Victoria to consider community garden project on rooftop of Johnson Street parkade

Three Victoria city councillors are moving a motion at this week’s committee of the whole meeting that would see staff explore implementing a community garden pilot project on the rooftop of the Johnson Street parkade. 

The City of Victoria’s five downtown parkades have the capacity for around 1,900 parking spaces. The Johnson Street parkade contains 272 spaces. 

In addition to those 1,900, there are private parkades and several surface parking lots that are open to the public as well as street parking. 

Data from the Victoria Downtown Residents Association (DRA) determined that daily average occupancy of the Johnson Street parkade rarely exceeds 250 vehicles between peak hours on weekdays. 

Furthermore, the rooftops of parkades are less used than lower levels. 

For these reasons, Councillors Krista Loughton, Dave Thompson and Jeremy Caradonna believe the underutilized, publicly-owned space could be used as a community garden without having a material impact on the City’s parking revenue. 

The DRA believes there is a lack of accessible green space and space to grow food, and currently, the Yates Street Community Garden has a wait list of over 160 people.

A community garden on Johnson Street parkade’s roof would only take up approximately 16 parking stalls and there is already water access available to use. 

According to the motion, this amount of space would be able to accommodate between 67 and 100 garden plots.

Councillors Loughton, Thompson and Caradonna suggest a pilot project community garden, which would allow planters on the underutilized rooftop in order to assess various opportunities and challenges. 

Their motion recommends that council direct staff to report back with revenue impact projections, a building code assessment and the identification of additional assessments required for a rooftop community garden.

Additionally, staff would be asked to report back with comments on the proposed garden design and develop a timeline for the pilot project. 

If the project is passed and moves forward, City staff would work with the DRA to develop the project.