The green thumbs at the Raymond Avenue Community Garden are celebrating a big victory. As of Tuesday, July 31, 2012, the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust is the new owner of the land where nearby residents grow their fruits and vegetables.
For the past five years, Angela Lang, the property’s owner, allowed Julie Burleigh to use her abandoned property as a community garden, with the promise that they would leave should she want to sell it. The situation worried Burleigh, who came up with the idea of the community garden, tracked down Lang and negotiated the conditions of use of the land.
Lang owed $100,000 in back taxes and thanks to the generosity of a donor who stepped in, the Land Trust was able to buy the land to convert it into permanent green space in the city before it was auctioned off.
Listen to Burleigh talk about the garden:
Photos of the empty lot and community gardeners courtesy of Julie Burleigh.
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