City of Kingston St. Lawrence Business Park Expansion Lands

(Photograph: City of Kingston)

To support the City of Kingston’s St. Lawrence Business Park Expansion Lands initiative, SpruceLab is working with the City and the adjacent Indigenous Food Sovereignty Garden Group (IFSGG) to develop a definition of a ‘shovel worthy approach’ for these lands and waters, with a landscape concept plan and supporting guidelines. The need for employment lands within the City’s jurisdiction has the support of the broader public, and in February, 2023, following recommendations by the IFSGG (see here), Kingston Council directed staff to initiate a community and Indigenous engagement process to advance the project to be climate resilient, and move towards a new ‘eco-business park’ model. Design ideas anticipated to be explored through a co-design process will keep in mind a business park aesthetic and needs, and include opportunities for green infrastructure, ecological restoration, landscape connectivity (for both humans and other than human kin), and potentially places for Indigenous placekeeping on City-owned lands. The draft “shovel-worthy evaluation framework” prepared by SpruceLab was submitted to Kingston Council on January 23, 2024, and you can hear the IFSGG delegations here (scroll to 1:13:57).

(Sheila co-wrote an introduction to a recent Urban Land Institute report on Indigenous Environmental and Climate Justice and noted this project as an example: See the report here.)