02 August 2008
717 Otisco Street
The property at 717 Otisco is an amazing confluence of energies and projects that we have been developing over the past year. With the help of Home HeadQuarters and thanks to the amazing energy and community vision of Gear Factory owner Rick Destito, The Alchemical Nursery Project will be purchasing this house for $1. Our friend Rick bought the house next door through the same dollar house program, and is currently fixing it up and getting it ready to move his family in. We can't wait to be working more closely with the Gear Factory community! And have you ever visited Lipe Art Park? It's right around the corner, and it's where we've built four communal
compost bins - three during an Earth Day event April 2008, and one for the 40 Below Summit in October 2008.Rumor has it they are also gearing up to install a community garden in the park!
In addition to the one vacant lot behind 717 Otisco, Rick has also generously offered to allow Alchemical to use the two vacant lots behind his house for our urban agriculture initiatives (they are all connected) and ideas abound! Beehives and chicken coops, a seed bank, greenhouses, an urban nursery, a compost drop point, a market garden - you name it, we want to do it. Luckily, we will be working this March with Emanuel Carter's Landscape Architecture students at SUNY-ESF to draw up some initial plans for the site and decide what makes the most sense with the space we've got to work with.
The site may serve as a Westside base of operations for the community gardening network. The building would house the start-up Urban CSA Program before it expands into the Community Exchange warehouse, as well as Alchemical Nursery members who would like to help coordinate the network and the resources we will provide. We intend to operate as an informal housing cooperative, where “rent” will be
collected monthly from the individuals living there to cover the
expenses associated with improvements, maintenance, insurance, and
taxes for the property.There is also potential to host university students who are interested in the local foods movement, based on the model for Learning Centers developed by Syracuse Grows member Mable Wilson. This property would serve not only as a neighborhood resource coordination base for the city-wide community gardening network, but also as the beginnings of our urban ecovillage development and the first property for the Community Land Trust.
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