City Slicker Farms

West Oakland renters applying for a Backyard Garden got a boost this year thanks to the Neighborhood Food Act. The new law makes it illegal for landlords to prohibit their tenants from growing edible fruits and vegetables for their own consumption. Backyard Garden Program Coordinator Alison Fischman said the new law will be a positive change for the City Slicker Farms community. 

“There definitely have been people who have been unable to get gardens with us because of their landlords,” she said, mentioning one occasion where a landlord changed his mind at the last minute, canceling a build that had been planned for months. “I think it will more formally empower people to start growing their own food if they can see that there’s something written that supports them in doing that.”

The law only applies to tenants in single family homes or duplexes, not to those in multi-unit residencies. The law gives landlords the right to specify where the garden must go, require that it be in containers, and charge tenants for the extra water usage. But attorney Neil Thapar of the Sustainable Economies Law Center, one of the organizations that helped to pass the act, says that this is just the first step.

“The original vision of this bill was to be a lot broader--to apply to tenants who live in apartments, to apply to people who want to grow and sell food,” he said. “There’s still more work to reach the goal, where people have the unconditional right to grow food.”

To find out more about the Neighborhood Food Act and how it applies to you, check out the SELC’s Neighborhood Food Act FAQ.