Carleton’s Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) held an emergency meeting Oct. 16 to discuss the university’s plans to build a new private residence building on the land currently occupied by their community garden.
GSA president Grant MacNeil said although the agreement between the GSA and the university allowed for the garden’s relocation, the association had thought any move would be several years down the line.
“Maybe that was naïve to think that the university would bargain in good faith and be open about the fact that, ‘Oh maybe next year we’ll have to build a residence,’” he said.
“So in any sort of plan going forward I think there’s a sense that we would like to fight for some sort of reparations for the inconvenience that this caused,” he said.
The university will have to pay for the relocation of the community garden, according to the agreement between the university and the GSA, but the GSA said this may not be an issue that could be solved with money alone.
At the meeting, several people raised concerns about the symbolic value of the garden. The garden was named Kitigànensag by Algonquin elders, meaning “little gardens.”
Several people said they would be willing to fight to keep the garden at its present spot.
Chris Bisson, the community garden’s manager, said several aspects of the garden could not be easily compensated for, such as the soil which changes and improves after every year of cultivation, and the hundreds of hours of volunteer work gardeners and supporters have put in.
Bisson said paying for relocation is not an adequate solution.
“We have pretty much what I would describe as an ideal location now, and I have trouble envisioning a spot that would be as good or better,” Bisson said.
The university has shortlisted three proposals from private companies for the new residence, and has asked them for more detailed proposals. For a residence built by September 2016, the university will have to sign a deal in the new year, said Darryl Boyce, Carleton’s assistant vice-president (facilities management and planning).
The private developer will build and operate the residence, which would have about 500 spaces, and pay the university every year for the land lease leading to a “positive cash flow to the university,” according to Boyce.
“It’s not only a financial proposal, it’s whether or not it would provide a quality housing experience for our students,” Boyce said.
Boyce said it would be up to the private company what kind of support system the new residence has, like the current residence fellows.
“They would need similar people,” Boyce said. “They may not call it a res fellow, they might call it something else, but they would have to have somebody, some more senior people on each floor or every two floors.”
According to a GSA release, the association was notified that construction would begin in spring or summer 2014.
Before construction can begin on the private residence it must be approved by the university’s Board of Governors.
At the latest Board of Governors meeting, university executives said no decision had been made yet on the private residence, and that the university was still weighing the benefits of taking that route.
