Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

"Agriburbia" sprouts on Colorado's Front Range
Combines homes and harvests
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_13631048?source=pop_section_news

Six years ago, Matthew "Quint" Redmond suggested to Milliken planners that a 
corn farm north of Denver could increase its agricultural value and still 
anchor nearly a thousand homes.

"I got laughed out of the room," Redmond said.

Today, Milliken's 618-acre Platte River Village is ready for construction, 
with 944 planned homes surrounded by 108 acres of backyard farms and 152 
acres of drip- irrigated community farms. The plan is for the farms to feed 
local residents and supply restaurants while paying for community upkeep. And 
Redmond, a 47-year-old planner-farmer, has 13 other Front Range projects 
mulling his "agriburbia" concept.

Redmond, co-founder of the Golden-based design firm TSR Group, travels the 
country preaching his urban farming and development idea. He envisions a 
future where the nation's 31 million acres of lawn are converted to food 
production. He sees golf-course greens redefined with herbs; sand traps as 
"kale traps." He sees retirement homes engulfed by farms and office buildings 
where workers escape cubicles on farming breaks.

Redmond, along with his born-on- a-farm biologist turned planner wife, 
Jennifer, sees an urban landscape like none before.

"This is where we are all going to go. We need this," said Redmond. "Everyone 
thinks they are so smart by crafting a 2030 plan for the future. I say we 
need a $180-a-barrel plan, on how our communities can be self-sufficient when 
oil becomes too expensive to ship food across the country."

Self-sufficient. Sustainable. Locally produced. Agriburbia incorporates all 
three concepts.

"Is there a better use of the land than growing your own food right where you 
are going to be eating it?" said Janie Lichtfuss, mayor of Milliken, which is 
positioned to become the first agriburbia community.

"This seems to me to be the best of both worlds, with good use of the land 
for development and agricultural production too."

The Redmonds are pursuing three avenues when pushing agriburbia. First, their 
TSR Group works with homeowners with less than an acre, designing an "edible 
landscape" that not only provides food for the family but also contributes to 
the group's network of restaurants.

The Redmonds also work with landowners sitting on their property and waiting 
for the economic revival when they can begin building and selling. The 
Redmonds manage those empty parcels as "steward lots" that feed local 
restaurants and deliver cash to the landowner.

And thirdly, the Redmonds are trying to develop farm-cultured communities 
like Platte River Village in Milliken. Homes surrounding farms already are 
planned for the middle of Littleton and Boulder, using small spaces
Jenny Redmond, Matthew's wife, inspects lettuce in the Lakewood plot. (Craig 
F. Walker, The Denver Post)
to grow organic produce.

Planners in Lakewood two months ago approved agriburbia in the city's 
Solterra community.

In Douglas County, the Redmonds are proposing agriburbia in the development 
of Sterling Ranch near Roxborough State Park.

Right now, the county is looking at the water requirements as well as what 
crops could thrive.

"If the people support it, we are in position to retrofit some lots for 
agricultural use," said Terence Quinn, Douglas County's director of planning 
services. "Agriburbia is one of many different angles we as a community can 
pursue to become sustainable in the long run. "

The idea is to save farming and feed communities.

"If you grow your own food, you make the land that much more efficient, and 
our carbon footprint as a human race is going to shrink so much," said 
Jennifer Redmond, noting that in the traditional food model, as many as 20 
entities touch food as it travels from farm to table. "We shorten that supply 
chain, and everyone wins."

But it's not just the right thing to do, Redmond said. It's profitable. 
Redmond predicts homeowners and developers will realize that food-production 
revenue never declines, unlike traditional development models where revenue 
stops flowing once all the homes are sold.

"Everyone thinks the most efficient, intense use for land is always density," 
Redmond said as he harvested lettuce and carrots from a formerly weed-choked 
acre he manages in Lakewood. "There are more intensive uses for urban land."

Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com