Large Inner City Vacant Lot to become... Grass?

@DruhFarrell Site will be vacant for a couple of years so it will be grass

The Triangle Building & Lot continue to provide us with insights into how the city is failing to apply its own policies. The Municipal Government Act, section 5(b) clearly states that a municipality must follow the policies it sets for itself.
MGA
Powers, duties and functions
5 A municipality  (b) has the duties that are imposed on it by this and other
enactments and those that the municipality imposes on
itself as a matter of policy,

In the matter of the Triangle Building & Lot, we are witnessing first hand the deep hypocrisy ostensibly embedded in the City of Calgary as a matter of policy.

The management of the Triangle space has been a disaster for quite sometime. The space was occupied by the Calgary Housing Company Maintenance Department. In an ironic twist that ultimately hurts the taxpayer, the same folks that are responsible for the care of all the roofs of the city's subsidized housing inventory, allowed their own roof to fail. Or did they? 

An engineering report stated the roof had "failed". Although MSI dollars are available to  assist municipalities with building inventory "rehabilitation", The City of Calgary chose not to rehab the Triangle Building, as per this entry from the MSI statement:

2009 Calgary MSI Projects: Rehabilitate various local municipal buildings. $48,172,000


I requested a second opinion and coordinated a local roofing specialist to inspect the roof. They were denied access and I received this letter from the City of Calgary legal Department.


A group of citizens requested additional information on the Triangle's roof. One of them, Trevor Howell, a local journalist who is Editor/Manager of OpenFile & Zoey Duncan, a journalist with Openfile as well, wrote this piece on the Triangle Building.

Not long after, I gained access to the building when I discovered the door unlocked. The sprawling 30,000sq ft building had two levels. It was completely empty. The Triangle building had been empty for over a year, with no one allowed access. It was obvious the roof had not failed. I then met the individual from the city who was conducting a walk-through with the demolition contractor, hence the open door. He stated quite unequivocally that the roof was in good shape, but the building was slated for demolition.

So, in a scene eerily similar to the Anthill Building, which has gone unoccupied for 6 years, the Triangle Building was out of bounds to any and all citizen groups that could have used the building temporarily. Think ACAD students from just up the hill. Theatre groups, artists, farmer's market, production, presentation, programming, events, a community centre, all variety of ideas could have used the building as a temporary home had they been allowed access.

The Triangle building was then demolished.

The space previously occupied by the triangle Building is a vacant lot and will remain as such for a few years. Here's where the story takes another turn for the worse.

Here's a modified tweet (MT) from Ald Druh Farrell with reference to the recently demolished Triangle Building vacant lot:


@DruhFarrell Site will be vacant for a couple of years so it will be grass #yyccc #yyc


Recently, City of Calgary Parks identified concerns with their budget, which would impact the department's ability to maintain the present park & grass inventory, including an additional 106ha added to present land inventory through developer transfers.


Ald Shane Keating stated: “I really believe there’s a need for a strong debate on how we’re doing things.” 


Obviously, adding additional grass to the present inventory is not wise. The Triangle Lot is an example of locations in the city where responsibility for the care of the lot can be transferred to the community. In this, the concepts of AREA & ReSTART can be applied. 


The taxpayers of Calgary did provide $200,000 to theAld  Druh Farrell sponsored Council Innovation Fund application by Bow2Bluff & Sunnyside Corridor. This space is in the middle of the Bow2Bluff/Sunnyside Corridor Zone. How is planting grass innovative? It's not, yet again highlighting the hypocrisy of the policies of the city of Calgary. There is also a disturbing tone from Ald Farrell, as she continues to speak about the future of this space like it is out of the hands of the community and citizens. Farrell's "We've got it covered" attitude is in direct conflict with her rhetoric on community and urbanism. 


From the Office of Sustainability: 


-That short term decisions are linked with long term outcomes.


-The City of Calgary is committed to sustainability through its own operations and planning and through its policymaking and regulatory functions. In order for The City to continue to address both global and local challenges, sustainability must build on The City’s existing efforts and continued innovation.  


Considering the plethora of policy citing community and citizen engagement, this in fact is not happening. While private developers must engage the community, apparently the City of Calgary feels it is exempt from this important democratic process. Considering Mayor Nenshi's popularity  "has a lot to do with his citizen engagement strategy," it is additionally ironic that this space will not enjoy the benefits of a robust community use charrette to explore the ideas of a very active and well informed community and its citizens.


