Progress continues on clearing the official hurdles and doing the necessary planning for creation of a community garden in Englewood.

Organizers propose turning the the grass-covered empty area on the northwest corner of East Dartmouth Avenue and South Fox Street into an area offering 22 garden plots to residents by the spring of 2010.

Plans call for each garden plot to be a 12-foot square. The artist concept pictures the area surrounded by shrubs and shade trees.

Councilwoman Jill Wilson was one of those spearheading the proposal to create a community garden in Englewood.

Earlier this year, the Englewood Cultural Arts Commission agreed there was a need for a community garden in the city. The commission worked with representatives of the Englewood Parks and Recreation commission, the Keep Englewood Beautiful Commission and representatives for the city council and the parks and recreation department to study the proposal.

The group agreed the project should move forward and contacted Denver Urban Gardens, an organization that has a track record of planning and operating more than 80 gardens in communities around the metropolitan area.

The issue is to be discussed at the May 18 city council study session. Also, a meeting for those interested in the community garden project will be held at 7 p.m. June 9 at the Malley Senior Recreation Center, 3380 S. Lincoln St.

Additional information is available on the city Web site at www.englewoodgov.org.

The city parks and recreation department set up and ran a community garden in 1998 on land east of the old Par-3 golf course on the South Santa Fe Drive frontage road.

Residents enthusiastically took advantage of the community garden the first couple years. However, most proponents agreed there wasn’t easy access to the site and there wasn’t a lot of publicity about the project so gradually interest and participation declined until the garden was closed in 2004.

“I live in an apartment building and helped my next door neighbor tend her vegetables in the old community garden and I kept hoping I would get a chance to have a garden of my own,” Tiffany Langford said. “I just heard they are trying to set up a community garden next year. That’s cool and I want to sign up so I can grow my own vegetables.”