosed properties available to local governments,community groups, and nonprofit organizations for suchpurposes. The county’s surplus and tax-foreclosed propertywill be reviewed by a Green Space Review Committee onan annual basis for appropriate inclusion in this project,thus incorporating UA into an ongoing process.

Public support and awareness of the inventory has alsoincreased the level of discourse about UA in civic conver-sations. In addition to support for the project expressed inmultiple documents prepared by advisory boards to thecity, the inventory was specifically referenced by numerousrespondents in the visionPDX community visioning process,where both UA and access to healthful foods showed up asa strong theme. A summary of community input foundthat “many people envision more urban gardening in thefuture, with eco-roofs, converted parking-lots, vacant lots,and other underutilized spaces providing food for the city’sresidents” (City of Portland, 2007b). In a new process torewrite the city’s comprehensive plan, the Bureau of Planningis hearing from advocates like the Portland/MultnomahFood Policy Council and local gardening and healthorganizations, and from the OSD, that UA and healthfulfoods should be part of the discussion. The DC projectremains relevant through sustained community interestand advocacy.

UA has also been linked to community resilience in abroader conversation about sustainability in Portland. ThePortland Peak Oil Task Force, an advisory body appointedby Portland City Council, recommended in 2007 that thecity devote more resources to implementing the DC projectas a step toward localizing food production, thereby hopingto reduce reliance on fossil fuels and impacts of decliningenergy resources on the community.

The way in which the project was carried out has alsoadvanced the city’s sustainability agenda. The broad par-ticipation of local food advocates, farmers, and communityleaders in developing the DC inventory yielded a naturalset of stakeholders and supporters to move the project for-ward. Many of these supporters became active participantsin a 20-member technical advisory committee for thesubsequent Food Policy Council report, exploring howdifferent models of UA could be used on city properties inthe inventory.

UA was considered important to sustainability byvisionPDX, as the following, from the Vision Committee,suggests:



A primary challenge in the coming years will be toovercome current disparities to ensure that all residentshave access to public resources such as greenspaces,walking and bike paths, public transportation, com-munity gardens and locally grown, healthful food sothat each of us, regardless of location, can choose tolive with less environmental impact. (City of Portland,2007c)

In visionPDX, equity and sustainability were consideredas two parts of a single set of goals. The inclusion of UA inthis discussion suggests that it is emerging as a key ingredientfor a sustainable Portland.

Case 2: City of VancouverUA Inventory

Regional ContextVancouver is a city of approximately 600,000 inhabi-

tants in a metropolitan region of just over 2 million. It isthe largest city in the province of British Columbia and thethird largest in Canada. Regional development goals are setout in Metro Vancouver’s Sustainable Region Initiative.9

In addition, provincial legislation protecting agriculturalland has existed since 1973. This legislation, created theAgricultural Land Reserve (ALR), and has had significantimpact on land use and urban development in the region.The ALR includes approximately 11.6 million acres of the


Figure 1. The Diggable City project inventory of potential sites for urban agriculture in Portland.


province’s land most suitable for agriculture (only 5% ofthe province’s land base). Despite boundary changes overthe decades, its area remains approximately the same. Upuntil the 1970s, approximately 14,800 acres of primeagricultural land were lost each year to urban developmentand other uses. By restricting urban development on farm-land, the ALR encourages efficient forms of growth and thereduction of sprawl, acting as a de facto urban containmentboundary10 (Agricultural Land Commission, 2007).

Local Political ContextLike Portland, metropolitan Vancouver’s commitments

to sustainability and livability are reflected in the localpolitics of the City of Vancouver. Vancouver is recognizedboth locally and internationally for progressive urbangovernance and for planning based on principles of sustain-ability. The city has a history of leadership on sustainability,and began to institutionalize its responses in 1990 with thecreation of the Special Office for the Environment (SOE).In April 2002, the city adopted a definition of what asustainable Vancouver would be, along with a set of prin-ciples aiming to coordinate the city’s sustainability policies.To facilitate this goal, a Sustainability Sponsor Group,made up of senior city employees, was approved andfunded by the city council in 2002.

What began as a focus solely on environmental concernsbroadened over the course of the 1990s to include socialand economic aspects of sustainability. On May 24, 2005,the Vancouver City Council approved a definition of socialsustainability to be used for developing the social componentof the city’s sustainability objectives. Currently, Vancouvercontinues to pursue sustainability in all aspects of develop-ment including transportation systems, energy conservation,and green buildings. Vancouver’s newest initiative isEcoDensity, an approach to planning for growth whilereducing the city’s ecological footprint.

