THUNDER BAY — The boulevard maintenance by-law will be back before council for a second round on Monday, this time with fewer restrictions.
Resident and boulevard garden advocate Kyla Moore told Newswatch, “there have been incredible improvements” to the second draft.
“The first draft was so restrictive that like over 90 per cent of the gardens that existed were going to be illegal in some way or have to be completely removed. So, these new restrictions are going to protect a lot of those gardens that already exist,” Moore said.
City climate action specialist Danielle Thom has taken some restrictions out of t
he proposed by-law after hearing from the public.
“We have gathered feedback from about 500 folks in the community and we're really excited to incorporate their feedback. We found 17 key themes from that. We're incorporating at least 11 of those into the updated by-law or proposed by-law,” Thom said.
Some of the feedback from residents included removing all garden registration requirements, raising the maximum plant height limit, and allowing permanent planter boxes and shrubs on boulevards.
Despite the changes, Moore still sees some pieces in that by-law “that could be tweaked.”
“I wanna be able to say we've got the best Boulevard gardening by law in Ontario. I wanna be able to brag about it and then I wanna be able to show other cities what we're doing and how we're doing it and encourage them to make those changes too,” Moore said.
Moore will have a deputation with council on Monday when the draft by-law is presented.
The new draft by-law has raised the maximum height limit for plant from 60 centimetres to one meter as long as they are set back by 60 centimetres.
“I'm still hoping that we can do 1 m across the whole boulevard, except in the visibility triangles where the roads intersect,” Moore said.
She explained that certain foods, for example, may need more than a meter to produce.
“We're talking like tomatoes and peas and beans and even growing like cucumbers vertically on a trellis. In order to produce food, the plant has to grow to its natural height,” she said.
Moore would like to see some mechanism be put in the by-law that would set a standard height but make an exemption for certain plants to grow passed the one metre as long as it doesn’t create a sight line hazard.
The proposed by-law will also allow permanent planter boxes as long as they are set back by 60 centimetres from curbs, sidewalks, driveway edges, road edges or shoulders.
Thom said the bylaw will include that planter boxes be made out of “porous materials, but specifically non-treated wood.”
Planter boxes will also need a reflective poll attached to them for snow plows don’t run into them.
Moore said planter boxes add another height restriction because planter boxes have an additional 20 to 30 centimetres of soil.
“With an additional 20 to 30 centimetres of soil, now, you can only grow a plant that are 70 to 80 centimetres tall and you're cutting out like tall kale and asparagus and Brussels sprouts and all kinds of other plants with that.
Moore said that certain foods will need support structures for food like cages, hoops, and trellis, but the by-law only supports the planter box.
“If you want to grow tomatoes and have a hoop, you be allowed to have those structures in the summer while you're growing. And then in the winter, you would take those off. So, they're not hidden under the snow and they're not a hazard for snow removal,” Moore said.
Another part of the by-law Moore would like changed is the registration piece.
All boulevard gardens will still need to be registered with the city, but Moore said, “it still acts as a barrier.”
For example, Moore stated that the boulevard's standard turf grass, “which is a non-native plant species,” would not have to be registered with the city, but if property owners planted native black-eyed Susans and daisies, those boulevards would have to be registered.
According to a community engagement report on the proposed boulevard by-law, 121 respondents felt registration was not needed for reasons such as privacy and questioned why the city needed that information. Seven respondents said they did not trust the city with the required information.
“I don't think you're ever gonna put something forward that 100% of people are on board with. We're reaching about 60 to 70 per cent of those asks through the amendments that we've made. We're not always gonna make everyone happy,” Thom said.
“There are a lot of interested groups in this, including city and utility assets and public safety, so we're trying to meet that middle ground where we're allowing for as much biodiversity as much planting as possible while still keeping folks safe."
Thom said that because the boulevard has public utilities and other infrastructure existing underground, a by-law is necessary to help the city keep track of who is responsible if any sort of “disruption” to those utilities were to take place.
“My compromise on that would be like, I understand where the city is coming from with raised boxes, and if they wanted to do something like a two-level system where if it was soft landscaping, only that would be something where you just read the guidelines and go that would be fair,” Moore said.
"And then if you have a raised garden box, because it does present more of a hazard for snow removal ... and utilities need to get access to the infrastructure underneath the boulevard, well, then they could require a mandatory registration for that and a voluntary registration for the soft landscaping."
