GrowNYC Community Garden Assistance Rubric

GrowNYC Green Space Grant Review Rubric
GrowNYC's Green Space program has built more than 170 community gardens, urban farms, and 1000 school gardens throughout the five boroughs, adding more than 1 million square of green space to New York City. These gardens are built on city-owned vacant lots, within public housing developments, on empty space at churches, daycares, and seniors centers, and anywhere else that a publicly accessible community garden will flourish. We've also completed hundreds of renovation projects, built green infrastructure elements like rainwater harvesting systems and bioswales, and much more.

GrowNYC works closely with partners like NYC Parks and New York City Housing Authority to choose locations for these gardens, but it’s also extremely valuable to have an application process on our website that lets anyone submit a potential project for consideration. GrowNYC reviews these applications and, instead of cutting a check to applicants, works with selected applicants to design and build out their garden space.

GrowNYC will work with selected garden groups to:
- Form a garden committee
- Initiate a participatory design process to create a layout for the space
- GrowNYC staff and volunteers will physically build out the garden, including building garden infrastructure, which can include garden beds, seating, rainwater harvesting systems, and shade structures, as well as arranging the delivery of consumables such as mulch, compost, topsoil, and a variety of plants.
Reviewer Information
Your Name*
This is for internal purposes only. This will not be shared with anyone outside of the grant review process.
Your E-mail Address*
example@example.com
Company Name*
Garden Project Information
Submission #*
located at the top of each application
Project Name*
Neighborhood Information

Filling out this section is not mandatory, but doing so will give you a better idea of the neighborhood and community in which the proposed garden project is located.
In what council district is the project located? Reviewers can enter the project's address into the official NYC City Council website here: https://council.nyc.gov/districts/
Council District
In what community district is the project? Reviewers can enter the address into the NYC Department of City Planning website here: https://communityprofiles.planning.nyc.gov/ -- because of how this map works, it is better to manually enter the address and utilize autofill rather than copying and pasting.
Community District
Does the community district appear on the Building Healthy Communities Priority Districts list?
What is the poverty rate of the community district? Use this document to look up data provided by the City of New York.
Poverty Rate
Using the project's address + Google Maps satellite view and map view, describe the open spaces and parks within a 5-block radius of the project. Keep in mind that not all spaces that appear green on map view are open space.
While not exhaustive, the NYC Parks GreenThumb website has a map of most of the community gardens in the city. Paste the project's address into their map - are there many other gardens in the general vicinity? Be descriptive.
Are there other community gardens nearby?
Evaluation Rubric
Application Evaluation. Please grade each application on the criteria listed below. Grants with the highest scores will be considered for funding first.

3 = Excellent. Response is thoroughly fleshed out, thoughtful, and demonstrates significant prior planning.

2 = Good. The question was answered adequately but may lack some elements of detail or planning.

1 = Poor. The question was answered but the information given is vague or cursory. Demonstrates a significant lack of prior planning or thought.

0 = Unsatisfactory. The question was not answered, or the information given was insufficient/did not match the requirements of the question.

Project Vision*

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Project has a clear vision: The project has a clearly defined shared vision for the garden.
Project has realistic goals: The project goals are reasonable and attainable in scope.
Project is community centered: The outlined project is focused on public access and diverse usage by the surrounding neighborhood.

Physical Space*

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Physical attributes: The physical attributes of the project are well planned out and connected to the project vision.
Does the garden look to have enough light to grow a variety of plants? (Some spaces have large trees that shade out a majority of the space and NYC restricts the trimming and removal of many such trees.)

Community*

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Application demonstrates diverse participation: Does the project mention quality partners, including local schools, community-based organizations, non-profits, etc?
Based on the information you researched in the "Neighborhood Information" section above, is this garden in an underserved area?

Long Term Sustainability*

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Implementation is well-planned: Project shows thoughtful planning and, as proposed, is something that can be maintained long term without major outside support.

Your Recommendation
YesNo
Comments
Overall comments on the project, including any non-quantifiable justifications for selecting or not selecting the project.*
Should be Empty:

GrowNYC Green Space Grant Review Rubric

Reviewer Information

Garden Project Information

Neighborhood Information

Evaluation Rubric

Your Recommendation

Comments