FARM ON

Please read on for a detailed update from Waltham Fields Community Farm. This is intended to help our community access communications regarding WFCF-farmed land.

We are grateful for the vast and committed community support during this time of unprecedented operational pressure and uncertainty.

WFCF Will Farm On!

Stacey Daley
WFCF Executive Director

How To Take Action

  • Watch for further updates via email and on Facebook and Instagram.

  • Post your support on social media, tagging @WFCF. Use these hashtags #WFCFrooted #WFCFfarmson

  • Write to Mayor Jeannette McCarthy and Waltham City Councillors and request a comprehensive site reuse plan for 240 Beaver Street.

  • Voice your support for the protection and continuation of community farming at 240 Beaver Street (which is vastly different from community gardening)

  • Ask City Council to publicly commit to preserving intact all the currently cultivated farmland in Area 2 for use as a community farm.

  • Contact members of the Massachusetts Food System Caucus, especially our local member MA Rep Tom Stanley, asking them to publically advocate for community farms, to get involved in the issue facing WFCF at 240 Beaver St., which is directly in line with the priorities of the Food Caucus’ mission of maintaining access to farmland.

  • Show your financial support for WFCF; join or renew your membership, make a donation and plan to attend our annual SPROUT celebration on April 28 at the Lyman Estate!

  • As our plans come together, there will be additional opportunities to volunteer and help WFCF through this transition. Stay tuned!

 

Information Shared about 240 Beaver Street & What It Means for WFCF

 

Remediation area map found on page 81 of 184 of the 240 Beaver St Environmental Remediation (RFB)  on City of Waltham’s website. Area 1 and Area 2 overlay  from January 20, 2023  email from Waltham’s Consolidated Public Works Department. The yellow line is the City’s proposed access route for trucks during the remediation. The blue lines delineate Area 1 and Area 2.

On December 27, 2022 at the meeting of the Waltham City Council, Mayor Jeannette McCarthy signaled the City’s intent to restrict access to the Cornelia Warren Farm & Field Station at 240 Beaver St., for the purposes of remedying environmental contamination which occurred while UMASS owned the land, and to divide the land into separate areas, Area 1 and Area 2.

The proposed boundary line between the two main areas– Area 1 and Area 2 divides WFCF’s growing fields along the access road, placing 5.77 currently cultivated acres into Area 1 and 3.1 cultivated acres into Area 2.

In addition to 3.1 cultivated acres, Area 2 also contains most of WFCF’s essential farming infrastructure, all of which we will lose access to, including the areas that house the following:

  • 2 greenhouses, where our farmers and volunteers start all seedlings

  • wash station, where produce is cleaned and packed according to food safety guidelines

  • 3 walk-in coolers, where produce is stored

  • 2 quonset huts which house all of our tractors and farm implements

  • 4 storage sheds which house all of our tools and irrigation equipment 

  • new chicken coop delivered in 2022 for use in educational programs

  • Learning Garden educational infrastructure, including our brand-new education shelter, which was erected in June of 2021 with over $20K in support from individual and foundation donations

The City has shared that WFCF must remove the contents of WFCF owned greenhouses by May 19, 2023, that they will be demolished sometime after May 15, and that we may not host programs in our Learning Garden. Thus, we must entirely re-envision our programs and operations in Area 1 without infrastructure.

WFCF has been told that we may not receive a building permit for a long-planned and UMASS-approved expansion to our farm stand. We’ve been informed WFCF may not be permitted until we have a lease.

This will mean that we may lose the awarded $111,461 Food Security Infrastructure Grant (FSIG) from the Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs which funded the expansion project to further address food insecurity issues exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and to ensure individuals and families have equitable access to healthy, local food products. This funding must be spent before June 30, 2023. It is important to balancing our 2023 budget and to our organization’s long-term financial health and self-sufficiency.

How WFCF Has Invested in the Land & What Waltham Has Received in Return

 

In the past 28 years, WFCF has invested tens of thousands of dollars on compost and amendments and thousands of staff hours caring for the land. In the past five years, through two of WFCF’s food security programs (Mobile Outreach Market and distributions to our partners in hunger relief), WFCF has sustainably grown and distributed 154,453 pounds of fresh, Waltham-grown produce, valued at $431,149.

