Rotary Garden Community Collective evicted from city property

A Saskatoon group that runs a community garden on the border of Saskatoon’s Riversdale and Pleasant Hill neighbourhoods has exactly two weeks to pack up and leave.

According to Mikki Mappen, who runs the Rotary Community Garden at 1202 19th Street West along with several others, a notice was handed to the group on July 23, informing them they must “remove all assets” from the city-owned land by August 21.

The gardens have been there since 2019.

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During the city’s planning, development, and community services meeting Wednesday, Lesley Anderson, Saskatoon director of planning and development, told councillors the land was contaminated and it required environmental remediation.

In February, the city applied to the province for funding to help do so, but was denied.

That’s when Imperial Oil stepped in, because it started work on remediating its land next to the community gardens. The company offered to do so for the city as well.

“It became an option for them to include our site in their work, and to do the testing and remediation as part of their contract,” Anderson told councillors.

But there was a “catch.”

“We were working with their timelines, and this evolved very, very quickly. The timelines from the contractors also evolved very, very quickly,” she added.

Imperial Oil, which owns the adjacent property, will be remediating contaminated land, and will also do so for the city owned land, on which the community gardens are situated, as well- saving the city half a million dollars. (Lara Fominoff/650 CKOM)

During a presentation to the committee, Mappen said while she wasn’t opposed to the remediation and site rehabilitation, the way the city went about informing the group, without any alternative option for relocation, was problematic.

“This garden fills several community needs, one of them being to provide a welcoming and beautiful space in which diverse neighbours can and do gather.

“We do not think the reasons given in our eviction letter — efficiencies and cost savings —  justify the cruelty of this measure,” she said, noting the letter also stated that nearby Optimist Park would not have enough space to relocate the gardens.

Anderson said the neighbourhood historically has little park space, uncertainty about whether water can be made available and the impact a community garden space would have on other local programming.

“It’s a balancing act across the city and looking for those new sites,” she said.

She noted that administration was still open to looking for alternative spaces for the Rotary group, but that there was a site open for some winter equipment storage.

Anderson also said allowing Imperial Oil to clean up the contaminated city site would save the city about $500,000 for the work to be done now, as opposed to the city picking up the tab later on.

Mappen told council she didn’t feel the process to inform the group was transparent, and that they were being “railroaded.”

“It seems to me because Imperial Oil created the pollution on this site originally… that there’s a good chance for the city to actually compel Imperial Oil to do this work on the city’s own schedule, with consideration for neighbours,” she said.

Jody Manastyrski with the city solicitor’s office, told councillors that to force the oil company to work on the city’s schedule could potentially require a court action, something that could take a long time to resolve.

Mappen also criticized the “lack of imagination” of city administration to come up with an alternative site where the group could establish its gardens, or simply move their garden boxes to a portion of the site that wasn’t contaminated.

Ward 2 Coun. Senos Timon put forward two motions directing administration to report back on what nearby storage options were available and where any nearby gardening options for the 2026 gardening may be, and then to disclose what the city’s plans will be for the site after the remediation process is completed.

The motions were passed unanimously.