Borough promoting urban agriculture
ROSEMONT-LA-PETITE-PATRIE Advocates hope ‘small revolution’ transforms farming, cuts pollution
The borough of Rosemont– La-Petite-Patrie is urging residents and farmers to take back the land. And grow tomatoes. And lettuce.
Calling it a “small revolution in the world of urban agriculture,” borough mayor François Croteau announced measures Thursday to encourage citizens to plant vegetable gardens on public spaces throughout the borough, and for professional farmers to set up full-scale farms on commercial or institutional properties and sell their produce on site.
If all goes well, Croteau said, farmers may be able to sell to local grocery stores, cutting pollution and trans- portation costs, and hopefully prices for locally grown organic produce. Possible zoning changes coming into effect this fall will allow commercial and institutional land to be used for agricultural purposes so farmers can grow in private lots or on rooftops, without having to go through the time-consuming and expensive process of requesting a zoning derogation.
Small gardens favouring insects that bring cross pollination are also being planted in the borough.
“We will allow citizens to take over the public space and put in gardens,” Croteau said. As of now, residents will be able to plant vegetable gardens in the public green spaces in front of their homes, or in one of 12 sidewalk enlargements in the borough designed to slow traffic that feature plantable spaces.
To stem the bureaucratic mire that often kills such initiatives, Croteau said there will be no bureaucratic process — no rules to follow or permits to obtain. Guidelines are suggested, however, in the name of safety: plant in containers or bring new soil because the existing soil may be tainted with road salt or oil or both; no plants higher than a metre; don’t crowd out the streets or sidewalks.
For now, residents are being asked to stick to the property in front of their homes or the sidewalk spaces, but the measures could be extended to certain section of local parks in the future.
The measures follow in the footsteps of those taken in other North American cities like Portland, Ore., or San Francisco to go beyond the scale of fenced-in community gardens.
“It is avant-garde for our city,” said Cédric Jamet of the Urban Ecology Centre. “To say the public space, it belongs to everyone, it is for you, and we will give you the means to farm it.”
Boroughs are reluctant to promote free-range urban farming in fears it will promote vandalism, fights among neighbours or theft. But in Jamet’s experience, individuals who take part generally do so in a spirit of sharing and respect.
“When you think of what makes a city, it’s the people that inhabit it, it’s the care that they take, their attachment to it, and I think a major part of it is having confidence in them.”
Several vegetable plots have already sprung up since the borough began promoting the citizen-led greening of their alleyways, going from four to 65 green laneways in the space of four years.
One sidewalk enlargement at the corner of Beaubien and Drolet Sts. was already appropriated by a gentleman farmer last year. Once again this summer, tomatoes, kale and other vegetables are sprouting in a space eight metres long by two metres wide sandwiched between sidewalk and street, a sign proclaiming it the “Jardinet des mal-aimées” (the little garden of the unloved).
The borough is trying to encourage growth on a larger scale by modifying its bylaws after a public consultation to allow the growing of fruits and vegetables for commercial use in industrial or commercial sectors, such as on rooftops, in greenhouses or on privately owned land to be rented or purchased by farmers.
The hope is to mirror the success of Lufa Farms, whose commercial rooftop greenhouses near the Marché Centrale feeds more than 4,000 people a week.