THUNDER BAY — The boulevard maintenance bylaw will be back before council on Monday for a second round, and this time itcomes 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 removed restrictions from the proposed bylaw after the public weighed in.
“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 bylaw or proposed by-law,” Thom said.
Input included removing 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 the proposed bylaw she'd like to see tweaked.
“I wanna be able to say we've got the best boulevard gardening bylaw 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 plans to present to council on Monday, when the draft bylaw is presented.
Under the new proposed rules, the maximum height limit for plant has grown from 60 centimetres to one metre, as long as they are set back by 60 centimetres.
“I'm still hoping that we can do one metre across the whole boulevard, except in the visibility triangles where the roads intersect,” Moore said.
She explained 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 bylaw 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 bylaw 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 allow planter boxes to be made from porous materials, but specifically non-treated wood.
Planter boxes will also need a reflective pole attached to provide warning to snow plows.
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 going to put something forward that 100 per cent 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 going 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 bylaw is necessary to help the city keep track of who is responsible if any sort of “disruption” to those utilities were to take place.
