CTV News – Mayor of Vancouver Opens City Hall Community Garden

Mayor Robertson and Councilors announce City Hall community gardens. Vancouver has always prided itself on being a green city – and now it seems city hall might have the greenest thumb. Thirty new plots have been opened to the public as part of a new community garden in Vancouver. June 20, 2009

Vancouverites dig into city hall plots

By Jon Woodward
CTV British Columbia
Saturday June 20, 2009

Eager gardeners were given the green light to dig into a number of plots in a community garden on city hall land on Saturday.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said the decision to convert part of the park north of city hall into fertile ground would stand as a symbol for Vancouverites to grow their own food.

“Community gardens are a big part of being a green city,” said Robertson. “We need to grow more food locally, because it will help with food security.”

There are 30 plots in the community garden, which is one of some 45 community gardens across the city.

Each gardener has to pay a small fee to lease the plot from the city, but they can grow vegetables — often within walking distance of their own house.

Some of these new community gardens have been created with a mixture of new policies and tax breaks that have turned otherwise stalled development sites into farmland.

And the city is in good company — both the White House and Buckingham Palace have recently started growing food in gardens on the state grounds.

Their gardens may have been in place earlier, but the decision to grow food at Vancouver city hall was made first, said Robertson.

The urban agriculture movement began right here in a Vancouver garden 30 years ago, when people including Michael Levenston had the idea that people could reconnect with their food by growing it themselves.

“There are so many reasons to look into growing your own food,” he said, adding that the move at city hall and around the world “really validates what we have worked so hard for.”

See video and photos of the garden opening here.