Coalhurst Council discusses location for garden plot

By Nikki Jamieson
Sunny South News

During their regular April 16 meeting, Coalhurst council reviewed a previous motion, M# 7872-24, regarding placement of a community garden.

Previously, at their March 19 meetings, council had direct administration to put the community garden in Imperial Meadows. However, after talking with the town planner, CAO Shawn Patience said they were informed that Imperial Meadows Park was dedicated as Municipal Reserve, something he wasn’t aware of, and because it is a designation, and not a zoning district, so it doesn’t show up like that on the Town’s land use maps. 

Additionally, some questions were raised about whether the garden would meet the definition of a public park as per section 671(1) of the Municipal Government Act (MGA). Patience called the issue “simple, but a little bit unfortunate”.

“Our garden plots that we were planning are, in fact, individual plots,” said Patience. “In our discussions, because municipal reserve can be used for public recreation, we’ve debated the definition of ‘public’ and ‘public accessibility’. If gardens were individualized, which is our interest here, and our had to relent to the fact that I don’t think I could defend the definition of ‘public’ when it comes to those particular plots, at least during the summer season when we would be, when we would denote them to specific individuals to process them or just define them.

“The last thing we want to do is to put an installation in and somewhere along the line there comes a challenge”.

Because it’s a “bit of a fuzzy area”, administration is recommending council reconsider the motion. There are two other options – Miner’s Park and the wetlands – and the landscaper is standing by to put in the park. However, administration feels the wetlands would be an ill-advised location as there was a committee focused on planning amenities in the wetlands, and to place the garden here without consulting them would be inconsiderate.

Coun. Jesse Potrie said he had looked for examples of paid-use parks, and noted the example of Legacy Park in northern Lethbridge and the Beddington Heights Community Garden in Calgary, which of which were on MR land and are paid-use.

“Paid and booked access does not necessarily mean it’s not public access,” said Potrie. “A community garden in that spot (Imperial Meadows) doesn’t feel out of place to me. It feels like it would be appropriate. I don’t think we should let the MR designation really guide or have any sway in this conversation, because it’s been done in two major cities that I’ve found and probably others in Alberta, where there is paid-access to access public amenities.” 

When asked how many communities he looked at, Potrie replied he mainly looked in the City of Lethbridge and Lethbridge County, as those were the places he was most familiar with, and he new there were some community gardens in Calgary so he looked there as well.

Coun. Scott Akkermans said if there was a chance the Imperial Meadows location would cause headaches down the line, he would prefer a more streamlined location. While not a lot of risk may be involved, he would rather the less-risk location in Miner’s Park. Coun. Heather Caldwell voiced concerns of vandalism issues in Miner’s Park.

Council defeated a motion to rescind motion M# 7872-24 and instructed administration to install the community garden plots in Miner’s Park. Akkermans appeared to be the sole vote in favour of the motion.

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