As an extension of the city’s commitment to sustain-ability, the City of Vancouver has been a national leader inmunicipal food system planning. Even without an officialfood policy mandate or coordinated urban agriculturestrategy, the City of Vancouver provided funding andother support for a wide range of urban agriculture activities.However, it did not take a direct role in urban agricultureand other food policy initiatives until relatively recently.On December 11, 2003, after more than a decade ofcommunity advocacy, Vancouver City Council approveda Food Action Plan for creating a just and sustainable foodsystem for the City of Vancouver, which identified UA as apriority. In July 2004, a municipal Food Policy Councilwas established with a mandate to provide advice to thecity on food-related issues. In addition, two staff positions

were created to support the burgeoning food policy mandate.(Currently one staff position remains.) Since that time, agrowing number of city developments and initiatives haveincluded community gardens, edible landscaping, and/orfarmers markets in their plans, which are the result of acombination of staff support, the work of the Food PolicyCouncil and community groups, and growing awarenessof the role of food decisions in a range of city planningpriorities.

As the city’s food policy mandate evolved, urban foodproduction was identified as one of a number of solutions(City of Vancouver, 2003; 2006), though the policies,programs, and regulatory tools that were needed to supportUA were lacking. Thus, the city initiated a UA inventoryusing Portland’s DC project as an example.

The City of Vancouver’s UA InventoryAs with the Portland DC project, the inventory began

as a collaboration between a local university, the Universityof British Columbia (UBC) and the city. In Vancouver’scase, the inventory began through a graduate internship atthe City of Vancouver’s Social Planning Department in2005.11 That same summer, The Diggable City: MakingUrban Agriculture a Planning Priority (Balmer et al., 2005)was released in Portland. Vancouver modeled its inventoryon the one described in the Portland report.

The City of Vancouver owned a number of unoccupiedproperties with UA potential, but had very little data withwhich to begin effective planning, and no guiding principles,targets, or goals for implementing UA, or clear process fortaking advantage of emerging opportunities. The inventorydocumented existing city activities and policies supportiveof UA, as well as identifying suitable sites the city ownedor leased, and opportunities to expand UA initiatives. Itspurpose, defined by the priorities in Vancouver’s FoodAction Plan (City of Vancouver, 2003), was to supportland use decision making, to serve as a public resource tobuild awareness, to support the city’s existing sustainabilitycommitments, and to contribute to a citywide UA strategy.

The City of Vancouver Social Planning Departmentestablished a working group to guide the inventory thatincluded city staff, Food Policy Council representatives,community members, and graduate students. The inventorywas carried out primarily by the graduate student in collab-oration with city staff in a number of departments. Most ofthe land that would be inventoried was managed either bythe Vancouver Department of Engineering or the CanadianDepartment of Public Works, although additional siteswere identified through advisory meetings with the workinggroup and community consultations.12 Data were collectedfrom participating city departments, and then mapped



using the City of Vancouver’s GIS mapping program. Thesuitability of each potential site for UA was determinedwith evaluative criteria, GIS analysis, and site visits.

As was done in the DC project, site attributes wereassembled in a database, and the sites were categorized bysize and the types of use they might accommodate. Theinventory includes sites that have broad potential forvarious agricultural uses, from container gardens or marketson paved properties to large-scale urban farming andgreenhouse facilities. Individual sites will require furtheranalysis before they are known to be suited to a particularagricultural use, but considering diverse potential usesallows many opportunities to expand UA in Vancouver.The final project identified 77 potential sites for UA, asillustrated in Figure 2.

The project also included a review of city and regionalpolicies and initiatives, a comparative analysis of bestpractices in UA in four other North American cities, ananalysis of challenges and opportunities for urban agriculture,and recommendations to the City of Vancouver. Thereview was carried out by the planning intern under thesupervision of city staff. Although it was smaller in scopethan the inventory conducted in Portland, it does providea starting point from which to further analyze availablesites for their UA potential.

The Vancouver inventory project also identified keychallenges facing urban food production in the city. Someof the most basic include which sites to convert to UA first,who should manage them, who should pay for start-up andoperational costs, and who should have access to them.Since Vancouver continues to grow in both populationand property values, the availability of land is anothersignificant obstacle to promoting UA. Unlike other NorthAmerican cities, Vancouver has few vacant or abandonedproperties in its central core, and is almost completely builtout. The market value of land is high and housing demandcontinues to grow. The low revenues UA produces cannotcompete with the rents from other forms of development,and though it does provide social and environmentalbenefits, these are difficult to quantify. Some UA canoccupy small spaces that do not compete with development,such as street rights-of-way and rooftops.