A number of individuals and groups, including the Calgary Food Policy Council, have asked that the vacant lot space become a community garden. Even though the very accessible Riley Park is only blocks away, the space will default to a very uninspired use... grass.


Petition:   Turn the Old Triangle Building vacant lot into a community garden.
You can sign the petition here.

Related links:

AREA Art+Rec+Education+Environment+Entertainment+Agriculture


ReSTART Real Sustainable Temporary Adaptive Reuse Tactic

SeeClickGrow

SeeClickGrow is an idea that riffs off of SeeClickFix. Let's look at the opportunity for those of us advancing local/muni food systems:

Citizens can assist with identifying potential Urban Ag locations by using SeeClickGrow. Data collected can be used by Urban Ag "animators" in your municipality to connect the space to a list of potential Urban Agriculturalists or those seeking space for enhanced local/muni food system development.

 An Urban Ag matchmaking service

Some exist, like LandShareCanada, but really need to grow to the next level of interactivity and user friendliness, ie an app. 

SeeClickFix encourages residents to become active citizens in taking care of and improving their city by reporting non-emergency issue in their neighborhood.

The "Magic Pullet" for Household Food Security: CLUCK Red Deer Pilot Project Approved!

Kudos to CLUCK Red Deer & to Red Deer City Council for their respect for fact, science and due process.

Cluck Red Deer

100's of North American communities are tackling the issue of enhanced local food systems and Household Food Security, with a variety of tactics and strategies, all of which have focused primarily on awareness & education, a CLUCK principle. Some have been successful in their respective communities, while the same logical and intelligent tactic has met with fierce opposition in others. There has been no "magic pullet" when it comes to urban hens, urban ag, local food systems, the right to food or household food security. Red Deer has  made a significant breakthrough with the approval of the 12 month pilot project. This is good governance, where fact, science and due process have stature over fear and fabrication. Hopefully the same standard will prevail in court during the Canadian Right to Food Trial. 

Join the growing CLUCK network and start a chapter in your community.

From Adrienne Tetz, founder of CLUCK Red Deer:

City council decided this afternoon to go forward with a 12 month urban chicken pilot project consisting of current chicken owners and their flocks. In 12 months time council has directed administration to present a report summarizing the project as well as a proposed chicken bylaw. This will not be part of the land use bylaw; we understand that it will be presented as a bylaw on its own under Animal Control (just like the dog and cat bylaws).

If you have questions about this project, whether you can take part, or anything else, please contact us through this page or at CLUCK.RedDeer [at] gmail [dot] com

CLUCK Red Deer on FB http://www.facebook.com/groups/CLUCKRedDeer/

CLUCK Canada on FB  http://www.facebook.com/groups/CLUCKCANADA/

Agri-Urban Spectrum

Playing off of the Urban/Rural Transect, Stephens Planning & Design developed this neat infographic:

See also: http://www.stephensplanning.com/agri_urban_spectrum.pdf

LIFA: Land Inventory Food Assessment

A citizen driven initiative that seeks to map out the landscape of our current local food system infrastructure and inventory all land in the city of Calgary suitable for Urban Ag and local food production, distribution and POP (retail).

Where the Political Shovel Hits the Dirt: Planting the seeds of the Calgary Local Food Production System

Where the Political Shovel Hits the Dirt: Planting the seeds of the Calgary Local Food Production System


YYCCC has known about the economic/job creation potential of Urban Agriculture ever since I made a point to present to as many alderpeople as possible in the fall of 2008 & spring/summer of 2009. Joe Ceci & Bob Hawkesworth both cosponsored a notice of motion based on the work of the Calgary Food Policy Council to highlight the ROI of using unused city land.

Here is the 16Dec10 Metro (Thanks, Darren Krause!) article about the 10,000+ acres just laying there doing Sweet FA.

2011 can be a huge year for Cowtown Urban Agriculture. YYCCC will need to show some leadership and political will to initiate the development of a resilient local food system.

While Chair of the Calgary Food Policy Council, Bronco steadfastly turned down 15 requests over a 2 year period to meet. Most infamous the request denials were Bronco's Chief of Staff, Mark Henry's bubbleheaded quips: "What's Food Security?" & "Why can't you go to Safeway like everyone else, Hughes?"

Mayor Nenshi & Chief of Staff, Chima Nkemdirim, have a superior understanding of the Urban Ag potential. It is quite simple to connect the dots of 1,000,000 mouths and 10,000 empty acres.

Planting the seeds of the Calgary Local Food Production System has never been easier.