Environmental and Social Relationship Changes Through Self-Governance Transition in a Rooftop Community Garden of Senior Residential Living Lab

This study examines the first transition to self-governance in a rooftop community garden within a senior public rental housing community and its resulting physical and social changes.Using a longitudinal qualitative case design, the analysis triangulated archival records, resident interviews, field observations, and expert assessments of landscape and ecological quality.The transition followed a trajectory of allocation, norm vacuum, ecological and sensory degradation, and subsequent attempts at recovery.Night-time relocations of favored plants, zone-based ownership signals, and vegetable monoculture disrupted the intended ecological rhythm and seasonality of the garden, while fertilizer misuse degraded olfactory comfort and reduced stay duration.Socially, participation fragmented into active, intermittent/neglect, and observer groups, accompanied by disputes over harvest rights, leadership frictions, and avoidance behaviors.These tensions revealed limits of participation-heavy models without codified rules or procedural safeguards.Over time, residents reframed the garden as a shared asset and converged on institutional scaffolding such as a wayfinding planting map, one-page rules, short learning-feedback loops, and low-cost dispute-resolution mechanisms.The findings show that rooftop community gardens function as essential physical, social, and operational infrastructure within senior community housing, shaping ecological quality, social cohesion, and everyday wellbeing.Ultimately, effective self-governance depends less on participation volume than on visible rules, procedural fairness, embedded learning, and mediation structures that stabilize shared spaces in super-aged societies.