Prohibitive property practices: The impact of restrictive covenants on the built food environment

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of restrictive covenants as a corporate real estate practice that places conditions on land use, such as prohibiting the sale of food or prohibiting the development of grocery stores. Restrictive covenants are a significant barrier to establishing a new store in older neighbourhoods and the consequences are interconnected: when food stores act as anchors in a community shopping area, their closure can lead to a loss of neighbourhood-level identity and history. Rectifying existing nutrition deserts is much harder than preventing new ones. Alternative food systems are needed and should support urban agriculture, urban greenhouses and cooperative food store models, incentivise the development of mobile healthy food vending, and offer tax abatements or subsidies for healthy food retail in low-income nutrition desert neighbourhoods. Government support is needed to limit restrictive covenants and develop alternative food channels through various creative means.