The residential skyscrapers in downtown Vancouver, Canada, are already covered with green. Rooftops and balconies overflow with ornamental vines, shrubs, even midsize magnolia and maple trees. And now, there's more.
Vancouver is launching a novel green initiative aimed at bringing food-producing gardens to the city's high-density developments. In what may be a first for a North American city, municipal planners have crafted a set of "urban agriculture" conditions for a new downtown neighborhood: Southeast False Creek, an 80-acre mixed-use community springing up on the former site of a shipyard.
Developers will be required to include "edible landscaping" and productive food garden spaces for rooftops and balconies. In the fall, planners will expand the False Creek policy to include such guidelines for all new multifamily projects in Vancouver.
One developer is ahead of the game. Last July, residents moved into the Freesia, a 19-story high-rise in downtown Vancouver and the first condominium project in the city to incorporate garden plots for residents. Situated on the seventh-floor mezzanine rooftop, the area features 60 wood-frame raised beds, a tool shed and garden lockers.
The Freesia and Southeast False Creek represent a "brave new world," said Michael Levenston, director of City Farmer, a Vancouver nonprofit organization. Most North Americans garden for recreation, not for food, he said, but urbanization, as well as concerns about climate change and food safety, are driving the trend toward locally grown foods in cities.
"You can't get more local than your own home," Levenston said. "We're going to see more of this in the future, no question."
Over the last few years, farmers markets and organic grocery stores have proliferated in cities around North America. But if stalking the locally grown tomato has become all the rage among some urban dwellers, getting condominium residents to raise their own strawberries and radicchio is another story.
"Urban agriculture demands a complete rethink of how the public and private realm is designed," said Janine de la Salle, the author of a report on how food will be grown at Southeast False Creek. Residents will not be required to garden, but the city is hoping the project will serve as a model for innovative sustainability practices.
