While we work through these procedures, we are still continuing to move forward with the Fargo Garden Project! This is where you all come in!

We are having a work party at the Fargo Garden site on the weekend of October 11th and 12th. The focus of this work party will be to build a 4′ tall, see-through fence, to give vines and espaliered fruit trees something to hold on to, and to protect all the plants from vandalism. We are planning two full days of work and will need a few individuals who would like to dedicate some time to this part of the project! The details are as follows:

Fence Building Work Party
· When: Saturday, October 11 and Sunday, October 12
· Location: Fargo Garden Site, NE Fargo and N. Williams, next door to the Waypost
· Time: 10am – 5pm, both days

We could also use a couple of volunteers to help with things like volunteer sign-in, food set-up, and overall on-the-day-organization of the work parties to help things run smoothly.

Please RSVP to Maren Murphy (DePave Intern) at marenmurphy@gmail.com. Please specify what times you are available to volunteer, and whether you would like to help with fence building or organization. If you can only volunteer for a few hours, it will still be helpful!

Fargo Garden will be a special, living community space, transformed from a vacant parking lot to a lush, green garden. Please help us get closer to making this happen by volunteering your time and energy!

From Fargo Garden …

Slideshow!

And a great short film by Elizabeth Press

Special thanks goes out to our wonderful partners and sponsors:

Goldsmith Properties
The Waypost
Staccatto Gelato
Pizza a Go Go
Bureau of Environmental Services
Towards Carfree Cities Conference
City Repair
Street Films
Dreamtime Stilters
Fancypants Design
The Musicians!

Read what others had to say about the event:

Oregon Public Broadcasting
The Oregonian
San Francisco Bay Guardian
Planetizen
BikePortland

This is just the beginning…of Fargo Garden, and of more depaving projects around Portland. Drop us an email if you would like to get involved in this movement.

Some additional words of reflection by one participant…

Free Your Soil and the Fruit Will Follow
by Andrew Arehart

A crowd had been steadily growing as the sun pushed away the mid-June morning’s early clouds, and by eleven, the greetings and chitchat among gathering friends, acquaintances and strangers, volunteers and organizers alike had been fixed and focused into a chant: What do we want? Free soil! When do we want it? Now! What do we want? FREE SOIL! When do we want it? NOW!

And so united, the work began. Volunteers, led by work team leaders, and with musical accompaniment, were directed onto the lot at the corner of Williams and Northeast Fargo where they got down to the business of turning it from a parking lot into a little piece of paradise. This was the joint vision of the people at Depave, a Portland organization dedicated to the removal of unnecessarily paved surfaces in an attempt to combat pollution from stormwater runoff, and the lot’s owner, Ms. Angela Goldsmith. Thanks to the City of Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services, City Repair, of which Depave is a member organization, numerous local food vendors and construction outfits, not to mention the hundred and forty seven laborers who showed up to work, that vision was now becoming a reality.

The lot itself had previously been cut up into a checkerboard pattern with a concrete saw into sections about a foot and a half square, to facilitate removal of the pavement. Beyond that, workers were to rely on various digging and prying implements, including flat and pointnosed shovels, crowbars and prybars, the sweat of their brows and all the muscle they could muster. Broken and busted into manageable bits, the asphalt was hauled by hand, bucket, bin or wheelbarrow, including a rare two-wheeled specemin, to large metal containers, which were quickly filled to the brims and trucked away to be recycled. Organizers ensured a steady flow of materials off the lot, and were quick to encourage, praise and remind people to pace themselves, drink lots of water, to wear sunscreen and take advantage of the gloves and safety glasses provided. By three o’clock, the pavement had all been disposed of in the haulaway bins, and everyone gathered for a photo together to commemorate the first step towards replacing it with a community garden which will include fruit trees of various description, berries, vines and vegetables.

The day’s phenomenal success could not have been achieved without a great deal of organization on the front end. After all, when asked, most people want to “make the world a better place”. Turning those good intentions into an efficient workforce calls for considerable resourcefulness, and thorough planning, and it was on this stage that Depave’s talents shined the brightest. Portland City Council candidate Amanda Fritz, who helped at the registration table, has participated in over a hundred volunteer projects in eighty eight neighborhoods in the last few years, so she has the credentials to comment “The organization of the depaving event today was simply outstanding. Plenty for everyone to do, but not too much for any one. Healthy food and donuts. Entertainment and art…a safety talk that was inclusive without being tedious or belittling. Even sunscreen! If I were one of the visitors from Mexico, Brazil, Australia or Europe…I’d already be thinking Portland is Paradise.”

