Concerns over the possible downsizing or destruction of the community garden located behind the Sunshine Coast Community Services Society (SCCSS) building are unfounded, according to SCCSS board president Helen Carkner.
She said that should the sale proceed for the 0.26-hectare lot behind SCCSS (Lot 36) that currently houses the garden and the Sunshine Coast Food Bank, both the food bank and the entire garden would be protected.
The garden, she said, would be relocated to the hydro right-of-way that runs behind the SCCSS building – a 39-metre-wide parcel of land that could accommodate the raised garden beds.
“Because the rezoning hasn’t happened yet, the gardeners have been advised to go ahead and plant for this year,” Carkner said. The SCCSS application to rezone Lot 36 from C-2 to C-4 has received first reading by Sechelt council and will go to public hearing.
Rezoning is needed before the land can be sold to nearby Belmar Self Storage, a business that Carkner said approached SCCSS about purchasing the property for an expanded storage facility earlier this year.
“If everything does go ahead, that gives us time between now and the next growing season to install new garden beds and get the land levelled where they would go. They can go right behind the building. The hydro right-of-way has no bearing on them, it’s just any structure that the hydro right-of-way would effect,” Carkner said. The new growing space, she said, would be at least as large as what’s available now.
She added that right-of-way use restrictions would prevent SCCSS from relocating the food bank to the same area, as was originally suggested at a Feb. 24 planning and community development committee meeting.
Carkner said the new owners of the property would be willing to allow the food bank to stay where it is until a suitable new site could be found.
“The agent for the developer has assured us that they’re not interested at all in disrupting the service back there. They have no interest in that whatsoever, so they probably would let us just leave the food bank where it is for a few years,” Carkner said.
“It’s probably got another two to four years of useful life it in. It’s a pretty old building. There were some nice renos done on it, but it was made pretty clear at the time it was for safety and for attractiveness that it was renovated but it wasn’t going to give us another 20 years of use out of that structure.”
Carkner said SCCSS has a “bigger dream” about how it might provide food bank services in the future, which will likely require securing a new site altogether.
“It’s more along the lines of what’s called a food-hub. What that revolves around is the idea that you don’t only give out food to people who need it through a food bank, but more people would probably be having the opportunity to garden. You would be teaching people how to cook and eat nutritious foods. You might have a hub of community services in the same neck of the woods,” she said.
“At some point we would need to look for a bigger site and how that would take shape, I don’t know, but I think it’s an exciting concept for the future.”
She said the sale of Lot 36, which has an asking price of just over $100,000, could help facilitate a future food bank location.
“There are many different possibilities we could do but we want to strengthen our operating reserves to, for example, enable future planning and growth in areas where the demand for services is growing,” Carkner said.
