The Abridged version:<\/p>\n
At its meeting Wednesday night, the West Sacramento City Council discussed the lease for the property it owns at Fifth and C streets. For years, Three Sisters Gardens has rented it on a month-to-month basis.<\/p>\n
Operators of Three Sisters Gardens say a more permanent lease is needed so they can invest in the property. The city is considering the site\u2019s zoned commercial use, including potential housing development.<\/p>\n
City staff provided three options for the lease, including keeping it the same, extending it to 10 years, or extending it for a shorter amount of time and raising the rent to market price. <\/p>\n
For years, the future of Three Sisters Gardens\u2019 urban farm at the corner of Fifth and C streets in West Sacramento has been in flux.<\/p>\n
The organization rents the land<\/a> from the city for $1 per year, and since 2024 the lease has been a month-to-month arrangement. Operators say that has made investing in the property difficult, precluding them from building permanent structures or pursuing larger grants. The city is considering its zoned use for potential commercial development, including housing. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been really tough on a month-to-month lease,\u201d said Three Sisters Gardens Director Alfred Melbourne in an interview ahead of the meeting Wednesday night.<\/p>\n Three Sisters wants 10-year guarantee<\/p>\n Because of that, Melbourne and others have pushed the city for a 10-year lease on the property, formally submitting a request in February. On Wednesday night, the city council discussed that request, along with other options for amending the lease at Fifth and C.<\/p>\n In the report provided to the city council<\/a> ahead of Wednesday\u2019s meeting, staff noted that the city\u2019s original intent for the property when it purchased it in the 90s was to redevelop it into housing and commercial space.<\/p>\n The report also pointed to the property\u2019s location on a prominent corner in the Washington District, \u201cwhich has seen increasing infill development in recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s next for the Three Sisters lease?<\/p>\n A vote isn\u2019t scheduled, but staff asked the council to provide feedback and direction on whether the city should extend the lease to 10 years, keep it month-to-month or extend it for a shorter period and raise the rent to market rate, which would be approximately $2,000 per month.<\/p>\n For more than an hour, leaders discussed options and asked staff questions about the property, its history and the proliferation of the urban farm movement across the region<\/a>. Some called the urban farm a \u201cbright light\u201d and a \u201cconsistent presence,\u201d but councilmembers also expressed concerns about the ability to develop the land in the future \u2014 as West Sacramento grows and the I Street Bridge gets redeveloped<\/a>. <\/p>\n While the site is commercially zoned, it has been operating as an urban farm since the Center for Land-Based Learning took over the vacant property in 2014. The lease later transferred to Three Sisters. Staff emphasized that it was intended for temporary use as an urban farm.<\/p>\n Three Sisters Gardens is a West Sacramento-based nonprofit. It provides youth gardening programs, a community giving program, community-supported agriculture boxes and education.<\/p>\n More stability could lead to more funding<\/p>\n Melbourne said that with a more permanent lease, the nonprofit could leverage funding to build a more permanent structure on the Fifth and C property and bolster the program.<\/p>\n The organization is in the running for a grant from the Yocha Dehe community fund, he said, and having a longer lease would make them a more attractive recipient.<\/p>\n In presenting the issue to the council, Deputy City Manager Doug Drozd said that there were three questions to consider: \u201cWhat is the highest and best use for this property? Second, what is the city\u2019s approach to public asset management and subsidies for local nonprofits? And third what precedent would this decision set for future use of city owned properties?\u201d<\/p>\n The council did not make a decision, nor was it unanimous in its feedback about a preferred option. Giving direction to staff, Mayor Martha Guerrero asked for a fourth option to be considered: Expansion to other properties.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to see more of this in West Sacramento,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Daniel Hennessy\u00a0joins Abridged from the California Local News Fellowship. He\u2019s a\u00a0reporter covering Yolo County.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Abridged version: At its meeting Wednesday night, the West Sacramento City Council discussed the lease for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-304686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}