By Sydnia Yu
In the crisp autumn air, Susan Wellisch prepares her garden plot for next season by laying down straw and compost.
But unlike the previous three years of gardening at Bytowne Urban Gardens (BUGS), this year she knows the garden will still exist when she returns in May to plant her vegetables.
On Sept. 10, city council approved a recommendation to make the community garden a bylaw requirement in any future development at 424 Metcalfe St.
The city originally proposed to redevelop the site, known as the Beaver Barracks, to include an emergency medical services post and affordable housing, but exclude a community garden.
“We won a big victory at City Hall,” says Wellisch, BUGS co-ordinator.
“I think it’s a tremendous step council took and an important step. I think it’s the first time a garden is included in zoning.”
Iain Jack is a volunteer with the Community Garden Network, a collective of gardeners and volunteers fostering the development of community gardens in Ottawa. He says the fact that BUGS has secured its future at the site is unprecedented.
“We need affordable housing, but we also need gardens,” he says.
“It’s not a neither/or choice. We can put gardens on our roofs, so don’t tell us it can’t be done.”
Douglas James, with the city’s planning and infrastructure approvals branch says construction for the ambulance post on the 7,014 square-metre site will begin as soon as possible and be completed this or early next year.
Though he says he hasn’t received the site plan yet, the rest stop could be about 165 square metres.
While James says BUGS won’t be affected by the construction, it’s unknown whether it will remain in its current spot, be relocated to a building rooftop or split into two smaller gardens in the future.
It depends on the owners who will work with BUGS members during the development process to include a garden of the same size as the existing 620 square metre garden.
In the next couple of years, James says the property will be offered to the highest bidder for residential homes and commercial buildings on Catherine Street.
Since 1997, BUGS has signed an annual lease to use the city-owned property. Wellisch says BUGS members knew the site was never theirs permanently and looked to organizations such as the Community Garden Network to help secure their site.
In March they were asked to vacate.
Wellish says gardeners citywide defended the preservation of community gardens as a low-cost, sustainable and barrier-free form of recreation.
She says community gardens also promote many of the city’s growth planning goals, such as food security, community development and public health.
BUGS, one of three community gardens in Centretown, holds free educational workshops, provides fresh produce to local food banks, and allows preschool kids at the local YMCA-YWCA on Argyle Street to cultivate a plot.
BUGS representative, Tia Loftsgard says many people signed petitions, wrote letters of support and attended public consultation meetings since March.
Wellisch says BUGS was also saved by their biggest advocate, who helped to secure BUGS before there was an imminent threat.
“[Somerset Ward Coun.] Elisabeth [Arnold] has been working on this for three years and has been instrumental in saving the garden. There’s no way we would have done it without her.”
The Community Garden Network hopes BUGS’s victory will lead to formalized support from the city in the form of policy.
The city also conducted a review of how to support community gardens.
But Arnold motioned for city staff to report back in February with set timelines and recommendations.
The Community Garden Network says recommendations can be as simple as providing a single point of contact at city hall.
But their main recommendation is to amend zoning bylaws, allowing future community gardens to be built around the city.
Many of the 19 gardens in Ottawa currently have signed leases with public or private property owners on an annual basis, leaving little land security for gardens unless they’re associated with agencies like community centres or churches.
Alexa Pitoulis, a volunteer with the Community Garden Network, says some gardens have already been lost.
After a year of operation, Mechanicsville Community Garden was converted to a parking lot.
Three Sisters Community Garden’s lease will expire this year.
“There’s a new movement in the city that if there isn’t better security, there’s going to be more of these types of instances,” says Pitoulis.