Wilmington City Councilmember Christian Willauer will present a resolution requesting city administration restore the Rodney Reservoir community garden.
The Rodney Reservoir was home to a community garden with more than 60 beds assigned to residents, school groups and community organizations.
Demolition and construction to create the Rodney Reservoir Park started in the spring of 2024, and since then, only 20 beds in the community garden have been built.
Willauer said she wants to bring the garden back to full strength for the 2026 gardening season.
“It may be a case of scarce resources and the city is lacking the budget to build the community garden, all these beds, the 40 beds now,” Willauer said. “So the community has offered to help, and has offered to build the beds.”
Willauer added community members built the original garden beds and are prepared to do it again. Volunteers already have the plans and resources to build the remaining beds.
“A local group of neighbors has put together an interest list and asked people, ‘are you interested in gardening?’” Willauer said. “And over 125 people have signed up on that list. So there's huge interest in this garden. We know that there [were] enough people who are interested to have 61 plots used before the demolition, there's as much or more interest now.”
A group of organizations and community members came together in 2010 to build a community garden at the Rodney Reservoir. The original 61 beds were completed by 2012.
Cornerstone West CDC managed the garden by maintaining beds, enforcing rules and organizing sign ups.
“[Community] gardeners played a key role in resident-led advocacy efforts to maintain the site as a public greenspace and helped develop the vision to transform the Rodney Reservoir into a nature- and community-focused park,” the draft ordinance read.
The city committed to realizing a design that included the community garden in 2023.
The Health, Environmental, Aging and Disabilities Committee is set to review Willauer’s ordinance at its meeting Wednesday.
