Greening the Skies and Feeding the City

Greening Rooftops in the Garden City

A research paper by Heather Hobbs outlines the potential for rooftop gardens as an important part of the solution to food security issues on Vancouver Island.

In the 2002-2003 fiscal year, LifeCycles embarked on an ambitious project, Greening the Skies and Feeding the City: Rooftop Gardening Project. The purpose of the project was to expand our community's definition of space available for urban agriculture, to demonstrate that rooftop gardening is a viable option, and to provide the information, resources and support to build our communities' capacity to meet their food needs by growing it themselves.

The idea for developing a demonstration rooftop garden grew naturally from LifeCycles commitment to expanding the definition of Urban Agriculture and a partnership with past members of our Agri-Food Youth Entrepreneurship Program, Cliff and Erika of Wildfire Bread and Pastry.

Wildfire had an interest in starting a rooftop garden on top of their bakery on Quadra Street in downtown Victoria, BC. This fit perfectly with the Rooftop Gardening Project's mandate to promote sustainable organic urban gardening!

Benefits of Rooftop Gardening

Rooftop gardening is a huge step towards creating a self-sufficient, low-impact city.

A rooftop garden can...

• Increase space available for urban food production
• Increase access to outdoor green space and recreation
• Improve urban aesthetics
• Provide opportunities for horticultural therapy
• Improve air quality by filtering particulate matter
• Improve water quality through storm water retention and filtration
• Reduce Urban Heat Island Effect by absorbing UV radiation and cooling the air
• Increase habitat for birds and insects
• Biodiversity preservation
• Conserve energy by insulating buildings
• Buffer sound
• Increase the life of roofing membrane
• Increase property value
• Add amenity space

Looking to the Future

Greening the Skies and Feeding the City: Rooftop Gardening Project experienced some challenges. As rooftop gardens have not yet been officially recognized in the BC Building Code, the safety of such projects is left to the discretion of individual building inspectors. Differences between inspectors in their interpretation of existing regulations prompted LifeCycles to discontinue this project. However, a legacy of research and experience was left behind for the future.

LifeCycles will continue to promote rooftop gardens as potential spaces for urban agriculture and look forward to revisiting this project in the future.