Across British Columbia, a number of smaller cities and towns have moved to establish or expand community gardens on municipally-owned land over the past several years. The motivations vary: some councils have framed these decisions in terms of food security; others have responded to waitlists for existing plots; a few have used garden development as a way to activate parcels that were otherwise idle and generating maintenance costs with no offsetting use.

The land-use dimension

Community gardens occupy a specific position in municipal land use planning. They are not parks in the conventional sense, but they are also not developments. In many B.C. municipalities, community gardens are addressed through parks bylaws, agricultural land policies, or as permitted uses in specific zones — the regulatory treatment varies considerably by municipality.

For cities in the Agricultural Land Reserve, the question of whether a community garden constitutes a farm use — and therefore falls under the jurisdiction of the Agricultural Land Commission — has been a point of clarification in some planning processes. The ALC has issued guidance on this, but the practical application differs by site and by how the municipality structures the garden’s governance.

Kelowna: Waitlists and expansion

Kelowna has operated community gardens for a number of years. The existing sites have maintained waitlists, which the city has cited in planning documents as evidence of unmet demand. The city’s Parks, Recreation and Culture department has included garden expansion in capital planning discussions in recent budget cycles.

Kelowna’s situation is also shaped by the surrounding Agricultural Land Reserve. The city has navigated how to expand urban food growing opportunities within a regional land-use framework that is designed primarily to protect large-scale agriculture — a different set of constraints than municipalities without adjacent ALR land.

Prince George: Food access in a northern context

Prince George presents a different context. As the largest city in northern British Columbia, it has a combination of factors that give community gardens a distinct role: a shorter growing season than southern B.C., higher food costs due to transportation distances, and lower average household incomes in some neighbourhoods compared to provincial averages.

Factors shaping community garden policy in northern B.C. towns

  • Growing season typically runs May through September, shorter than the Fraser Valley
  • Grocery costs in northern communities reflect supply chain distances and lower retail competition
  • Some municipal parcels in older residential areas are underused and suitable for low-infrastructure conversion
  • Volunteer capacity and society management models affect long-term viability of garden sites

Prince George has worked with community organisations on garden sites in different parts of the city, with varying governance models. The BC Ministry of Health has cited community food access as a component of broader population health planning, though direct provincial funding for municipal community gardens has been limited.

Governance and ongoing costs

One recurring issue in community garden development is the question of who manages the site after establishment. Municipalities that develop gardens directly take on ongoing maintenance obligations — water access, tool storage, soil management, plot allocation — that require either staff time or contracted services. Many cities have moved toward a model where a registered society or resident group manages day-to-day operations under a licence-of-occupation agreement with the municipality.

This model distributes management responsibility but introduces its own complexity: the societies need governance capacity, insurance, and the ability to manage membership and waitlists. Where that capacity is strong, gardens tend to function well. Where society capacity is thin — which can happen in smaller communities or where key volunteers move away — sites can deteriorate or close.

The challenge is not getting a garden started. It is maintaining it consistently across volunteer cycles that turn over every few years. — Paraphrase of a position described in publicly available municipal parks planning documents

The BC Municipal Insurance Association and the Union of British Columbia Municipalities have both developed resources for municipalities setting up these governance arrangements, which are publicly available through their respective websites.

What the trend indicates

Community gardens are not a housing solution or a major food system intervention. They are a small-scale, neighbourhood-level land use that a growing number of B.C. municipalities have chosen to support. The pattern suggests a recognition that underused parcels have a cost, and that low-infrastructure uses can deliver neighbourhood value without the complexity of full development — while food access remains a relevant concern in parts of the province where cost of living has increased materially in recent years.

Updated: May 25, 2025. This summary draws on publicly available planning documents from the City of Kelowna, City of Prince George, the Agricultural Land Commission, and the Union of BC Municipalities.