Carlington affordable housing plan would uproot local garden

A plan to build 42 new affordable apartments for seniors in the same buildingwhere health and social programs reside is being lauded as an innovative way to provide housing for an aging population.

But the plan, whichreceived zoning approval Tuesday from Ottawa's planning committee,also calls for one of the city's oldest community gardensto be relocated.

"This is a very unique and rare opportunity that we have and we've had to make that choice," saidCameronMacLeod, director of the CarlingtonCommunity HealthCentre.

"Wehaven't done it without strong consideration for relocation of that garden."

The proposedfour-storeybuildingwould be linked on one floor to theCarlingtonCommunity Health Centre, which is housed in a 94-year-old former school onMerivaleRoad.

The plan wouldmeanseniors couldget help with chronic illnesses without going to a hospitalemergency room, or take part in a smoking cessation program without leaving the site, saidMacLeod.

Councillorslauded the partnership

It would also addaffordablehousing stock, in a city where the waiting list is 10,000 households long,saidStphaneGigure,CEO of Ottawa Community Housing, which will manage the new building.

"This is innovative," saidGigure."We are receiving interest from other municipalities and other groups here in Ottawa."

The project, which still needs zoning approval from Ottawa citycouncil,would also see the health centre get anexpansion.

The project to be funded by the city andprovincial and federal governments throughprograms set up for housing, and construction could start by this summer.

One of city's oldest community gardens

To make room forsocial housing on the two-acre lot, however, a community garden with 150 plots tended by volunteers has been closed and will need to relocate.

That community garden is among the city's oldest, said one of its volunteers, andthe soil has been cultivatedfor the last twenty years.

"It hurts," said Heidi Sabourin. "But I'm not one of the people in the demographic of people who need it for food desperately."

"A lot of people in this neighbourhood live in apartments and don't have anywhere to garden except for the community gardenand they really count on it," she said.

The gardeners also give about 10 per cent of their produce to the food bank in the nearby Caldwell neighbourhood.

"It's not only the food, it's the whole sense of community," saidSabourin. "People help each other.People come by bus."

Seniors have their little plots," she said. "And they say 'When I come spend the afternoon at the community garden I feel so good afterward.'"

MacLeod said he sees both sides a garden with a lot of history and a need for social housing for seniors.

Ideally the community garden can re-root nearby, and the centre has staff helping try to secure city approval, said MacLeod.

Proposed site would require raised beds

Sabourin sees challenges with a move to the proposed site, which she said is at McBride Street and Woodward Avenue near baseball diamonds.

The land, she said, is a former landfill so plots will need to be in raised beds.

If all goes well, by this summer the community garden may have 15 accessible plots built at a new location, Sabourin estimated.