Quincy gardens gotta go
Housing authority’s order shocks residents
Residents of a Quincy housing project say they were shocked to learn they have one week to evict all of the flowers, plants and lawn ornaments decorating the front of their “garden apartments” before they’re tossed in the garbage.
“Gardens are no longer allowed,” read the “urgent notice” that residents said was hastily slotted into mailboxes and front doors of the 12-building elderly and disabled housing complex, which is listed on the Quincy Housing Authority’s website as “garden apartments.”
“Do not plant a garden,” the notice read, adding, “if you started a garden STOP!”
Grace Raymondi, a 74-year-old tenant who has lived at Crowley Court since 2000, stood outside her unit yesterday taking stock of the plants and decorations that will be wiped out when work crews come May 5.
“It breaks the spirit of the community,” said Raymondi, president of the community’s tenant association. “They’re trying to take away one of the simple pleasures senior citizens have.”
Tenants told the Herald the housing authority’s blanket edict cuts deeply into one of the last normal slices of life have left for people in their project.
Rose Cameron, 65, who moved into Crowley Court last year, said housing authority officials signed off three weeks ago on her plan to plant marigolds and impatiens in front of her unit.
“This is my therapy. I plant flowers,” Cameron said, adding she will demand the housing authority reimburse her for the $100 she spent on flowers, soil, mulch and a wood border if her hard work is uprooted next week.
“What else can we do?” she asked. “I just think it’s wrong. It’s wrong.”
The notice directed residents to move all pots to the back of their units and take down any garden fencing. It also added lawn ornaments and fake flowers to a list of banned items.
“If you do not remove these items they will be considered trash and thrown away on May 5, 2017. You are allowed to have flower pots on your balcony. No planting flowers in the lawn.” the letter read, seemingly ignoring the fact that the development’s one-floor units lack balconies.
Carolyn Crossley, a director of the Quincy Housing Authority, declined to say why they’re banning the outdoor decorations and referred all questions to executive director James Lydon, who did not return calls.
Commissioners of the housing authority also didn’t return requests for comment.
A copy of the authority’s garden policy posted to its website in the last year said the rules are to “maintain a clean, well kept appearance, and to minimize tripping hazards and obstructions to balconies, yard and lawn care.”
Many tenants agreed there should be some fair limitations, but said the across-the-board ban seemed heavy-handed.
“We can’t live like normal people, in other words?” asked Robin Shuman, 56, who’s raised her children in the development over the past 27 years and was fuming that she’d have to remove a flower pot from her rear steps.
“How would they at Housing like for us to tell them they can’t do that at their homes?” Shuman asked.
Cameron responded: “I’d love to know what their homes look like — I bet you they have flowers.”