Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Rooftop farms are the latest thing
From AM-NY:
The seeds of New York’s rooftop farming industry, planted over the past decade, have yielded a harvest in recent years.
It has grown from a niche industry to a large-scale phenomenon, according to experts, thanks to a change in city regulations and a subsequent spur of investment.
And there’s potential for expansion in the years ahead, especially in Brooklyn and Queens.
“These large-scale greenhouses are advanced and expensive, but more and more consumers and businesses are supporting them,” said Nicole Baum, spokeswoman for Gotham Greens, a rooftop farm operator in Brooklyn.
The city changed its zoning laws in 2012 to allow rooftop greenhouses certain exemptions from limits on height and floor size on commercial and industrial properties. As a consequence, landlords have come to view them as a potential amenity and opportunity for profit.
The city offers plenty of ready-made locations to allow for the industry’s further expansion, according to the Columbia University analysis.
It concluded that there were more than 5,701 private and public roofs in 2013 that, combined, were capable of holding 3,000 acres of rooftop farms. That’s nearly three and a half times the size of Central Park. Neighborhoods with the most rooftop space were Maspeth, Long Island City, Greenpoint and Sunset Park, according to the report.
6 comments:
All good until the 1st roof collapse.
Nice to see some good news for once.
Just WHAT are they growing up there hmmm?
Being the pessimist that I am and the disgruntled crank I have become because of the widespread economic inequity in this town, I envision on stormy days, and thanks to the extreme effects of climate change we have been having a lot of them, of these gardens flying off the roofs onto the ground. Unless these gardens are well guarded by high gates or something like it.
I got this idea from that monsoon a few weeks ago from footage I saw of people trying to keep furniture from blowing off those rooftop lounges. And that hammock that landed on some poor person's head on Church st. a month ago.
Be sure not to live in a top floor apartment.
Are the architects and builders reinforcing the roofs to deal with it covered by a foot of topsoil retaining water from a severe storm - rather than a foot of snow?
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