This community garden run by the Southside Community Land Trust is the centerpiece of urban renewal in a neighborhood once plagued by crime and housing blight.

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The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

In the past 30 years, many formerly abandoned houses and buildings in upper South Providence have been reclaimed and restored. And many of these properties are on the streets surrounding the City Farm urban garden operated by the Southside Community Land Trust, which has brought its own brand of renewal to the neighborhood.

In the summer, most gardeners tend their plots in the early morning, before they go to work, and after 5 p.m., according to City Farm manager Rich Pederson, who views the organic gardens as a force to build community as well as provide healthy, low-cost foods.

Gardeners from diverse backgrounds get to know each other when they work side by side and share tips about different vegetables and how they grow, he said. Children also get involved, and parents feel safe having them there, he said.

This neighborhood between Broad Street and Rhode Island Hospital long had a reputation for danger and crime, according to Samnetta Gaye, the land trust’s outreach coordinator. Gaye, who is from Johnston, said her mother was concerned for her safety when she first started working in the neighborhood for the land trust.

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“But it’s really changed,” she said.

Carla DeStefano, executive director of Stop Wasting Abandoned Property, the nonprofit agency that has done extensive housing rehabilitation work in the neighborhood, concurred. Providence Police Chief Dean Esserman and the Providence Police Department “have done a fabulous job in policing this neighborhood,” she said. “It’s made all the difference in the world.”

Many of City Farm’s community gardeners were born outside the United States, and their garden plots are a way they root themselves in their new country, noted Katherine Brown, executive director of the land trust. About 35 people are on the waiting list for a plot, Brown said.

About four years ago, across the street from the City Farm, the Buddhist Center of New England opened on West Clifford Street, which is yet another testament to the neighborhood’s diversity, Pederson said.

Other neighborhood institutions include the Community Preparatory School, a private school serving South Providence children in grades 3 to 8, and the Friendship Head Start Center on Point Street.

Today’s troubled real estate market has slowed but not halted efforts here to develop and market affordable housing. DeStefano, of SWAP, which has provided more than 1,000 affordable new houses and apartments in the city, said the nonprofit agency is not starting any new projects “on spec” — without a committed buyer — during the downturn. But the agency will work with people who are interested in buying an affordable home in the neighborhood, or are looking for an affordable rental, she said.

SWAP said the foreclosure rate on properties it has sold is low, thanks to its policy of requiring homeowner education before a purchase.

Real estate agent Joe Tucker, of Remax Preferred in North Providence, recently won a six-month contract to sell nine new houses built in 2006 and last year by the City of Providence on Friendship and West Clifford streets.

Lawyer Rochelle Lee worked as a consultant for the city on the development project, and the houses were designed by David Presbrey Architects. They are part of a long-term city project to bring more owner-occupied housing to South Providence, an effort that “has had a tremendously stabilizing influence on the neighborhood,” said Lee, of Bates & Hall Associates. City Councilwoman Balbina Young has been a key proponent of the home ownership project.

The single-family Colonial and bungalow-style houses are priced at $149,900, and the two-family duplexes are $239,900, Tucker said. All the single-family houses are income restricted, Lee said; buyers must have an income of no more than 80 percent of the area median income. Market buyers can purchase the duplexes but at least one of the units must have occupants who meet the same income restriction, she said.

Tucker said there are two duplexes for sale, one on Friendship Street and one on West Clifford Street, two single-family houses on West Clifford, and five single-family houses on Friendship Street. (For more information, visit joetuckerrealtor.com)

Lee said there have been “a lot of people interested in buying” the houses, but the tightened credit market has made it difficult for people with credit problems to obtain financing.

Other Multiple Listing Service offerings in the neighborhood include a number of foreclosed or distressed properties, with prices for single-family houses as low as $29,900, but most of the houses in this range need extensive work.

POPULATION:

(Providence, 2000) 173,618

MEDIAN HOUSE PRICE:

(Providence, 2007) $197,000 (does not include East Side of Providence)

INTERESTING FACT:

The Southside Community Land Trust was formed in 1981 by Debbie Schimberg, a Brown University graduate who used a $5,000 donation to buy a couple of vacant lots at the intersection of Dudley ad West Clifford streets.

cdunn@projo.com