·AI Assisted
Size the pilot for your city
The sliders drive the stats, the cost section and the park drawing below. Figures are planning estimates for a Canadian suburb, not quotes. The link updates so you can share a version for your city.
Park to Garden: Letting Residents Farm the Suburbs of [City]
This proposal asks [City] to let any resident apply, through one online form with a 60-day decision standard, to turn a defined corner of an eligible suburban park into a community garden. The City screens parcels and runs the water; residents grow the food.
- Plots in the pilot
- 160
- 4 medium sites
- Capital ask
- $320,000
- low end $220,000
- Net operating / yr
- $22,000
- after $8,000 in fees
The problem
Suburban parkland is mostly mown turf. A typical neighbourhood park is 0.5 to 3 hectares with a play structure in one corner and open grass everywhere else, cut on a mowing contract and otherwise idle. Food production occupies a rounding error of the inventory, and there is no mechanism for a household to say "I want to grow on that corner" and receive a yes, a no, or a path to yes.
Ottawa is the worked example. It operates about 4,300 hectares of parkland across 1,300 sites, yet only 30 of its 140-odd community gardens sit on City land (City of Ottawa, Engage Ottawa). In 2026 it launched a formal Community-led Greening Initiatives and Gardening Program, which this proposal builds on. But the program is a grant-style intake, not a land-access service:
- Fixed intake windows. Two short periods a year. Miss one and planting slips to the next year.
- No site inventory. Groups must find and propose a parcel themselves; suitability is checked only after application.
- A long path to first planting. Two 90-day review phases, then 30 days of consultation, then an agreement, insurance, drawings and locates.
- Group-only eligibility. Three or more people must form an organization. A household cannot ask for a plot.
- All costs on the group, including water. The only money is a $76,000-a-year fund shared citywide (Just Food).
- No service standard. Nothing commits the City to a decision date or a target.
It is a process a determined group can navigate once, not a system a typical household can use.
The proposal
Turn the intake into a year-round service with two tracks on one public map of pre-screened park parcels and one online request form.
Track A: household plots
- The City designates a garden-ready zone of 400 to 1,500 m² in eligible parks, installs a frost-free standpipe and a perimeter of beds in one contractor pass, and lists the plots online.
- Any resident 18+ requests a plot of 10 to 25 m² the way they book a sports field today. One plot per household, priority to residents within 1 km.
- An annual fee of $50, waived on the same basis as recreation fee subsidies. It covers water and tilling, never capital.
- A volunteer site steward, elected by plot-holders, handles the day to day. The City handles water, spring opening, fall closing and reassignment.
- Plots unused by June 30, or unmaintained 30 days after a notice, go to the waitlist.
Track B: group gardens
- Keep the existing group program, but move it to rolling intake with a 60-day decision standard, and run public consultation in parallel rather than after.
- Applying for a mapped parcel skips the site-suitability phase: it has already passed.
- A standard five-year licence, published up front, with a renewal presumption.
- The City supplies the water connection; the group supplies everything else, as now.
What the City commits to
| Commitment | Standard |
|---|---|
| Decision on any request | 60 days from a complete request |
| Pre-screened parcel map | Published and updated annually; every ward has at least one Track A site by year 3 |
| Water | A standpipe at every Track A site and every approved Track B site |
| Reason for refusal | Written, citing the specific criterion that failed |
| Reporting | Annual count of plots, waitlist length and hectares in food production, by ward |
What it takes from a park
Less than it sounds. A medium site of 1,000 m² is 5% of a 2 ha park, and the garden zone is capped at 20% of any park's area so it is never the only open lawn.
Is your park eligible?
A parcel goes on the map when it passes every row below. The City runs the screen once per parcel, not once per request. Tick the rows your park meets.
Nothing ticked yet.
Governance
The City owns the land, the water and the screening; residents own the growing. The split keeps City staff time per site low enough to scale to dozens of sites rather than a handful.
| Responsibility | Track A | Track B |
|---|---|---|
| Site screening and listing | City | City |
| Beds, paths, standpipe | City, one contractor pass | Group, with City water connection |
| Plot allocation | City, online, 1 km priority | Group, under published rules |
| Day to day | Elected volunteer steward | Group coordinator |
| Water | City, seasonal on and off | City connection; metered above a base allowance |
| Soil testing | City, once per site | City, once per site |
| Insurance | City park liability; plot-holder waiver | Group carries its own, as now |
| Fees | $50 per plot per year, subsidy-eligible | Nominal licence fee; group fundraises capital |
| Abandonment | Reassigned after 30-day notice | Licence ends after two seasons of non-use |
Every site runs under a two-page Plot-holder Code: no pesticides, no structures over 1.2 m, no sales, no plant on the prohibited list, and the site stays open to walk through. The steward model is what matters. One named volunteer with a City contact and a seasonal checklist is the difference between a garden that persists and a weed patch by August.
