Home Owners

Thank you for your interest in leasing your lawn. Here is your opportunity to enjoy being part of something extraordinary in its aim and multi-faceted in its community/ environmental impacts.

The nuts and bolts of how this works is simple and straightforward. The property owner pledges to lease a section, to all, of a property, or properties, to LYL Coop Farm for the purpose of high-yield, local food production. 800sqft or more is desired, but almost any size will do. Any location as well, it just has to be in the city. Next a certified permaculture landscape designer makes arrangements for an on-site interview. During the course of the interview all concerns will be addressed and questions answered. If participation is agreed to, then “wants and not” are encouraged to be expressed while answering the necessary intake questions. A few days later the permaculture landscape designer shares the design plans with the property owner for final adjustments, then approval.

Once the design is approved, the LYL Coop Farm labor force, comprised primarily of people from within your own neighborhood, join with the designer(s) to implement the plan in as little time as possible. At this point LYL Coop Farm pays for all the materials and maintains all aspects of the leased space so it costs the property owner nothing, not even water.

As far as an urban agribusiness goes, the design aspect is what makes this truly unique. Using permaculture design methods, these lawn conversions won’t look like a traditional garden, with rows of mono-, or poly-, culture neatly arranged. Rather these gardens will appear to be high dollar landscapes complete with water features where allowable. Think of a well-manicured “wild” English or European garden from the romance era: flowers; fountains; benches for sitting…peaceful beauty. Nothing in the space is static, however, as everything serves or fulfills more than one purpose or function in accordance with the principles that guide the design process. Permaculture design has as a side effect the creation of closed-loop self-regulated systems causing a great aspect of these gardens to be the ability to maintain themselves with minimal inputs.

Properties located in neighborhoods that are a “brown-field” category are still eligible for participation. Bruce-Ruhl Design is working with the City of Spokane on a program that will reclaim clean dirt from a large-scale municipal improvement and have it relocated into the “brown-field” neighborhoods to offset the issues that would be involved for improvements to include these properties. This will allow all neighborhoods to participate equally, again at no cost to the property owner.

By placing the farm inside the food deserts within the city, they cease to exist. In taking part in this endeavor, the property owner should also feel proud for doing their part to help bring good food to those who need it most. Even if your property does not exist inside a designated food desert, it probably is not too far from one. LYL Coop Farm has a policy, called “Local Zone”, that mandates the farthest produce should travel to market is thirty blocks, with low-income areas having priority. Using bio-power to harvest and transport goods ensures that “Local Zone” meets the zero-carbon footprint policy. “Local Zone” also mandates that goods are to be sold from local owner-operator establishments, such as gas-marts and convenience stores, supporting the bio-diversity of small neighborhood businesses that people are five times, or greater, more likely to visit on any given day than a major supermarket. The Spokane Department of Health has a Healthy Corner Store program in place, which we are looking to utilize, encouraging these establishments to participate. If no such business exists in the area, day markets will be set up using community centers, church properties, or vacant lots with location and hours of operation clearly displayed in the area alerting residents to the local food source.

Overall in this endeavor one can make money by: helping the environment while helping with the creation of industry; supporting local neighborhood businesses while doing a serious part to help with climate change; helping an out of work neighbor become a business owner. All for letting someone farm a bit of lawn. Why not get involved?

Here’s how:

Send an email to spokanelylcoopfarm@gmail.com with ”property pledge“ in the subject box. This is NOT a commitment, just a pledge to have a designer schedule a time to meet. In the email please list only the things requested below in the following order:

-Name of contact person(s).

-Phone number (and best email address) in which to contact you along with a time window to call.

-Address of the property to be looked at so we may gather some basic sat data and know where to meet.

-Name of the neighborhood the property is located in.

That’s it! So contact us and have a designer come and meet with you soon.