(Read Part 1 here, or click on the green Storyline tab)

When CADA issued a Request for Proposals to private developers in 2000, the subsequent fight between RMCG advocates and CADA ended in 2004 with the RMCG’s destruction and two new gardens, one built as part of Fremont Mews and one built near Southside Park. A full account of the final protracted battle—especially regarding the lawsuits, the soil remediation issue, and the garden advocates’ organizing strategies—is still lacking, but the contested details of those years are not covered here. Instead, two of CADA’s tactics during this period are reconsidered in light of the evidence presented thus far: one, their presentation of the block’s 1997 housing designation as historically consistent and absolutely immutable, and two, their slippery use of the term “public.”

Not long after issuing the RFP, CADA disseminated a brochure entitled “Striking a Balance: CADA and the Mandella Gardens,” which stated:

“For a quarter century the State of California has owned Site 13…the land has been designated on the Capitol Area land use plan for residential use. CADA is proposing that the site be developed consistent with this long-established Plan…urban open space will be retained and housing and potential mixed use development can occur just as always intended.”

The CAP is perfectly capable of shifting buildings and uses from one site to another—and it has done so countless times. The 1997 introduction explicitly stated, “variances in these designations have continuously occurred throughout the plan implementation.” And the planned uses for block 286 have morphed almost as often as the gardens were threatened. The 1960 CAP created the true blight in the first place by razing the existing housing in order to give state workers a view of Fremont Park on their lunch break. Various configurations of parking, office buildings, ownership housing, rental housing, and retail (remember the grocery store proposal?) have been revised multiple times over the past fifty years. In Traci Sinclair’s 2000 Sacramento News & Review article about the RMCG, CADA Development Director Tom Kigar stated, “This site has always been seen as a residential site.” Besides being ironic, since the block was obviously seen as residential before the state destroyed the homes, this statement is also not true, as evidenced by five decades of assorted proposed uses.

The frequent redesignations could be seen as evidence of the CAP’s agility in meeting changing conditions, and indeed, the 1977 and 1997 CAPs boast endlessly about their flexibility. But all that shifting also shows that nothing prohibited the CAP from reclassifying any block—what never shifted was the designation of a mere half-block to permanent garden space. Why? Mark Francis’s article quoted several CADA officials as saying, “‘I do not see state authorities going for permanent gardens; it is a highly valuable piece of property’…‘the moment can still happen when the space will have to be developed’ as a result of rising real estate values.” The white-hot real estate market of the early 2000s was the tipping point for the RMCG’s demise, though at the time, CADA rarely mentioned housing demand, instead emphasizing downtown’s need for affordable housing. Of course no one is opposed to affordable housing, but it is not mutually exclusive with a half-block of affordable food.

CADA also used the term public disingenuously in different ways. In “Striking a Balance,” CADA claimed that it was “as good stewards of public land that we pursue the responsible intended use of this land.” Such a claim omits how the state forced the block to become public land in the first place. And as shown, by definition the agency would not pursue anything but housing development—it does not exist to provide holistic stewardship of all possible public land uses. Moreover, pro-development arguments at the time painted the gardeners as selfishly clinging to taxpayers’ land for the sake of a private playground. Yet CADA’s solution to the problem of a group supposedly claiming exclusive rights to public land, as a “good steward” of that public land, was to sell the site to a private developer so it could be turned into private housing.

“Striking a Balance” also claimed that CADA was requiring “nearly one-half acre of public open space be a component” of the RFP responses, and CADA has made much of the so-called replacement gardens that are now managed by the city. It is true that many people prefer the new gardens, and many more people have no opinion at all. But the Fremont Community Garden and the new Southside Community Garden do not actually replace the RMCG, nor are they truly public. Obviously, the OSCG has never been replaced (except by parking, until the CAP once again shifted its use), and the RMCG’s scores of fruit trees have never been replaced. Most significantly, the RMCG was genuinely public. The fence was unlocked from dawn until dusk seven days a week, there were ample community beds, and there were community events and celebrations regularly.

Neither the Fremont Community Garden nor the new Southside Community Garden is open to the public. Anyone may apply to rent a plot, but that is equivalent to other membership-based private buildings (e.g., fitness centers), not equivalent to public institutions (e.g., libraries). If community gardens are defined as strictly places where plants are grown, than the RMCG has been replaced, square foot for square foot. But if community gardens are defined as by-the-public-for-the-public communities, then the loss is unquantifiable. It can be rebuilt, but not replaced.

The impossibility of replacement raises a difficult question. Each version of the CAP has claimed its flexibility permitted responsiveness to changing conditions. Soon after the Fremont Mews was built, conditions did in fact change: the housing market tanked, and green chic and the recession have raised community gardens’ cachet again. But those particular community gardens on that particular block, those gardens that were on our land and were open to all of us, are gone forever. Was it worth it? It’s a question to keep in mind for all future development projects, especially in view of the CAP’s legacy for downtown.

The 1960 CAP’s authors did not care that its implementation would destroy the community on block 286, because they did not see a community worthy of continued existence—they only saw a chunk of real estate that could be captured, renamed and rebuilt to serve the state’s purposes and the city’s image. The community then challenged the state’s imposition of its will on the neighborhood by salvaging the wreckage of their “monumental seat of government” and developing it into productive green space for everybody.

The 1977 CAP positioned itself as righting the wrongs of the 1960 CAP—although it certainly was not planning to give the original residents their homes back—but both versions never questioned their legitimacy in imposing the state’s vision, however virtuous, without the community’s consent or approval. The 1977 CAP declared, “There must be a ‘Capitol Community’ espirit which grows out of the physical environment,” but refused to acknowledge the community which had organically grown out of, and in spirited response to, the state’s annihilation of the physical environment.

The 1997 CAP continued the legacy of ignoring the community-created development and presenting the state’s capricious whims—allegedly validated by selectively solicited public opinion and urban planning trends—as the only way to develop a vibrant, viable downtown. Shielded by the threadbare histories of Capitol Area redevelopment, CADA obscured the issue of public space to justify state-led development.

Ultimately, the state has always justified the CAP through its self-defined mandate. The 1977 CAP author argued “the plan couldn’t fulfill its mandate without using [block 286] for housing.” CADA repeatedly cited its legislative mandate in their quest to destroy the gardens. The CAP’s legacy is the state’s unwavering indifference to the community it purported to develop, all the while insisting that it was dutifully pursuing the public good. The people constitute the public, however, not the state. For the past fifty years, the people’s mandate has yet to be fulfilled in any version of the CAP.

If you have more information about block 286’s history since 1950, please consider sharing it in the comments or donating it to the Ron Mandella Community Garden Archives at CSUS.

Thanks to Judge Lloyd Connelly, Mark Francis, Tom Kigar, Bill Maynard, Judy Michalowski, Evan Tucker, and Barry Wasserman for their assistance with researching this article.

Special thanks to the staff and volunteers at: The Center for Sacramento History, the State Library, the State Archives, and the Sacramento Special Collections and University Archives at CSUS.

Dedicated to my mom, Nancy Fish (7/13/1950-1/18/2011). 

1966 Meeting Minutes of the State Public Works Board

California State Archives: DOF - Exec. Office Records - Deputy Director (1965-1966) R157.40

Jordon Condemnation

California State Archives: State Land Deeds 62-759

Bozaich Condemnation

California State Archives: State Land Deeds 62-179

"Striking a Balance" Brochure

CADA brochure, CADA Public Relations 2000-2003, Box 4, MSS 2005/06, Ron Mandella Community Garden records, Department of Special Collections and University Archives, The Library, California State University, Sacramento.