PHOTO BY ARIELLE GODBOUT Enlarge Image

From left: Heather and Gene Nawolsky, and Debbie Innes, stand in fron of the snow covered gardens at St. Amant, across the river from the University of Manitoba.

Members of the South Winnipeg Garden Club are worried their community gardens will be sacrificed to make way for a proposed pedestrian bridge that would connect St. Vital with the University of Manitoba.

The club has an arrangement with St. Amant that allows use of 3.2 acres of the facility’s land near the Red River that has been divided into 111 garden plots.

Member Gene Nawolsky said he was tilling plots in late October when he encountered a man in the garden with a measuring tool.

"I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was doing GPS and readings for the pedestrian bridge," Nawolsky recalled.

"And I said, ‘What pedestrian bridge?’ "

Club members have since learned St. Amant is one of five possible locations being considered by the city for the proposed pedestrian and cycle bridge.

Working with consulting firm MMM Group, the city has pinpointed four other possible sites in St. Vital for the crossing: Minnetonka School, Henteleff Park, across the river from the former Southwood Golf and Country Club in Fort Garry, and across the river from King’s Park in Fort Richmond.

The city and MMM Group will hold open houses for community members on both sides of the river later this month.

Garden club member and St. Vital resident Curtis Belton — who is also an avid cyclist — said he thinks building on the city’s active transportation network is a positive step, but that it shouldn’t come at the cost of the beloved community gardens.

"Nobody is saying let’s not have active transportation, because we’re all for it," he said.

"We’re just saying let’s have a plan that has the least impact on quiet neighbourhoods and green space."

While people have been gardening at the location of the St. Amant gardens for more than 50 years, the South Winnipeg Garden Club was born in 2003, said past president Debbie Innes.

That’s when the For Garry Horticultural Society — which was located on Waverley Street — relocated to St. Vital and changed its name.

Innes said she’s grown to love the new location — which she described as park-like with tall trees and picnic tables — and said she was in shock when she learned the gardens were being considered as a site for the bridge.

"Disbelief that they would consider destroying such a beautiful place," the Waverley Heights resident said.

She added more and more people seem interested in growing their own fruits and vegetables — especially the organic and local food movements swell — and that razing one of the largest community gardens in the city doesn’t make sense.

"Gardening is the way of the future," she said.

Nawolsky said he hopes if the city decides to proceed with St. Amant as the site of the bridge, the engineers can work around the gardens to at least save some of the plots.

Belton said a better choice would be to build the bridge at another location.

"If there’s one word to describe the gardens and the state they’re in, it’s irreplaceable," he said.  

The open houses will take place Wed., Feb. 8 at Dakota Community Centre (1188 Dakota St.) from 4 to 8 p.m.,  and Thurs. Feb. 9 at the University of Manitoba Event Centre (100-1 Research Rd.) from 4 to 8 p.m.

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