Cost
A medium site costs roughly $55,000 to $80,000 to build and $4,300 to $7,500 a year to run, and recovers about half its operating cost from plot fees. The water connection is the swing item. For 4 medium sites in [City]:
| Pilot total | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Capital, one time | $220,000 | $320,000 |
| Operating per year | $17,200 | $30,000 |
| Fee revenue per year (160 plots × $50) | ($8,000) | ($8,000) |
| Net operating per year | $9,200 | $22,000 |
| Capital per plot | $1,375 | $2,000 |
Where the money goes, for one medium site:
| Item | One time | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Water service and 2 frost-free standpipes | $20,000–$40,000 | — |
| 40 in-ground plots, rototilled, with edging and gravel paths | $8,000–$12,000 | — |
| 6 accessible raised beds | $6,000–$9,000 | — |
| Tool shed, perimeter fence, signage | $8,000–$12,000 | — |
| Soil test, locates, design | $3,000–$6,000 | — |
| Water | — | $800–$1,500 |
| Spring and fall tilling | — | $1,500 |
| Repairs | — | $500 |
| Program staff, shared across sites (0.05 FTE) | — | $1,500–$3,000 |
The avoided mowing on a 1,000 m² zone is a few hundred dollars a year and should not be sold as a saving. Funding, in order of realism: the cash-in-lieu of parkland reserve, which exists to improve parkland; the parks capital budget; the existing community garden fund for Track B groups; and federal or provincial food-security grants when they appear. Staffing is the real constraint. Past ten sites the program needs one dedicated coordinator.
Objections
The strongest objection is not cost. It is that a plot program converts shared open space into space that 40 households use and everyone else walks past.
| Objection | Response |
|---|---|
| It privatizes parkland. | The zone is capped at 20% of any park, never the only open lawn, paths stay public, and a five-year sunset returns the site unless plot-holders and the community association renew it. |
| Neighbours do not want it. | Sites are added only where a resident asked, with 30 days' notice to households within 100 m, a 10 m lot-line buffer, and no site against a backyard without that household's sign-off. |
| Abandoned plots and weeds. | The steward, the June 30 rule, and reassignment after a 30-day notice. A site that fails a mid-season check two years running is mown and relisted. |
| Only people with time benefit. | Fee subsidy, 1 km priority instead of citywide first-come, and a share of plots reserved for referral from community health centres and settlement agencies. |
| It burdens Parks staff. | The City's work is water on and off and a tilling contract. It can decline new sites in any year it cannot staff them. |
| Liability. | Plot-holders sign the same waiver as any program registrant; in-ground sites are soil-tested before listing. |
| Future park redevelopment. | A five-year capital-plan screen, and licences carry a relocation clause with one season's notice. |
Two risks have no clean answer. Demand in suburban wards is unproven; waitlists concentrate in the core, and a suburban site may fill slowly in year one. And a 60-day standard is only credible if parcels are screened in advance. If staff screen on request, the program collapses back to the current timeline.
Precedents
Track A is the standard model in Montreal and Seattle, which run plot programs an order of magnitude larger than Ottawa's at low per-plot cost.
| City | Scale | Who builds and runs it | Cost to gardener |
|---|---|---|---|
| Montreal | 96 gardens, about 8,500 gardeners; $1M a year committed since 2022 to build and refurbish | Borough supplies soil, water, shed and fence; a volunteer committee runs the site; plots unseeded by June 1 are reassigned | About $10 a year |
| Seattle P-Patch | About 90 gardens, 3,100+ gardeners | Department of Neighborhoods owns the program; gardeners give 8 volunteer hours a year; sites listed online with plot counts | Sliding fee by plot size |
| Ottawa today | 140 gardens, 30 on City land | Groups of 3+ design, fund and build; City approves in bi-annual intakes | Set by each group |
Three features recur in the programs that scale: the city installs the water and perimeter once, the city holds the waitlist, and there is a hard use-it-or-lose-it date each spring. Ottawa's program has none of the three.
The pilot
Start with 4 sites in 2027 and expand only on evidence that suburban plots fill.
- Winter 2026–27: screen and list. Run the criteria on the parkland inventory for the pilot wards and publish the first map.
- Spring 2027: build. One contractor tender for all sites. Plots open for request the day the map is published; sites open by late May.
- 2027 season: run and measure. Stewards file a one-page end-of-season report.
- Fall 2027: report to Council. Actual cost per plot against the estimate, and a recommendation on scaling with rolling intake for Track B.
- 2028 onward: scale on the metric. Add sites in any ward where the waitlist exceeds half the installed plots on June 30.
| Metric | Pilot target |
|---|---|
| Plot uptake by June 30 | 80% of installed plots assigned |
| Waitlist at June 30 | Any waitlist at a suburban site |
| Decision time, Track A | Under 10 business days, median |
| Decision time, Track B | Under 60 days, median |
| Plots reassigned for non-use | Under 15% |
| Complaints per site | Under 5 a season, none open at 30 days |
| Cost per plot, actual | Within 25% of estimate |
The ask
[City] Council is asked to approve three things now:
- Direct staff to run the parcel screen on the parkland inventory and publish a pre-screened map.
- Fund 4 pilot sites from the cash-in-lieu of parkland reserve, up to $320,000.
- Set a 60-day decision standard for the existing community garden program and move it to rolling intake.
Everything larger waits for the fall 2027 report.
Sources
- City of Ottawa: Parks and green space
- Engage Ottawa: Community gardens and community-led green initiatives, FAQ
- City of Ottawa: 2026 Community-led Greening Initiatives and Gardening Program, information package
- Just Food: Start a community garden
- Ville de Montréal: Get a plot in a community garden
- Ville de Montréal: 2024 community and collective garden projects
- Seattle City Council: New P-Patches and public garden space (2013)
Cost figures on this page are planning estimates, not sourced quotes.