The Oakland Planning Commission has approved a proposed six-story apartment building on what its staff describes as a vacant 12,403-square-foot lot on the corner of Park Boulevard and Cleveland Street.

But according to neighbors of the property, the site can be described as anything but vacant.

Park Community Garden, a cooperative food project, has over the last few years turned the lot into a hub of horticulture and community engagement.

Tobias Barton, the self-identified organizer of the community garden, declined to publicly comment about the proposal development or what it could mean for the garden’s future.

Workers at the garden also said they could not comment about the development, on Barton’s orders.

The group has a closed Facebook page that currently includes 180 members who share gardening tips and recommendations.

A post from Barton dated April 8 — two days after the proposal was approved by the planning commission — included a photo of a mock-up of the proposed building.

Barton captioned the photo, “Sigh…this whole block will be developed like this eventually, which is pretty much what the entire neighborhood is already.”

Although a staff report for the meeting makes no mention of Park Community Garden, Planning Commission Chairman Jim Moore said that since the proposal’s introduction on May 28, 2014, he and other commissioners were notified by the neighborhood of the community garden’s existence. In fact, he added, some of the garden’s members attended the initial meeting and no one has since stepped forward to oppose the project.

“I am aware that the neighbors are operating a community garden there,” Moore said. “There are so many deserts of good and quality produce in East and West Oakland where we don’t have grocery stores on every corner.”

AMG & Associates LLC, a land development company based in Valencia that specializes in affordable and market rate housing developments, wants to construct a six-story, 20-unit building, with four units designated as “very low income affordable housing units.”

The first floor would consist of recreational space and the building’s entrance, the second floor would be a parking deck with 20 spaces and the four upper floors would contain 12 three-bedroom apartments and eight four-bedroom apartments.

The proposal also calls for the removal of 22 trees, 12 of which are protected. They include 11 black acacias and one coast live oak that would be replaced by eight new trees.

According to Alexis M. Gevorgian of AMG & Associates LLC, there is no set timeline for the project, and it could take anywhere from five to 10 years to come to fruition.

“We’ve got it entitled and hopefully we can finance it in the near future,” Gevorgian said.

When asked about Park Community Garden and its use of the lot in the near future, Gevorgian said, “They’re going to move, because I’m going to tell them to move.

“They know when I develop the property, they’ll have to find another location.”