The trouble started with an R.F.Q: a “request for qualifications” in the bloodless shorthand of city government. But that’s not quite right. The shot that started the latest skirmish in New York’s never-ending garden wars wasn’t an R.F.Q., but an addendum to an R.F.Q.

Community gardeners will tell you it was Addendum No. 1, specifically, that roused more than 150 of them to rally Tuesday morning on the plaza of City Hall. (Lucky for the politicians, gardeners save their barricades for bunny-proof fencing.)

About that R.F.Q.: On Dec. 12 of last year, the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (H.P.D.) invited developers to submit their credentials to build affordable infill housing on publicly owned lots. Some were designated for small rental projects with 15 to 30 units. Others were slated for multifamily homes or condos and co-ops with up to 14 units.

The movie version of this procedural drama could use a sex scene about now.

Addendum No. 1, released on Jan. 14, identified the 181 vacant lots the agency would consider developing in clusters, most of them in Harlem, and the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville and East New York.