Last, finding adequate funding will also be a challenge.Although the Vancouver City Council has supportedcreating more opportunities for UA, it has allocated fewresources to support implementation. For example, nofunding is in place to complete the analysis of specific sites.The City of Vancouver has paid for creating most of theexisting community gardens. Start-up costs can run from$5,000 to $8,000 and may include labor, management,water, tools, rent, and insurance. However, there is no

management system in place to ensure that funds are wellspent. Adding such oversight is an important priority.

The Vancouver inventory yielded three recommen-dations on how the City of Vancouver should maximizethe potential of UA:

1. Provide access and support. Develop an inventorymanagement plan to expand the inventory andadminister the use of the sites; make the dataaccessible to the community; develop use-specificevaluation criteria collaboratively with relevant citybureaus; and raise awareness of how UA contributesto the city’s sustainability.

2. Review zoning and policy. Conduct a comprehensivereview of policy and zoning regulations to mitigateobstacles and improve opportunities for UA;formalize a UA policy to provide a vision for thefuture.

3. Develop institutional support. Establish mechanismsto facilitate cooperation and partnerships betweenrelevant city departments, food banks, and othercommunity services to promote UA; fund and staffa formal municipal community garden program tomanage UA initiatives throughout the city.

As is true in Portland, few UA projects have beenimplemented to date as a result of the Vancouver inventory.However, the inventory has sparked interest among citystaff and community members and has contributed tofurther studies. On May 30, 2006 Councilor Peter Ladnercalled for the city to work with the Vancouver Food PolicyCouncil to create 2010 new garden plots in the city betweenJanuary, 2006 and January, 2010, as an Olympic legacy.13

The motion was passed unanimously. Councilor Ladnerhas challenged other municipalities in the region to do thesame. These could include community-shared gardens onrooftops, balconies, or on the ground; private gardens thatare part of the Sharing Backyard program; and gardensthat participate in the city’s Grow a Row, Share a Rowprogram.

We know of two follow-up projects. In the first, threeUBC graduate student interns with the Vancouver SocialPlanning Department conducted a second phase of theinventory in the spring of 2007. It expanded the inventoryto include public lands owned by other departments, aswell as quasi-public properties, such as those belonging toschools and churches. Properties were identified throughvisual assessment on the city’s GIS application (VanMap),as well as through community consultations. It was designedto help city staff respond to inquiries about potential sites,although further analysis will be required before imple-



mentation. The expanded inventory identifies 639 siteswith potential for UA although further analysis is neededto determine site suitability. In a second follow-up project,a UBC geography class, in consultation with the SocietyPromoting Environmental Conservation, prepared aresource guide called Growing Gardens: A Resource Packageon How to Start Your Own Community Garden, offeringinformation and pointers for garden site development,holding community consultations, and accessing resourcesfrom various city departments (Burkholder, Ng, Nui, &Solanki, 2007).

Preliminary Assessment of theVancouver Case

There are some indications that Vancouver’s landinventory has integrated UA into planning and policy-

making processes. We conclude that the inventory hasbeen recognized as a tool that will help city staff identifyavailable land to assist community members who wish tostart new gardens and other forms of UA as part of Coun-cilor Ladner’s previously mentioned initiative to expandcommunity gardens, rooftop gardens, and edible land-scaping throughout the city. The city council also endorseddraft operational guidelines for community gardens in2006, and allocated community amenity contributions todeveloping new community gardens in 2007, some of whichwere identified in the inventory. Supporting the secondphase of the inventory in 2007 also indicates continuedmunicipal interest in using the tool.

Since the inventory was conducted, the City ofVancouver has begun developing a green building strategy(GBS) as one of many initiatives underway to reduce


Figure 2. The inventory of potential urban agriculture sites in Vancouver.


environmental impacts of buildings and related infrastruc-ture. The GBS proposes 15 specific changes to bylaw andzoning guidelines, including one related to urban agriculture.The approved council report on the GBS states that thestrategy will aim to “contribute to a sustainable foodsystem by ensuring provision of permanent facilities forurban agriculture on rooftops, podiums and ground-levellandscaped areas such as courtyards” (City of Vancouver,2007a, Appendix A). Formulating the GBS has been aninterdepartmental process that has raised awareness aboutUA among city departments and agencies. The city is alsodeveloping a set of urban agriculture guidelines on sharedgarden plots and edible landscaping for private develop-ments (City of Vancouver, 2007b). While not yet formallyapproved, they are intended to assist applicants in preparing,and city staff in assessing, development applications.

