It\u2019s not shocking news that there are a lot of empty lots in St. Louis. Some are from demolished homes, some are seized property for tax reasons, and some are failed development projects. They can be real eyesores. The city is trying to do something about those vacant lots though. (Sadly, it isn\u2019t building affordable housing.) Instead, they are leasing them out to well-meaning individuals and community groups so that residents can build city gardens. And they\u2019re doing it for $1.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right. For the price of a side salad from the McDonald’s\u00a0 value menu, you can rent enough land to grow your own mixed greens. The dollar leases the land for a whole year, unless it actually gets sold for development. The Garden Lease Program<\/a> is sponsored by the Land Reutilization Authority, which is the biggest land owner in St. Louis. Thanks to St. Louis\u2019s economic woes, the LRA owns hundreds of lots<\/a>. These aren\u2019t just blighted North St. Louis areas either, they have land by Tower Grove Park, the Bevo Mill area, Holly Hills, Cherokee Street, Lindenwood Park, the Central West End and a slew of other well thought of (and some downright trendy) regions.<\/p>\n

This sort of program is win-win for St. Louis. It decreases the number of lots that the LRA has to provide maintenance for, creates more green space for the community, decreases illegal dumping and some of the other illicit dealings that go on in unsupervised spaces, and can even provide healthier food for communities found in food deserts. There\u2019s no reason a community shouldn\u2019t have a garden, other than St. Louis\u2019s persnickety weather.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not shocking news that there are a lot of empty lots in St. Louis. Some are from demolished homes, some are seized property<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":24484,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1726,451,273,1061,119],"tags":[286,1580,276],"yoast_head":"\n