The Peoples Official Plan Coalition (POP) organized a successful Community Stewardship on Public Lands Meeting on Saturday, February 8th, 2025 at Trinity United Church in Ottawa. This meeting gathered organizational representatives with experience in community gardening, green initiatives and stewardship of public land to discuss, listen and share ideas and challenges to proactively prioritize and align policy action items to City Council. Discussions were contextualized by policies outlined in the Community Garden Action Plan (discussed at the Community and Social Services Committee), and the Use and Care of Roads By-law, which includes planting within the Right of Way, or boulevard (discussed at the Transportation Committee).
The February 8th meeting began with a Land Acknowledgement from Harmony from the Assembly of 7 Generations, as well as presentations from Just Food’s Moe Garahan and Kate Veinot, and Bel Air Community Association’s Harry Fischer. The event proceeded to hold breakout sessions to discuss concerns related to planting on public lands in Ottawa, including community food gardening, pollinator/native plant gardening, invasive plant species, re-wilding/naturalization, tree planting, canopy regeneration, insurance for stewardship activities, and community engagement/consultation for municipal policy.
After the breakout sessions, large-group discussions were held to reach consensus on our highest-priority action items and how to work together to develop and implement a broad public outreach strategy to engage in the above two City policy items. Moving forward, POP will be formulating a plant strategy volunteer working group comprising of participants from the workshop. Stay tuned for a POP report coming soon summarizing the meeting discussions, priority items, and next steps. The City’s Community Gardening Action Plan (with Greening Initiatives) is expected to come back to committee in spring 2025.
Thank you to all who attended this meaningful event!