A group of Ballard P-Patch volunteers dressed as garden gnomes appealed to the city council’s budget committee earlier this week to help save their half-acre garden.
The 43-year-old garden is on private land — the landowner has leased the space for $1 per year to the P-Patch since it started. But now, the landowner is ready to sell, and unless the gardeners can come up with $1.8 million to purchase the half-acre property, the land will be turned into four single-family homes.
The P-Patch gnomes appeared in front of City Council’s Select Budget Committee Public Hearing on Tuesday night with 3,000 signatures from people who want to save the Ballard garden.
Joyce Moty, vice president of GROW Northwest and volunteer Mary Jean Gilman explained their budgetary ask to the council: they want city council to approve Mayor Jenny Durkan’s proposed $3 million to the P-Patch program from the Sweetened Beverage Tax.
The funding request includes $250,000 to the Ballard P-Patch, $50,000 to Immaculate Conception P-Patch, and $75,000 to UpGarden (the P-Patch at the parking garage by Seattle Center).
Roxanne Kenison, a Ballard P-Patch volunteer, tells My Ballard that the Ballard garden would be able to use the city funding as a catalyst for matching funds from other sources, such as King County’s Open Space Levy that passed last August.
The volunteers have also set up an online fundraiser, which has so far raised $53,349.