New community garden coming to former Point Grey gas station site

Mar 31 2017, 1:35 am

A vacant site on the southeast corner of West 10th Avenue and Alma Street, formerly a gas station, in Vancouver’s West Point Grey neighbourhood will be converted into a community garden on a temporary basis.

Property owner Landa Global Properties says the 24,000-square-foot gravel site will be turned into a community garden with over 100 garden beds for the duration of the 2017 growing season.

“The site has been empty for many years and we thought this would be a great way to give back to the community and do something useful with the site while go through the development process,” said Landa CEO Kevin Cheung in a statement. “We are really excited to see how bringing people and plants onto the site will change the dynamic of that corner.”

Illustration depicting the set-up of the temporary community garden on West 10th Avenue and Alma Street. (Landa Global Properties)

Gardeners can rent between one and three garden beds, each 13 sq. ft., to grow food and flowers from April to October for $15 per season per bed. This includes access to soil in a raised bed, water access, and monthly updates.

The developer has partnered with non-profit community garden operator Shifting Growth to manage the temporary garden and its opening event on April 8, featuring free coffee, a pop-up garden shop with an hourly plant draw, plants for sale, and painting activities.

The site will eventually be developed into a condo development with retail, and depending on the permitting and development process the garden-developer partnership could be extended.

There are currently over 110 community gardens across the city on both public and private property. A number of community gardens are located on former gas station sites, including the temporary Davie Village community garden on the northwest corner of Burrard and Davie streets.

Kenneth ChanKenneth Chan

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