Enthusiasm for urban agriculture is growing in Montreal

By Monique Beaudin, Gazette Environment Reporter June 12, 2012

MONTREAL - It seems Montrealers want some soil of their own, and maybe the odd chicken.

That’s the message coming out of public hearings into the future of urban agriculture in the city.

Expanding the city’s network of community gardens to allow more residents to grow fruits and vegetables was an idea that came up repeatedly at public hearings in Montreal on Monday.

Representatives of the city of Montreal and its boroughs have been providing a snapshot of existing urban agriculture projects at the hearings, organized by the Office de consultation publique de Montréal.

There has been an explosion in interest in urban agriculture in recent years, Sonia St. Laurent of the Outremont borough told the three-person panel that is running the hearings.

In fact, according to the Groupe de travail en agriculture urbaine, 51 per cent of people living in the Montreal region say a member of their household grows vegetables in their yard, on their balcony or on their roof.

The growth of interest in growing your own vegetables has highlighted some problems that make it difficult to increase the number of urban agriculture projects in the city, said Marie-Ève Desroches of the GTAU. Vacant land is attractive to developers, some soil that could be used for gardens is contaminated and there are long waiting lists to get spots in community gardens, she said.

Currently, about 12,000 people have plots of land in 95 city-owned community gardens. But some people have to wait years before a spot becomes available, said Joanne Opritian of the Plateau Mont Royal borough. The Jardin Mile End, for example, has 94 garden plots, and a waiting list with 159 people on it. That translates into a five-year wait for would-be gardeners, she said.

Several Plateau residents suggested that the wait could be shortened if boroughs could open new community gardens on land along train tracks, or belonging to schools or other institutions.

Other residents wanted to know if the city and boroughs would allow people to raise chickens. Currently, bylaws prevent farm animals from being raised in the city of Montreal.

Rosemont last year okayed chickens if they were being raised for educational purposes. The borough’s first legal chickens, which spent last summer at a community centre, did so well that they are back again this year, borough spokesperson Gilles Galipeau said. Rosemont is open to the idea of allowing other chicken projects, but in a very structured setting, and not in residential areas, Galipeau said.

These public hearings are making history because they are the first to be held under Montreal’s new citizen-initiative program through which residents can ask the city to hold public consultations on certain issues. Last year the GTAU collected more than 29,000 signatures on a petition asking for public consultations on the future of urban agriculture in the city. They were required to get 15,000 signatures for the request to be considered by Montreal’s executive committee.

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