Troy

From my point of view, chickens are preferable to used syringes and fruit trees are better than weeds.

Apparently, those opinions aren't universal. Not if you judge by the controversy surrounding a small urban-agriculture project happening on Adams Street.

Let me introduce you to Conor Vallee. He's 26 and from Columbia County. He's choosing to live in Troy partly because he likes what's happening with its food scene.

Last year, Vallee bought a vacant lot from the city — an overgrown eyesore peppered with used syringes, he said. Before Vallee even took ownership, he began clearing the land at 123 Adams St. in the Little Italy neighborhood.

Vallee has a vision: He wants to use the lot to grow food for himself, his neighbors and city restaurants. Agriculture is his passion.

The plan makes sense, given that Troy's only supermarkets are a long way from Adams Street and that much of the city is a food desert. Why not grow fresh fruits and vegetables close to where people live? Why not take better advantage of the city's many vacant lots?

"I love what I'm doing," Vallee said recently, as he showed me his work. "I've never been so happy in my life because I think I'm making a direct impact on my community."

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Vallee, who lives on Fifth Avenue near the lot, heard no complaints from neighbors when he was merely clearing the land. But some are less than thrilled, to put it mildly, with some of his subsequent changes.

For one thing, he has six egg-producing chickens and ducks living there, which is perfectly legal in Troy but nevertheless unpopular among some. For another, the lot looks a bit junky.

Well, the junk isn't junk if you know what Vallee is up to. The old windows at the rear of the lot, for example, are cold frames for veggie growing. The used carpeting is part of a technique for suppressing weeds and building healthier soil.

But if you don't know what Vallee is doing, the lot's appearance could be jarring. The city, in fact, has thrown its weight behind the complaints, hitting Vallee with code violations for the lot's appearance.

Wait a second, though. The land was littered with trash when the city owned it, yet Vallee's is being hit with code violations now?

I wonder, too, if code officials bothered to look at adjourning properties. Next to Vallee's land, for example, is a backyard where an in-ground swimming pool is literally filled to the brim with garbage.

Most importantly, Vallee's lot is a work in progress. You can't judge a garden by how it looks in April, before plants have grown and flowers have bloomed. Vallee's plot will certainly look better when his pear, fig and apple trees have filled in enough to hide the back of the lot.

Patience, people. Take a deep breath.

"This is not a one- or two-year thing," Vallee said. "This is a long-term project."

As with most modern controversies, the dispute over Vallee's land is playing out on Facebook, where opinion is sharply divided between those who like what he's doing and those who hate it.

One neighbor said she loves the chickens and finds the scene charming. Another cited the "amazing transformation." Yet a critic called the lot a "complete eyesore" while another said Vallee should "buy farmland somewhere."

Sadly, the division of opinion is entirely predictable. Change is almost always met with resistance, and the push for urban and suburban food growing has not been an exception. Some people just believe that agriculture should stick to the countryside.

In part, the conflict seems generational — an example of how old Troy doesn't always mesh well with the eager millennials who are transforming the city.

At one time, though, there would have been nothing ununsual about what Vallee is doing. Gardens and chickens were common features of urban life in neighborhoods like Little Italy.

More recently, Troy has been welcomed the new interest in urban food growing. Vallee's lot is really just a small-scale version, for example, of what Collard City Growers has been successfully doing in North Central.

Troy is also home to the headquarters of Capital Roots, which manages community gardens across the region, and its Urban Grow Center. What's more, Monica Kurzejeski, the former manager of the city's popular farmers market, is now the city's deputy mayor.

Kurzejeski recently visited Vallee's lot. Sympathetic to what he's trying to do, she's hoping to smooth the conflict between Vallee and neighbors, while helping him resolve code-enforcement issues.

She isn't the only one hoping for a resolution.

"Both sides need to sit down to talk things over," said Lynn Kopka, the City Council member who represents the neighborhood. "I think they both want the same thing — a clean, quiet neighborhood."

And what clean, quiet neighborhood couldn't benefit from the happy presence of a few ducks and chickens?

cchurchill@timesunion.com • 518-454-5442 • @chris_churchill