Just curious, if you raised $1500 and expecting even more - why don't you arrange soil testing yourself and proceed with community garden if it's safe to do so? I doubt tests will cost you more than couple of hundred dollars - money well spent.

More info from Healthy Public Policy Office
Toronto Public Health
277 Victoria Street, 7th Floor
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5B 1W2
Telephone: 416-392-6788

http://www.toronto.ca/health/hphe/pdf/urban_gardening_assessment.pdf
Fax: 416-392-7418

I was told it would cost more than a couple of hundred dollars more like a thousand and our grant was to make raised beds. The grant was for $1400. I have phoned the number you helpfully supplied and left a message. If we can afford to have the soil tested we will have to ask permission because this is private property. Thanks for the suggestion.

After we laid to rest the fear of soil contamination the Toronto Transit Commission raised their fear of rats which the Councillor Mike Layton, took up with us asking us to prove that the gardens would not attract rats. There fear was that rats would shut down the Queen West Street Car. I wish I was making this up but I'm not. Long story short, we satisfied both the councillor and the TTC that this would not happen. That was in April. Since then we have been waiting for the TTC legal depart to draw up an agreement that would allow individuals access to the property to build raise beds and to garden. It does seem like they have only changed tactics.

In August, the TTC presented to myself and Shawn Grey a draft agreement that potential gardeners would enter into with TTC to allow gardening in raised beds on this site. The original $1400 that was granted to us by a non-governmental organization is still available to us but now half way through September we still have heard nothing. Although the document was about 7 pages with at least one of the points very hard to understand, we accepted all their conditions and suggested some changes to their plans to re-fence the lot. One of our suggestions will save them quite a bit of money while one, to make the fence 4' rather than 3' high will cost them more. The existing fence is 4' high. We had only asked that a functional gate be put on the site to make it secure and to prevent illegal dumping.

The TTC has written a 7 page agreement/waiver that each participant must sign before they will give us a letter stating their intent to let this community garden happen. The letter will allow us to continue our efforts to raise funds to buy raised beds. They haven't replaced the fence yet or secured the site and illegal dumping continues.

A new fence with a lockable gate has been built. We have raised enough money to buy about 8 raised bed kits but we are unable to set them up for next season because grading on the site is so uneven.

How's this project coming along? It sounds like a story worth telling when it's all up and going. Our bureaucracies can be difficult neighbours, often unnecessarily.

The easiest thing to do is to set up the raised bed kits, shim them with bricks and/blocks and then fill the rest with smaller rocks to reduce soil erosion. You could also line them with landscaping fabric before adding the soil to reduce soil erosion.

That would also work if you installed them unleveled and then leveled the soil.

The site was levelled early in May and with volunteer effort we were able to assemble the 8 raised beds we had raised money for. The city delivered enough soil for us to fill them and they are growing vegetables! Except for the cost to the TTC to rehabilitate the site, almost no public money was spent on this so far. Funds for the raised beds came from donations and 2 grants from a private foundation. We're looking forward to having 3 times as many raised beds and we're already contemplating other semi-public spaces that might be suitable for community gardens.

We are still fundraising for more raised beds. To date the city has spent no money on this site but they did donate soil for the beds.

Thanks for fixing this issue!