Urban community gardens can be defined as gardens and flower beds owned or operated by residents of certain regions to grow crops, flowers, and trees with their neighbors. In Korea, community gardens have been created in the form of urban gardens, but...
Urban community gardens can be defined as gardens and flower beds owned or operated by residents of certain regions to grow crops, flowers, and trees with their neighbors. In Korea, community gardens have been created in the form of urban gardens, but due to the recent increase in interest in gardens and demand for community spaces, they have also been created in a comprehensive form encompassing gardens and horticulture. These community gardens are linked to the government's urban regeneration policy projects, and represent social, environmental, and economic values as a way to provide welfare services in the residential environment, such as improving urban landscape, securing green resources in the neighborhood, promoting a sense of community, producing healthy food, and creating jobs.
Due to the high proportion of apartment residential environments in urban areas in Korea, community gardens using public sites are being mass-produced through projects organized by the government. However, most of the contents of the project focus on the creation of a garden, and since then, it has been evaluated that sustainability has not been secured in terms of operation. Therefore, Chapter 3 of this study analyzed the current status of the community garden created through public projects. The projects organized by Gyeonggi Provincial Government, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, and the Korea Forest Service were examined, and the details of the project, the list of places, and the size and operating entity of gardens were identified. Based on the surveyed data, the contents of each project's garden design plan and post-operation management plan were analyzed in terms of environmental, social, and economic aspects, which are the three ranges of sustainability. As a result, the purpose of each garden project is to foster a sense of community, improve urban landscapes or living conditions, and in the case of the Korea Forest Service and Gyeonggi Province, the economic expectation effect of creating new jobs was added. The project period varies for each site, but the Korea Forest Service is the shortest at 6 months, and Gyeonggi Province expanded to 10~15 months, and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety expanded to 18~20 months. In particular, the contents of the garden development of each project suggested a relatively monotonous plan for economic use, and the post-operation plan suggested an administrative-led and performance-oriented plan linked to the operation of local projects, programs, and events.
In Chapter 4 of this study, a case study was conducted by selecting a community garden created through public projects and its resident operating entity. Doore-Jeongwon(garden) in Yonghyeon-dong, Incheon, which was created as a project for the Ministry of the Interior and Safety in 2015, is a community garden that utilizes undeveloped buffer green(18,540㎡) in apartment-intensive area, and the local community has been operating as a social cooperative for seven years. The development process of the site was archived in time series, and it was organized in the order of the background and initial operation patterns of the garden, the formation of the resident social cooperative, and the process of developing the activities of the social cooperative.
Three spatial situations played a role in the background of the Yonghyeon-dong buffer green area being created as a community garden. First, it is a dense area of large and medium-sized apartment complexes, second, five school facilities are located within 500m, and finally, there is a potential as a park facility as the site can be used to build a green network amid a lack of park area per household. Another background is that 199,265ft² of buffer green area has not been created for a long time due to changes in the factory's relocation and surrounding conditions, and local governments' park plans have been discussed since 2014. The main body that led the project promotion stage of Doore-Jeongwon was the local government's Civic Community Division, which operated a design workshop for residents' participation and a curriculum to foster local gardeners and form a garden community from the beginning of the project. The Doore-Jeongwon, which opened in October 2016, was operated as a pure volunteer of the local gardener community, support for community activities with the Community Division, support for land and facility management with the Parks Division. At that time, the Community Division provided opportunities for local gardeners to provide ecological and urban agricultural education to residents in community gardens cultivated by themselves, and also operated community workshops to strengthen the internal capabilities of the gardeners community.
The local gardeners community in Doore-Jeongwon experienced the economic limitations of volunteer activities and recognized the need for more systematic residents-led operation plans, and a social cooperative was established at the suggestion of local governments. The "Doore-Jeongwon Social Cooperative” was established by five multi-interested parties combined with producers and volunteer members, and a total of 20 members are currently classified as education and garden groups. All of the union members are residents of Yonghyeon-dong, and the age group consists of people in their 40s and 60s. Most of them were appointed as local gardeners of Doore-Jeongwon, and in particular, the members in charge of education have expert certificates such as horticultural managers, organic agricultural technicians, and urban agricultural managers.