We cannot say with certainty that the inventory causedthese policy developments, most of which apply to privatelands, unlike the inventory. However, they do demonstratethe growing robustness of the City of Vancouver’s com-mitment to UA. We believe the inventory was a basic firststep to this, since it supports city planners’ and policymakers’taking UA into consideration when making decisionsabout land use and development, or existing parallel policyprocesses such as the GBS.

We also conclude that while the inventory built upona preexisting municipal sustainability agenda, it also con-tributed to this agenda. It highlighted the link betweenUA and broad sustainability goals of other city initiatives:green building, eco-density, neighborhood planning, andsocial planning. However, we observe only limited linksbetween the inventory process and advancing the socialdimensions of sustainability in the Vancouver case, par-ticularly where broad public participation is concerned.The Vancouver inventory was largely an internal process,directed by the Social Planning Department, though itinvolved the Food Policy Council and the EngineeringDepartment as key actors. The scope was smaller than inthe Portland case, and there was less public awareness ofthe inventory and participation in its development. Andthough the inventory process may have increased theawareness of UA’s potential among city staff and the citycouncil, more buy-in will be needed. The inventory hasstrengthened relationships between city departments,community groups, and UBC, but its potential as a publicengagement tool has not been fully realized, though it didlead to several subsequent reports and student and com-munity-led projects with more public involvement. Forexample, the second phase of the inventory identifiedadditional sites on public land that were included in sixcommunity consultations as part of CityPlans, Vancouver’s

neighborhood visioning program. The results demonstratedthat Vancouver citizens strongly support UA and hope tosee more of it in their communities.

Discussion and Conclusions

Thus we found that the Portland inventory bothenabled integration of urban agriculture into planning andpolicymaking and advanced social and ecological sustain-ability. Vancouver achieved similar integration into planning,but the smaller scope of the effort meant it did little forpublic involvement and social sustainability. We alsoidentified a number of important similarities and differ-ences between the two cases that may be instructive forbetter understanding links between land inventories, UA,and sustainable communities.

Similarities Between Portland and VancouverBoth Portland and Vancouver aligned UA with existing

municipal policy directions and priorities, most notably,sustainability agendas. In Vancouver’s case the specificfocus was a sustainable development paradigm aiming toachieve social, environmental, and economic benefits. InPortland’s case, the initiative contributed to a food policyprogram managed by the OSD, which emphasized growingfood locally among other social and ecological goals. Thus,in both cases UA contributed to sustainability in ways thatwent beyond food production.

In both cases, political champions or other communityleaders advanced UA. This was particularly true in Portland,where City Commissioner Dan Saltzman put forward theresolution to inventory all lands managed by the city inorder to discover their potential for community gardens orother UA uses. Although Vancouver’s leadership was untilrecently not linked specifically to the inventory, nor evento UA, the city did have an official food policy mandatechampioned by city councilors in a previous administration.In both cases, leadership also arose through city departmentsand community partners. In both Vancouver and Portland,community organizations had long been aware of issuesrelated to local food systems, and citizens in both cities hadsignificant knowledge and experience before the inventoriestook place.

Another similarity is that in both cases, the cities usedpartnerships with local universities. In Vancouver, graduatestudent interns from UBC regularly worked on food policyprojects, and the city’s Social Planning Department hadongoing partnerships with UBC’s Faculty of Land andFood Systems and Simon Fraser University’s Centre forSustainable Communities. In Portland, budget constraints



led the Commissioner’s office to ask master’s students inthe urban and regional planning program at Portland StateUniversity to spearhead the project.

Differences Between Portland and VancouverWe find it very important that Portland engaged many

community partners in the entire process from design toimplementation whereas Vancouver did not. In this way,the Portland inventory became what the scholarly literatureidentifies as a “networked movement,” promoting moreinclusive and participatory local decision making, andencouraging citizen engagement and buy-in. Portland alsoconvened an advisory council made up of stakeholders,including community gardening staff, planners, and repre-sentatives from city bureaus. Dozens of food activists wereinterviewed and involved in the project. Portland also usednontraditional outreach techniques that highlighted story-telling and relating personal experiences. One notableexample was a 22-minute documentary created by thestudents that won an award in a local film festival, and hassince been distributed to many local and national interestgroups as an educational tool. In contrast, Vancouver’sinventory had a lower profile, and was led by a single citydepartment. Now that the inventory is complete andsupport for UA is growing in Vancouver there are signsthat this may be changing. The 2010 garden plots challengeis one indicator of this shift.