WFCF messaging to the City of Waltham: Protect and Preserve Prime Agricultural Farmland Intact as a Community Farm

 

If the City has a comprehensive use plan for Area 2 (3.1 acres of cultivated prime farmland, plus the areas that houses our essential infrastructure) it has not been revealed other than the Mayor’s stated goals which include her desire to recreate an ornamental maze commemorating Cornelia Warren. Waltham’s citizens and organizations must actively ask their City Councillors about a comprehensive plan and if any part of Area 2 will be issued an RFP and for continued community farm use.

Together, we must ask the City of Waltham to provide a clear plan for further remediation and reuse of Area 2.

WFCF has mindfully stewarded the farmland at 240 Beaver St. for almost three decades. By doing so, we have honored the land, and honored Cornelia Warren’s legacy as a successful farmer and a generous philanthropist. Cornelia Warren’s productive farmland, located in a city with a population over 64,000 people, is a prized community asset. It adds value to homes, attracts new residents, supports local businesses, offers countless learning and recreational activities, nourishes community members at all income levels, serves as a gathering place, and provides critical food resiliency and food security resources during uncertain times like pandemics.  

Forward-thinking cities and towns throughout Massachusetts have chosen to protect their open spaces through legislation and conservation restrictions, and by passing Right to Farm bylaws, which support and protect local farmland’s use for agriculture and related activity while helping to minimize conflict with abutters and Town agencies. While City of Waltham leaders have laudably taken the first step by purchasing the former UMASS Field Station, they should not stop there.  They must publicly commit to preserving intact all the currently cultivated farmland in Area 2 for use as a community farm. To do otherwise would be to fall well short of the mark, and will risk long term protection of productive and historic agricultural open space—which would be an irreplaceable loss for current and future Waltham residents. 

City of Waltham RFP, Timing & Next Steps

 

Use of Area 1 will be granted through a municipal procurement process, known as a Request for Proposal, or RFP. On Monday January 23, Mayor McCarthy requested, via the City Council Docket, the Council’s acceptance of four proposals being prepared for City of Waltham owned real estate, three of which pertained to 240 Beaver St: two proposals for Area 1, and a third for the Administration building. The Mayor stated that “The RFPs will be forwarded to the City Council after the Law Department has reviewed as to form.” The docket items were referred to the Committee of the Whole, and details of the proposals are not yet public. 

Meanwhile, the City has issued a Request for Bid (RFB) to begin clean up of the contamination that occurred during UMASS’s ownership and which was passed onto the City of Waltham through the purchase and sale of the property. This process will address a small area of land unrelated to WFCF’s current farming operations. As we have stated before, WFCF fully supports the need to remedy known contaminated areas and seeks a plan and timeline for any future remediation, so that we may attempt to plan for the future should we be awarded a lease.

We have no option but to wait for Area 1 RFPs to be made public so that we can understand the City’s intentions and construct proposals. Applying for an RFP is a lengthy process. Bidders submit a detailed application, and then are scored by an evaluation committee based on how well they meet the defined criteria. The RFP will spell out the terms of the future lease agreement. Review of proposals can take weeks or months. The evaluation committee will make a recommendation to the City Council, who will vote to approve the lease agreement and lessee.

WFCF Will Farm On

 

In the meantime, and despite these significant challenges and uncertainties, our mission requires that we farm on and cultivate sustainable and equitable relationships between people, their food supply, and the land from which it grows. CSA registration, WFCF’s main source of revenue, will open in the coming weeks after we complete contingency planning. Staff, with the help of volunteers, will soon begin filling greenhouses with seedlings in order to be ready to plant outdoors. This work cannot wait. 

Even with reduced access to the land which has long been licensed to WFCF, we will maintain 100% of our food access programs:

We will be forced to reduce the number of CSA shares that we can offer due to the lack of access to cultivated and enriched soil, and creatively rethink our educational programs. We are working very hard to collaborate with other growers in our farming community so that we may provide as many shares as we can in 2023!

Like all farmers, we are highly resourceful, adaptable, and resilient.

With time, great effort, and expense,  if forced, we will deconstruct the greenhouses, seek relocation permissions and permits to move our greenhouses, chicken coop, wash and pack station, walk-in coolers, and tractor and equipment storage sheds. We will hire electricians and other vendors to support this massive transition during the farming season, and we will envision how to operate without designated teaching spaces and essential infrastructure. We can’t fulfill our commitment to strengthening the local food system this season without operational infrastructure, access to our farm stand and accessible parking.