The development process of the ‘Doore-Jeongwon Social Cooperative' is as follows. First, by using the community garden as a local asset, the garden ecological experience and after-school programs for horticulture classes were operated through a local public project. In addition, as a social cooperative based on volunteer activities through gardens, horticultural programs, crop cultivation, and donation activities were actively carried out. Second, through various opportunities, cooperation with various local entities was expanded through educational projects in connection with local child welfare centers or elementary schools, or environmental projects in connection with other neighboring area. Third, the operation case of Doore-Jeongwon played an important role in promoting the second community garden project in other buffer green areas nearby as a pilot model for community gardens. Fourth, in 2020, the buffer green area where the Doore-Jeongwon was created was changed to an urban agricultural park. As a result, the current Doore-Jeongwon has been converted to "Yonghyeon Urban Agricultural Park”, and aims to be completed by 2022 by expanding urban gardens and office space. Taken together, the main operating entities of Doore-Jeongwon are the Civic Community Division of local governments, the Park Division, and the garden community(Doore-Jeongwon Social Cooperative). Their cooperation system largely changed from the end of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety project and the establishment of the Doore-Jeongwon Social Cooperative. The current cooperation system in 2022 can be seen as the leading operation and management stage of the Park Department, and the reason is the reduction of the role with the Community Division due to the independence of social cooperatives in 2019 and the transition to urban agricultural parks in 2020.
The performance and activation factors of Doore-Jeongwon and its Social Cooperative are as follows. First of all, the creation and operation of Doore-Jeongwon improved the landscape and restored the ecological environment of the previously damaged buffer green areas, and socially improved the quality of life of residents and expanded leisure and educational opportunities. In terms of economy, there are results of creating jobs for vulnerable residents and producing healthy food. There are four main factors to activate this: securing suitable places(appropriate location and size of the buffer green area), community support(local gardener education program, community workshop, community operation pilot project), high participation of residents, and financial resources(financial resources for residents' activities through social cooperatives and for the operation of the urban agricultural park).
On the other hand, several limitations were observed in the Doore-Jeongwon Social Cooperative. First of all, it is difficult to form appropriate governance between major cooperative entities, local government Community Division, Park Division, and garden community(Doore-Jeongwon Social Cooperative). This will serve as a reference not only to the case of Doore-Jeongwon, but also in many cases of community gardens built on public land to find a better direction for public-private cooperation. Second, the value of the community was reduced as the Doore-Jeongwon was changed to an urban agricultural park and the department in charge was transferred to the Park Division. This is feared that the resident-led operation method of the Doore-Jeongwon will be changed administratively, and the garden community will be excluded from the cooperative group. Third, since it is a ‘social cooperative', there are difficulties experienced by residents. Currently, the Doore-Jeongwon Social Cooperative is facing difficulties in distributing and adjusting roles in the organization, limitations in raising operating funds as an educational service industry, and limitations in profit activities based on community gardens, which are also in line with the general limitations of social cooperatives in Korea.
Community Garden, where resident participation is a key factor, can secure sustainability through resident-led operation rather than top-down operation led by the administration. Therefore, in order to revitalize the urban community gardens in Korea, it is essential to establish a public-private cooperation system that can continuously support the residents' post-operation, management, and garden activities. There are several characteristics for residents participating in the community garden. They have a genuine interest in the garden. and altruistic attitudes that are willing to voluntarily serve the community. The social cooperative is in the same context as it is an organization aimed at promoting welfare services for the vulnerable and contributing to the local community. The establishment of a social cooperative by local gardeners is a decision to acquire the right to participate in the garden that no one guarantees, and to maintain the worth and pride experienced through community gardening for a long time. It is time to go further from proving the diversified value of the urban community garden and specify how to maintain its operation in the right direction. As a first step, this study, which examines the value of residents' participation one more time and analyzes the possibility of an alternative to social cooperatives, will be a reference to the community garden operation plan in the future.