Congratulations Aaron. We hope to see lots and lots of pictures in the future.

Space vs Interest

Reality is, in many urban and highly populated areas,
there is insufficient space available for any type of orchards,
they just require too much room, even small ones.

Even if space is available, its hard for municipalities to
dedicate the acreage for a project that would still be considered "special interest"
due to the limited amount of the population it would serve.
Using the similar acreage for a park or recreation center
would serve a much higher percentage of the public,
thus the added difficulty is securing land for projects like these.
Funding then becomes the next headache/nightmare to deal with,
then there is always liability issues and the lawyers, fun fun fun.

Private entities at times will lend land they are not using for
these types of projects, but will only do so on a year to year,
or several year basis.  Most are unwilling to commit to the decade(s)
that orchards require.

I'm in the NY area, and the community or government sponsored farms
are mostly measured in fractions of an acre.
The handful of larger farms exist because of their historical nature.

Finding space that is easily accessible by the public is the largest problem in most cases.

Funding is the next major hurdle,
as accomplishing any type of farming activity with government involvement/oversight,
becomes very expensive and usually highly inefficient in most cases.
In the NY area, budgets for these types of farms are currently running $50,000-75,000 per HALF ACRE a  YEAR,
and they usually get free farm equipment and utilities (water/power).   
Imagine the costs on something 4-10 acres in size.

The other reality is on a farm,
its hard to accomplish what needs to be done with volunteers.
The IDEA of farming is actually very far from the reality of farming,
its hard, dirty, hot and back breaking work.
So for this reason, the output from volunteers is very low.
If you have 10 hours of farm labor that needs to be accomplished,
like weeding, harvesting, etc,  then you will need 70-100 hours of volunteer labor
to accomplish those 10 hours of labor.
Attracting and organizing this labor take time and effort as well.

The reality is, one experienced farm hand in one day will accomplish the
work of 10 volunteers and the farm manager would do in a day.
Day laborer costs $100-120 a day,
farm manager, costs to organize volunteers and other associated costs
far exceed this number.
Next, is the reality that you are dealing with mother nature,
and the rule is EVERY DAY IS DIFFERENT.
You can schedule projects, organize volunteers all you want,
have plantings scheduled, etc  and the weather works against you,
which results in delays of weeks or months many times,
which equates to these project not reaching their goals usually,
and becoming very expensive along the way, when they try to correct the problems.
On a farm/orchard, work needs to be done every day, and its never 9 to 5,
certain times of the year, its 5am to 9pm.
This reality does not fit it well with volunteer labor as its main source of labor.

Even with paid labor,
its very hard to find people who are willing to do the hard physical labor required,
and their output is  minimal.

As an example there is a 2 acre gov sponsored farm in NYC,
they have a 150k budget for labor,  2 full time employees,
2 part time employees, numerous volunteers,
enough tractors and implements to handle a 500 acre farm,
and as of this week,
they have planted less than 1 acre of the farm,
just planted their tomatoes this week, (I'm picking tomatoes already)
have several hoop houses filled with plants that have aged out in their flats
and are half dead, with no backups or succession plantings started.
Less than on acre planted and another filled with weeds, we are 6 months
into the year, which means there is about 70-80k in labor invested,
less than an acre planted.
Using the equipment on site, I could plant the entire 2 acres
with 2 experienced field laborers in ONE DAY, labor cost  $250
and my hands would not even get dirty.
Last year, this farm harvested all of 8,000 pounds of vegetables
at a cost of 150k,
puts the cost of veggies at $19.00 per pound.
They "make money" by having a farmer market during the week,
in the middle of the day, where they sell the produce for $2-3 a pound.
Last year they harvested their first tomatoes for the final week of their farm stand,
this year, the tomatoes will ripen after the farm stand closes for the year.
They harvest, wash, display, sell a small portion, some is donated to food pantries,
but usually due to transportation issues for the produce,
the left over produce is thrown in the garbage.

This scenario is repeated in many different locations
when it comes to these types of entities.
I could give you example after example.

Why these type of projects with a scale of
anything larger than a few thousand square feet,
turn into expensive, complicated nightmares.

Your project can be accomplished,
it will take much determination, time and money on your part.
Be prepared for this battle and commitment in PERSONAL resources.

Also be prepared to change your vision multiple times along the way
to appease various entities that will be involved with the project.