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Pittsburgh City Council

City Farms Garden Program would let residents grow food in parks and greenways.

Written by Amy Whipple

If the package passes, urban gardening and farming could continue to grow.

“In 2025 the city provided the resources, materials, technical assistance and dollars for about 60 gardens,” said Council Member Deb Gross of Highland Park. “Five years ago, it was only four.” She added that urban gardening reaches nearly as many residents as the city’s aquatics division.

Dash said DCP is trying to meet the “really high demand” across the city for community gardens as well as urban farms and food forests. 

For example, Gross said, people in her district, which includes Lawrenceville and Highland Park, planted 600 trees in the last five years. Three hundred of them were Western Pennsylvania native food trees such as pawpaws and persimmons.

The proposed City Farms Garden Program would allow residents and community-based groups to operate gardens and other urban agriculture on underutilized city-owned property such as parks and greenways. Participants would be permitted to sell off-site up to $25,000 per year of unprocessed edibles or flowers.

Gross said there are organizations in every council district working with residents as part of the local food system. “People are learning how to grow food and also harvesting it, processing it, storing it, preserving it, using it, cooking with it. That’s really the work that we should all be proud of.”

Connections to this story

Topics:
Parks & Public Space
Governments:
Pittsburgh City Council
Public meetings:
City Council · June 9, 2026
Sources:
Ordinance 2026-0565 — amending and supplementing the Pittsburgh City Code, Title 4: Public Places and Property, Article VII: City Realty by…Ordinance 2026-0567 — amending and supplementing the Pittsburgh City Code, Title 4: Public Places and Property, Article XI: Parks and…

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