Case Studies
3000acres

Design Feature

Type of project
Placemaking
State
Victoria
Location
Urban
3000acres aims to build healthy, holistic and sustainable cities for generations to come by growing more food in more places. The organisation intends to break down the barriers to urban food growing by improving the cultural and regulatory environment; influencing the public and private sector to rethink vacant land use, and by empowering community groups to build capacity in relevant knowledge and skills.
Improving access to healthy foods in urban environments
Through an innovative collaboration with town planners, lawyers, residential developers and web-based developers, the solution to the issue of urban food insecurity was not to provide food to people, but to instead unlock pockets of vacant land to enable people to grow food for themselves. Within the City of Melbourne there is a vast amount of underutilised space, ranging from tiny verges on street corners, to vacant car parks, to large scale empty lots awaiting development. By considering the principles of ‘food-sensitive planning and urban design’, 3000acres recognised the potential of the vacant concrete lot as an un-tapped opportunity for creating more vibrant public open space, with both equitable access to healthy fresh produce and environments that support active and engaged communities.
Central to the project is an open-source and interactive map of existing and potential places to grow food across the City of Melbourne. Through this platform, community members gain access to others who express interest in a potential site. From there they can access a practical toolkit of information and resources to initiate a project - from handling lease agreements, liaising with council, and public liability insurance, through to practical instructions such as building a wicking bed and establishing management plans. 
3000acres helps people to navigate necessary bureaucracy, and further facilitate engaged and proactive neighbourhood dynamics. Since its beginning, 3000acres has built a strong network of landowners, councils, organisations, urban farmers and over 6 thousand community members, using urban food growing as a platform to achieve a common goal of a more supportive healthy food environment. 3000acres have managed the establishment of seven new urban food growing projects around Melbourne, and assisted in the establishment of many others including facilitating projects in rural communities such as Wangaratta and Mildura.
To better enable the community to grow food for themselves, 3000acres continue to advocate for changes in the Victorian Government's planning policy to address amendments that will reduce the regulatory burden impeding the establishment of more community gardens in urban environments. Furthermore, the organisation coordinates a range of events to equip the community with the knowledge and skills they need to engage in the projects offered. This ranges from practical skill sharing workshops and working bees, to facilitating seminars on community garden establishment and management, to a number of large scale community festivals that promote local and sustainable food growing.
Project team
  • 3000acres staff
  • 3000acres Board members
  • Volunteer team
  • Community members
  • City of Yarra, City of Darebin, Moreland City Council, City of Boroondara, City of Melbourne
  • Statutory bodies such as VicTrack and Melbourne Water

Project cost
  • Initial funding of $170,000, now supported through a community membership model, a series of $5-10,000 project specific community access grants, along with a number of consultancy projects.

Health value
  • Limited access to affordable, fresh and healthy food is a major driver of poor health outcomes. [1] Conversely, proximity to fresh food has been shown to improve healthy choices. [2] 3000acres is working to normalise public food growing as part of developing sustainable urban foodscapes.
  • The inclusion of community gardens in public open spaces can positively influence diet, providing greater access to healthy fresh fruits and vegetables.
  • Other benefits of community gardens include improved physical and mental well-being through engaging in outdoor recreational activities that centre around social connectedness. [3]

Economic value
  • Through the production of freely accessible, locally grown food, 3000acres gardens can supplement some of the costs of buying fresh produce. By planting high value and high yield crops such as herbs and green leafy vegetables this can be a substantial savings on a weekly household grocery bill.
  • Furthermore, studies have shown that the presence of active community gardens can have a significant positive effect on neighbouring property values, especially in the poorest neighbourhoods. [4]

Environmental value
  • Community gardens and other urban food growing projects offers local solutions to climate change, contributes to urban biodiversity, diverts considerable organic food waste to compost and offers an opportunity to gain an awareness and hands on experience with sustainable living practices. [5]
  • While 3000acres does not subscribe to strict gardening guidelines with its community growing projects, it does promote the sustainable principles of organic and permaculture practice, while limiting the use of synthetic chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides. 3000acres achieves this by instead teaching fundamental gardening skills such how to build healthy soils, crop rotation, companion planting, water sensitive design and integrated pest management.

Social value
3000acres community gardens are intended to create spaces that are inclusive of all people and encourage interaction regardless of age, education, language or ability. The social benefits include opportunities to develop a sense of place within local communities, build meaningful friendships and reduce social isolation.
Use value
  • The 3000acres community gardens are designed to be more than just places to grow food, but local hubs of community activity. This is achieved by running a regular events program and by installing infrastructure to facilitate social engagement, including seating, shade and barbeque facilities where possible.
  • 3000acres encourages all gardens to run open and inclusive free events with the wider public, and provide resource material and educators to run workshops that can utilise the gardens as outdoor living classrooms. The organisation has also opened a number of sites for the public to use for their own events, including hosting film nights, markets and community yoga classes.

References
1\. Pollard, C., Begley, A., & Landrigan, T. (2016). The Rise of Food Inequality in Australia. In Food Poverty and Insecurity: International Food Inequalities (pp. 89-103). Springer International Publishing.
2\. Reitzel, L. R., Okamoto, H., Hernandez, D. C., Regan, S. D., McNeill, L. H., & Obasi, E. M. (2016). The built food environment and dietary intake among African-American adults. American Journal of Health Behavior, 40(1), 3-11.
3\. Francis, J., Giles-Corti, B., Wood, L., & Knuiman, M. (2012). Creating sense of community: The role of public space. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 32(4), 401-409.
4\. Voicu, I., & Been, V. (2008). The effect of community gardens on neighboring property values. Real Estate Economics, 36(2), 241-283.
5\. Crossan, J., Shaw, D., Cumbers, A., & McMaster, R. (2015). Glasgow’s Community Gardens: Sustainable Communities of Care.

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