For nearly four decades, gardeners in one Providence, Rhode Island, neighborhood planted vegetables, tended flowers, and built a community on land they could never be certain would remain theirs.
That gnawing uncertainty is at last a thing of the past. Peace & Plenty Community Garden now owns the land beneath its 55 plots, permanently protecting the longtime green space from future development.
The Southside Community Land Trust began leasing the 0.39-acre garden from St. Joseph’s Hospital in 1989, according to Paolino Properties. On Aug. 31, developer and former Providence Mayor Joseph Paolino Jr. formally transferred four parcels making up the garden to the organization.
The land has a combined assessed value of $576,000. Providence Preservation Society reports that the property changed hands for a symbolic $1, while Paolino Properties describes the transaction as a donation.
The Garden Spent Decades on Borrowed Ground
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The garden’s future had remained unsettled for years. In its history of Peace & Plenty, Southside Community Land Trust noted that Paolino agreed in 2021 to sell the property to the organization for $1, but the transfer still had not happened when the document was written.
Paolino acquired the former St. Joseph’s Hospital property in 2017. In February, Paolino Properties announced that the hospital campus had been sold to K&S Development, while Peace & Plenty would be preserved through a separate donation to Southside Community Land Trust.
“When he purchased the hospital property in 2017, almost 30 years later, we suddenly saw a bright new future, one where the garden could finally be protected for generations of gardeners and community members,” Southside Community Land Trust Executive Director Margaret DeVos said in Paolino Properties’ Aug. 31 announcement.
Paolino Properties says the completed transfer permanently dedicates the property to community gardening, food production, education and neighborhood stewardship.
There is More Growing Here Than Vegetables
Peace & Plenty has evolved well beyond a collection of individual garden beds. Southside Community Land Trust describes it as a space where family gardeners work alongside market growers, volunteers and community organizations, with projects extending into environmental education and neighborhood stewardship.
The garden has even become a small outdoor laboratory. Across five BioBlitz sessions in 2025 and 2026, Southside Community Land Trust says community scientists documented 405 distinct species across the 0.39-acre garden.
Its value to the neighborhood was part of Paolino’s reasoning for preserving it. “Peace & Plenty Gardens represents the very best of what community spaces can be,” he said in the Aug. 31 announcement. “We made a commitment that this garden would be permanently protected, and I am proud to see that promise realized.”
Highlighting the many functions the space can serve, Paolino added, “We made a commitment that this garden would be permanently protected, and I am proud to see that promise realized.”