This international involvement comes in part from Portland’s participation in the Towards Carfree Cities Conference series, whose goal is to bring together people from around the world who are promoting practical alternatives to car dependence. Past conferences have been held in Lyon, Timisoara, Prague, Berlin, Budapest, Bogota and Istanbul. Next year it will take place in Brussels, Belgium. Documentarians Eduardo Green and Thiago Benicchio from Brazil and Toronto’s Andrew Munger were among the many who came to record the day’s events. This was an important part of the day’s success story, as Depave seeks not only to execute depaving projects, but to educate and inspire other communities to do the same.

All told, the day was a beautiful example of cooperation and coordination, of a good idea well on its way to fruition. Asked about her long-term vision, Angela, the owner of the site, said, “If I live to be ninety, I’ll get to see a fifty year old cherry tree here.” That’s something we can all look forward to.

Join us on June 16th for a day of asphalt removal in Portland! We will be transforming a vacant, paved parking lot into a living community space, with fruit trees, native plants, and flowers!

Location: NE Fargo and N. Williams, Portland, Oregon (3 blocks south of NE Fremont)
Date :Monday June 16th 2008 (call in sick…of asphalt!)
Time: 10AM - 4PM

This event will be held in conjunction with the international Towards
Carfree Cities Conference in Portland,
Oregon. This is the eight year of this conference, and this is the first
year that the conference is being held in the United States.

- *10:00 - 4:00 *Depaving activity and conference registration
- *10:30* Introduction and welcome
- *10:45* Pavement-breaking

The Fargo Gardens project will transform a 3000 square foot asphalt parking lot into a community greenspace with vegetables, fruit trees, native plants, and sitting areas. Removal of the parking lot will reduce pollution, and provide land for bird and butterfly habitat, gardens, native vegetation and beauty in an urban neighborhood. The completed site will be used to educate the public about pavement removal and storm water drainage management.

Help break and carry asphalt, or feel free to sit back and enjoy the street
fair, including interactive chalk art projects, street games, creative asphalt reuse, stiltwalking
frogs with jackhammers, and music by:

- Andy Combs
- The Tony Green Orchestra
- Eliza Jayne
- DJ Ghost Dad

Event partners
Depave: www.depave.org
City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services
Community Watershed Stewardship Program
www.portlandonline.com/BES/index.cfm?c=43077
Portland Brownfield Program
www.portlandonline.com/bes/index.cfm?c=35008
Towards Carfree Cities Conference (Shift): www.carfreeportland.org
City Repair Project: www.cityrepair.org
Angela Goldsmith (property owner)
The Waypost Café: www.thewaypost.com

We’re going to do a bike tour in the summer of a bunch of sites around town that have been depaved. Please let us know if you know of any locations where concrete or asphalt has been removed and replaced with other nicer things. Please add the locations/addresses in the comments to this post.

Please provide the location, a brief description, and contact details for the owner of the property (if you know it).

The Portland Tribune: Jackhammers Welcome
Web site urges people to see green where it’s gray.

By Nancy Hill

Inspiration struck the moment Arif Khan looked into the concrete backyard of a Northeast Portland house that was for sale.

“I’m attracted to potential and transforming things, and this house offered me both,” he says. He quickly made an offer, bought the property, and immediately began figuring out how to transform the concrete into an organic garden.

He admits he had no idea of the sore muscles it would entail, but he persisted, knowing he’d soon be growing vegetables and herbs, and fruit trees would offer both shade and food.

What he didn’t know at the time was that transforming his concrete jungle into a productive garden also would bear the seeds of a new avocation - acting as an advocate and source of information for others who envision a world with less pavement and more land for food, nature and wildlife.

“The first thing I had to do was to figure out how to demolish all that concrete, so I went onto the Internet for information,” he says. “There was very little about the subject, so I had do a lot of digging. I realized that the information I was uncovering might be useful to other people as well, so I started DePave, a Web site where others could turn for information.”

Concrete ups runoff
Khan started tackling the 2,500 feet of concrete in his yard.

“I did it in stages, so it wasn’t that bad,” he says. “I’d never operated a jackhammer before, and the first time I used one was quite an experience. It was tiring work, but nothing was difficult.”

