Rooftop Farming: Part of the Future of Inner-City Living

The Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Brooklyn, New York
Photo: Eagle Street Rooftop Farm

Over the last decade or so, petrol prices have more than doubled and the amount of available and accessible agricultural land has decreased.

This is mainly due to suburban sprawl extending further and further away from major city centres, where the majority of our population resides.

Invariably, this places cost pressures on the price of fresh produce, increases the environmental impact of greenhouse gas emissions and puts pressure on the cost of living.

To combat this, the most sensible option would be to bring accessible agricultural land closer to the city centres. However, a combination of high land prices and a shortage of suitable farming land make this option close to impossible to achieve.

Rooftop Farms – The Solution to a Lack of Land?

Rooftops are generally seen as the most ideal locations for setting up farms. As our least occupied areas, they are open to sunlight and rain, which are essential to a thriving garden.

In recent times, there have been many initiatives to incorporate community gardens in existing areas. Residential buildings including the Pop-Up Patch in the Federation Square car park allow inner city dwellers to rent out veggie patches made from apple containers and pay a modest fee.

Another notable example is the Eagle Street rooftop farm located on a warehouse roof in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in New York City (pictured above).

According to the farm’s fact sheet, it comprises approximately 6,000 square feet (or 557 square metres) and provides ultra-local fresh produce to the North Brooklyn community. It also offers residents educational programs on how to grow and maintain an urban farm.

“In recent times, there have been many initiatives to incorporate community gardens in existing areas.”

The initial start-up cost for getting the farm up and running was approximately AUD$9.52 per square metre (USD$0.90 per square foot based on a conversion rate of $1 AUD to $1.05 USD).

However, it was noted that this was far cheaper than a standard installation due to the use of recycled materials where possible. 

The aforementioned examples demonstrate how existing structures could potentially be utilised to incorporate rooftop farms. The next challenge is how to incorporate these rooftop farms into new developments.

Potentially introducing planning policies or state government tax cuts could encourage developers to incorporate community farms into proposed residential developments.  

Some fresh produce from Eagle Street Rooftop Farm.
Photo: Jackie Snow, Eagle Street Rooftop Farm

Some of the Potential Benefits for Such Initiatives Include:

• Local food production for the community living within the residential building which will be available to all residents and could even be used as a source of income.

• Increased community engagement – residents working together to care for the farms.

• Increased health and well-being.

• Reduced rainwater run-off from the roof as the water will be either captured in the garden beds and/or captured in rainwater tanks which could be used during the drier months of the year.

• Environmental impact may be reduced due to the elimination of the need to transport the produce from a farm in a provincial area to the city centres.

• Through the use of educational programs, residents can learn new farming skills and pass those skills onto others.

The Viability of Rooftop Farms in Melbourne

A group of Melbourne urban professionals teamed up recently to consider the viability of establishing an urban rooftop farms.

Inspired by the City of Melbourne’s ambitions to be a “green city”; Pippa Howard, Nicky Scheltus and Alex Houlston combined their powers, along with Russell Hughes, to come up with a plan to develop a sustainable rooftop farm.  

“Imagine rooftop gardens and other dead spaces being put to use growing fresh fruit and vegetables for sale to city dwellers,” said Pippa, an architect and part-time lecturer in environmental design. 

The group is preparing a business model for developing an urban farm over the Queen Victoria Market car park, which is approximately 2.5 hectares in area.

“Imagine rooftop gardens and other dead spaces being put to use growing fresh fruit and vegetables for sale to city dwellers.”

“The Queen Victoria Market is a fantastic case study of how you can make a city much more self-reliant in terms of food supply as well as creating a vibrant and exciting urban space,” said Alex, who has a strong background in urban design.

“Our case study will examine opportunities such as building a lightweight, tiered structure on top of the car park, or potentially redeveloping the site for the community’s advantage with a rooftop produce garden, bio-digester and cogeneration boiler.

“The goal would be to provide food products to vendors at the market for a management fee, meaning we would not compete with stallholders and we would save on transportation costs and emissions.”

This is one example of how under-utilised spaces in inner city Melbourne could be activated into productive, vibrant areas.

The proposed Footscray Market rooftop farm
Photo: Bureau of Urban Architecture

The Footscray Market Redevelopment comprises a two stage redevelopment including the refurbishment of the existing Footscray Market and the addition of a five storey residential component built using an ultra-light weight steel frame.

The communal courtyard will incorporate a sun-filled rooftop farm that looks back to the area’s history as a fresh produce market while also looking forward as a sustainable inner city farming solution.

Although rooftop farming can be seen as simple and easily applicable response to Melbourne’s sustainability vision, the biggest challenge for stakeholders and policy makers will be engaging and motivating our community to see these types of approaches as the “way of the future” and as a necessary “way of life”.

This article was originally published on Urban Melbourne.