AcknowledgmentsThe authors wish to thank three anonymous referees for useful andconstructive feedback on earlier drafts of this article. Wendy Mendeswishes to acknowledge the Centre for Urban Health Initiatives at theUniversity of Toronto for financial support in writing up this research;the City of Vancouver’s Social Planning Department; Vancouver FoodPolicy Council; and Joe Nasr for encouragement to write this article.Terra Kaethler thanks the City of Vancouver, particularly the SocialPlanning Department, and Wen Fei (Application Development), fortechnical assistance. Amanda Rhoads and Kevin Balmer thank the entireDiggable City project team of which they were members. Without thework and dedication of the project team, this article would not havebeen possible: James Gill, Heather Kaplinger, Joe Miller, MelissaPeterson, Paul Rosenbloom, and Teak Wall.

Notes1. Since definitions of green communities do not necessarily include thesocial dimension of development, we purposely refer instead to whethercommunities are sustainable. Accepted definitions of sustainability(although they themselves vary) often evoke balance between ecologicaland social goals, including quality of life, care for the environment,ecological carrying capacity, thought for the future, the precautionaryprinciple, fairness and equity, participation, partnerships in decisionmaking, long-term planning, resilience, and viability (Hanson & Lake,2000, p. 8; Jepson, 2001; Rees & Wackernagel, 1996).

2. This article is based on a workshop delivered by the authors inOctober 2006 at the Food Secure Canada/Community Food SecurityCoalition conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. All of the authorswere involved either in creating the land inventories, or as members ofmunicipal planning staffs facilitating them.3. Since cities in the global south have been proposing potential solutionsto their own serious urban food system vulnerabilities for some time(Argenti, 2000; Dubbeling, 2001; 2006; Food and Agriculture Or-ganization of the United Nations, 1998, 2000a, 2000b; InternationalDevelopment Research Centre & Urban Management Program for LatinAmerica and the Caribbean, 2003; Koc et al., 1999; Mougeot, 2000;Rocha, 2001), more and better comparative research on this topic couldbe very useful to U.S. and Canadian planners. Moreover, it is importantto note that a number of cities in the global south have successfullyundertaken land inventories to further UA agendas, inlcuding Cienfuegos,Cuba; Rosario, Argentina; and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. However, aclose examination of these cases is beyond the scope of this article.4. The American Planning Association Food System Planning WhitePaper, prepared by the APA Food System Planning Committee, definesa food system as “the chain of activities connecting food production,processing, distribution and access, consumption, and waste management,as well as all the associated supporting and regulatory institutions andactivities” (APA Food System Planning Committee, 2005, p. 2).5. Notable exceptions in the global north include the promotion ofhousehold and community gardening for food security in times ofeconomic and political crisis (e.g., the discussion of British allotmentsand Canadian war gardens in Mougeot, 2006).6. In the City of Vancouver, private applicants for rezonings may berequired to provide community amenity contributions (CACs) to helpaddress growth costs, area deficiencies, and/or other community needsand impacts likely to result if the rezoning request is granted. CACs maybe provided as cash contributions or as in-kind amenities. In-kind CACsare generally capital facilities, but may also involve associated operatingcosts (City of Vancouver, 2005).7. This quotation comes from McCall´s now-famous opening address tothe 1973 Legislative Assembly on January 8, 1973. Later that year, aftermuch campaigning and negotiation, Oregon’s Senate Bill 100 waspassed, creating the state’s innovative land use system.8. The City of Portland’s bureaus and agencies are managed by a mayorand elected commission of four others. Commissioner Dan Saltzman’sportfolio includes the following Portland bureaus: Office of SustainableDevelopment; Children’s Investment Fund; Portland Parks & Recreation;and Cable and Franchise Management.9. The Sustainable Region Initiative (SRI) provides “a framework,vision, and action plan for Greater Vancouver based on the concept ofsustainability that embraces economic prosperity, community well-being,and environmental integrity. The intention is for Metro Vancouver tobe the catalyst for a process which has many owners and many actorswho are engaged in the task of providing for a better region for this andfuture generations” (Metro Vancouver, 2008).10. The ALR was not intentionally designed as an urban containmentboundary, and growth management is beyond the scope of theAgricultural Land Commission Act.11. The Social Planning department hosted the graduate intern as partof ongoing partnerships with UBC’s Faculty of Land and Food Systemsand School of Community and Regional Planning, as well as SimonFraser University’s Centre for Sustainable Communities. The intern,who proposed the idea of an inventory, then worked under the guidanceof city staff to design and carry out the project. The inventory becamethe basis of the intern’s final graduating project (Kaethler, 2006).



12. The Vancouver inventory found that many of the city departmentscontacted could not provide records on vacant or underutilized landunder their management, meaning much remained to be done tocomplete a comprehensive review of available city land.13. Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia will host the 2010Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games

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