At the time, Khan was an urban planner and was well aware of storm-water runoff problems associated with concrete. “Water can’t go through concrete, so the storm water carries pollutants to the Willamette and Columbia rivers and all their tributaries,” he says.

Khan points out that Portland has a combined sewage overflow system, which means that all of the city’s pipes carry both storm water and sewage. When there’s too much to handle, it all goes into the rivers.

“This is a serious environmental problem,” he says. “If you ask people what the connection is between concrete and salmon, they’d probably be hard-pressed to answer, but the fact is, that the extra storm-water runoff caused by concrete pollutes our rivers and has a negative effect on everything that lives in them, including, of course, salmon.”

Communication officer Linc Mann from Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services reports that impervious (i.e., water-repellent) surfaces in Portland, including pavement and structures, cover approximately 23,000 acres.

The average annual storm-water runoff totals nearly 17 billion gallons. Public and private storm-water management facilities like cisterns, storm-water ponds, and swales manage about 64 percent of the annual runoff, but that still leaves huge quantities of storm water going directly into our rivers.

“Storm-water runoff is a huge source of pollution in our rivers and tributaries,” Mann says, “and DePave sounds like a good idea.”

Concrete also increases the temperature in cities and requires a good deal of energy to produce, and it can contribute to flooding.

Projects taken on citywide
Not long after Khan began to get rid of the concrete in his yard, people began asking him for information and help removing concrete from other areas.

Word about his knowledge and efforts spread, and soon a core group of about 20 volunteers gathered together and partnered with the City Repair Project, a nonprofit group of citizen activists who help others to transform the places where they live.

Working with City Repair as its fiscal sponsor, DePave has taken on several projects to help organizations turn concrete surfaces into areas with plants and trees. DePave broke up 100 square feet of concrete at the Villa de Clara Vista Apartments, an apartment complex operated by the nonprofit Hacienda CDC, in the Cully neighborhood.

It also broke up 60 square feet of sidewalk at the corner of Southeast Lincoln Street and 47th Avenue and has removed concrete to make way for gardens at private homes.

Efforts were scaled back when Khan went to Africa for several months in his new position as an international relief worker.

“But now I’m back and will be putting more energy into DePave,” Khan says. “I have a few more people who have agreed to be on our board of directors, and we’re taking steps to get nonprofit status rather than working under an umbrella group. We’ll continue to act as an information clearinghouse as well as an advocacy organization, and we’ll help businesses and homeowners alike turn some of their concrete spaces into green area and gardens.”

When Khan was ridding his own yard of concrete, he was concerned that he wouldn’t be able to dispose of it.

“That turned out to be a nonproblem,” he reports. “I put a free ad in the newspaper, and people took every bit of concrete I had. People use it for building retaining walls, making steppingstones, raised beds, fire pits, and all sorts of other things. Some artists use it in sculptures, too.”

Khan admits he is not a purist about concrete and asphalt. “I am a bicyclist and appreciate riding on good roads. I also drive to some extent, but I don’t like the aesthetic of concrete and think we have an over-reliance on cars and should be using our urban land more productively.”

Paving options are available
Developers and homeowners increasingly conscious of environmental impacts can consider alternative materials for patios and driveways. Khan suggests bricks, stones or cement paving blocks that allow water to seep through cracks and into the ground.

Pervious pavement is another option. Khan acknowledges it’s more expensive than concrete and asphalt but says the extra cost is worth the savings to the environment.

“The removal of cement is a great metaphor of restoration,” Khan says. “I don’t think many people really think concrete is beautiful, and personally, I would rather eat tomatoes than a bowl of cement.”

For information, go to www.depave.org.

At Clara Vista, an apartment complex operated by the (non-profit) Hacienda CDC , we worked with residents and volunteers to remove concrete to allow the planting of trees in their courtyard.

At the Yoga Union site, we removed about 60 square feet of concrete along the sidewalk to allow for the planting of street trees and other vegetation.

2. Potential Sites to Depave
View Larger Map

Be sure to check out the other events of the VBC! There’s an incredible lineup of informative workshops and inspirational events.

First Depave Meeting
Monday May 14th, 2007
7:00 PM - 8ish
Lucky Lab Brew Pub - 915 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Portland.

 
Come to this informal meeting to learn more and to find out how you can get involved!