Tackling all of this is an enormous task during the growing season and requires considerable resources on top of our regular peak-season duties. This process and the lack of a comprehensive site use plan from the City has already been highly disruptive, time consuming, and expensive for our nonprofit organization. It has also placed great strain on our staff and volunteer Board of Directors, who remarkably and gratefully remain determined to serve our community this year.

Exactly where, and with how much production acreage we will end up with remains unsettled.

Regardless, we will farm on.

 

A Helpful Timeline: Votes, Communications and Actions

2022

  • March 1 City of Waltham announces that it has completed purchase of 28 acres at 240 Beaver St. from UMASS, The City makes the purchase using $14M of Community Preservation Act Funds (WCPA-1). 
  • December 12 The Mayor requests City Council’s review of many documents related to Cornelia Warren Farm and Field House via the City Council Docket  These include the Phase 1 Environmental Site Assessment
  • December 19 Waltham City Council Committee of the Whole votes and approves a motion for a Citizens Input Meeting regarding 240 Beaver Street by March 2023.
  • December 27 The City Council votes to authorize the Mayor to restrict the access to the 240 Beaver Street property to one entrance/exit point and to issue a bid for the environmental remediation of the south and westerly portions of the property; 142 people attend the City Council meeting to demonstrate their support of WFCF. Council did not ratify the vote taken by the Committee of the Whole for a community input meeting.


2023

January 9  City Council Docket highlights:

  • Mayor’s goals for Cornelia Warren Farm and Fieldhouse, 240 Beaver St.

  • Mayor’s letter to City Council describing the Environmental Process for Area 2  which includes demolishing WFCF greenhouses sometime after May 15, 2023. WFCF has been required to prove and provide documentation to the City of Waltham that WFCF owns its two greenhouses at 240 Beaver Street, one purchased in 2004 from Rimol Greenhouses and the other purchased from McLean Hospital after the closure of the Waverley Place horticultural therapy program in 2009. 

  • Memo to City Council explaining that WFCF will have “temporary and limited access to its greenhouses” (Greenhouses 7 and 8 on the map), that WFCF must obtain permits and permissions before February 15 (WFCF has completed all tasks and permitting as has been mentioned in this communication - important to note: WFCF did not received direct communication from the CIty on these requirements), and, that WFCF must remove all belongings from the greenhouses and dispose off site, and by May 19, 2023.  Temporary Use of Greenhouses 7 and 8, Cornelia Warren Farm and Field House, 240 Beaver Street, Waltham 

  • Memo to City Council further updating plans for clean up for 240 Beaver St, the site of illegally dumped construction waste. Memo

  • Memo to City Council stating Mayor’s hope to have the RFP for Area 1 by January 17. RFP Area 1

  • Memo to City Council on Survey of Waltham residents for “community farming plots” and to potentially address the “long waiting list for these plots.“ Green Rows of Waltham (GROW) satisfied all names on their wait list in 2022.

January 23 Mayor requests, via the City Council Docket, the Council’s acceptance of four proposals being prepared for City of Waltham owned real estate, three of which pertained to 240 Beaver St: two proposals for Area 1, and a third for the Administration building.The matter was referred to the Committee of the Whole and is on the agenda for the meeting on Monday Feb 6.

We will update this timeline as more information becomes available.

 

How To Take Action (repeated from above)

  • Watch for further updates via email and on Facebook and Instagram.

  • Post your support on social media, tagging @WFCF. Use these hashtags #WFCFrooted #WFCFfarmson

  • Write to Mayor Jeannette McCarthy and Waltham City Councillors and request a comprehensive site reuse plan for 240 Beaver Street.

  • Voice your support for the protection and continuation of community farming at 240 Beaver Street (which is vastly different from community gardening)

  • Ask City Council to publicly commit to preserving intact all the currently cultivated farmland in Area 2 for use as a community farm.

  • Contact members of the Massachusetts Food System Caucus, especially our local member MA Rep Tom Stanley, asking them to publically advocate for community farms, to get involved in the issue facing WFCF at 240 Beaver St., which is directly in line with the priorities of the Food Caucus’ mission of maintaining access to farmland.

  • Show your financial support for WFCF; join or renew your membership, make a donation and plan to attend our annual SPROUT celebration on April 28 at the Lyman Estate!

  • As our plans come together, there will be additional opportunities to volunteer and help WFCF through this transition. Stay tuned!

Prior Communications and Media