Online urban landscaping magazine Spacing Montreal is reporting that given the long delays in redeveloping the Blue Bonnets Hippodrome lands into a major residential project that an interim plan could see the area turned into an urban farm.
Spacing Montreal reports that, “Given the size of the site it was generally discussed that number of different organizations may be able to access the land for various purposes – from a tree nursery to beekeeping, composting to pisciculture, producing food for the surrounding neighbourhood and providing job-training, school programs, and university research sites.”
“Blue Bonnets racetrack occupied the site from 1907 until it was abandoned in 2009. While the rich farmland that covered most of the island of Montreal was slowly paved over and parcelled out for residential, commercial and industrial use, the hippodrome remained the domain of horses.”
“If the land is returned to cultivation, the development of the hippodrome site will become a sort of microcosm – or laboratory – for North American urban development, where the urban neighbourhoods eventually overtake the agricultural vocation.”
As I blogged last week I have signed up for weekly delivery of fresh vegetables by Lufa Farms, a unique urban farming project which has set up its agricultural mission on an industrial rooftop. I share in the excitement of the prospect of a major urban agricultural project in west end Montreal.
Yosef
Jan 30, 2013 @ 11:56:12
Link the farm directly to CSL no matter what!