By Yasmeen Mohiuddin
Chinatown’s Millennium Garden project, which Mayor Bob Chiarelli cancelled in July, will definitely not be resurrected in its original form.
“The Millennium Garden as you know it is dead. D-E-A-D,” says Marilla Lo, office manager at the Somerset Heights Business Improvement Area (BIA).
The garden was supposed to be developed on the corner of Somerset Street West and Cambridge Street. Because of disagreements between Somerset Heights BIA and designer Edwin Lee, any hope of continuing the plan ended on Sept. 30.
That’s the deadline the City gave the two parties to reach a compromise, although the BIA says it was clear it was unwilling to work with Lee, and had wanted the project cancelled.
Since then, there has been speculation that, with the right initiative and community involvement, the plan could still go ahead.
Lo squelched that possibility.
She says she is in the process of contacting donors to return the $90,000 raised by the BIA, which the city is holding in trust. Donors included banks, businesses and individuals.
“We want to refund every penny that the donors donated,” says Lo.
A director at the BIA, Kenneth Kwan, says he wants to see the money transferred to another BIA project, so that the association can use the same plot of land to build another garden or gateway. But, he stressed that any new project will involve starting a new approval process with the City, as well as a new fundraising effort.
“Right now, we’re at the mercy of the City,” says Kwan. “We had to cancel this (project) in order to start a new one.”
Lo says the BIA is in the preliminary stages of developing another project, but there are few details.
“We will have to find a good designer,” she says. “We will consult with whatever organization we think appropriate.”
Darrell Cox, a City economic development consultant, says the City has been dragged into a conflict that is primarily the BIA’s undertaking.
“This is totally a BIA project,” he says, adding the City’s job was to donate and approve the site and hold the funds raised.
“That was supposed to be our only involvement but then we got involved in the mediation.”
Cox says materials donated for the garden by the city of Beijing never left China, and that most of the items were ornamental, such as stones, roofing materials, and Chinese tiles.
Lo says these materials could be used in another garden design, but the Chinese government would first have to agree to the new proposal, and it could cancel the offer if it chose to.
She adds Centretown’s Chinese community has been upset by various misconceptions about the cancellation of the garden project.