Preserve Existing Gardens

Submitted by: John Fournelle and Judith Munaker, Fitchburg
November 3, 2008

Dear Planning Commission

We would urge you NOT to change the Southdale/Rimrock Neighborhood's zoning to "commercial" status.

In this time of growing difficult economic conditions, it is becoming increasingly obvious that we should not necessarily rely upon food coming from long distances -- which assumes low transportation costs. The day may not be far away when food grown locally will be considered absolutely essential, rather than an idiosyncrasy of a minority of citizens. Thus, zoning away a local community garden and replacing it with asphalt and luxury hotel rooms, is nuts.

Rather, if anything, you should instead insert language to "preserve existing gardens" with specific mention of Drumlin Community Garden located at 2849 Oregon Road. The decision to eliminate one of Wisconsin's first organic urban garden projects, now supplying healthy food to forty families, should not be made without exploring all the options available. We owe it to ourselves and our children to save all the urban farmland that we can.