REMARKS
Council Member Sandy Nurse introduces bill for urban agriculture in unused industrial areas
0:05:39
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115 sec
Council Member Sandy Nurse introduces and explains the context of Intro 693, a bill requiring the Office of Urban Agriculture to create a plan for converting underutilized industrial areas into urban agricultural production spaces. She discusses the bill's origins, its goals of increasing food resiliency, and the potential benefits for local communities.
- The bill aims to address challenges faced by urban agriculture advocates and increase fresh food availability.
- It was partly inspired by food security concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The initiative seeks to support mission-driven individuals committed to providing fresh, local food in neighborhoods that could benefit from year-round access.
Sandy Nurse
0:05:39
Good afternoon, everyone.
0:05:41
And thank you, chair, for the hearing.
0:05:47
Today, we are, hearing my bill, intro 693, which would, require the Office of Urban Agriculture to create and implement a plan to identify underutilized industrial areas that can be converted for urban agricultural production.
0:06:06
And really, you know, this this is an older bill that we tried to develop when I first came in.
0:06:13
I think we kinda reached out to you all when you all were just setting up and wanted to think about what are ways that we can make space available for urban ag production and some of the challenges that people who want to do this work are facing.
0:06:28
This was also coming out of COVID and the pandemic response and and thinking about the availability of fresh food when things go really, really bad and how do we build in resiliency, that accounts for what we have here in addition to what we have in the, kind of, regional food shed.
0:06:48
And looking for ways to incentivize and make available this space for folks who, know they're never gonna be, you know, they're never gonna make tons and tons of money off this but are really committed to the mission of providing fresh food and who want to try to build in that hyper local food production and food economy into neighborhoods that really could benefit from an infusion of fresh food, available year round and, supported in some ways by the city.
0:07:20
So, that's really the the spirit of the bill and love to hear feedback and looking forward to the conversation in addition to the larger conversation around access to fresh food.
0:07:32
I think that's it.
0:07:32
Thank you so much, chair.
0:07:34
Thank you.
