The city of Kitchener has plans to provide coverage to all community gardens in the area in time for the 2018 growing season.
City officials are working with a local insurance broker to underwrite a policy that offers adequate coverage.
Authorities have clarified that the plan to purchase insurance is just a precautionary measure.
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“We aren’t introducing this as a response to any issues that have happened or anything like that,” neighborhood development office supervisor Joshua Joseph told CBC. “We just want to be proactive.”
Earlier this week, Joseph and a colleague – Denise McGoldrick – submitted a report that mentioned the new insurance requirement to the city’s community and infrastructures committee.
According to the report, it “is necessary to protect the city and the gardeners themselves,” and the policy will ensure that “gardeners are adequately protected to participate in preparing and maintaining the garden and play a more active role in using tools at the garden to make repairs and upgrades as needed.”
“There are concerns, right, in using tools and equipment and things that could be potentially dangerous if you don’t have coverage,” Joseph explained.
“We want to make sure people are covered, and we also want to just allow them to use more of the tools that they want to use. Maybe in the past they might have used those things, but now they’re able to do so under the scope of an insurance policy that provides them with coverage.”
The report is recommending that all new and pre-existing gardens on city property be insured under the new policy. Joseph also said that the cost of insuring a garden – estimated to be $4 a plot – would be covered by the city.
“It’s not like we’re going to come in after the fact and necessarily tell people that now they suddenly have to pay for insurance,” he remarked. “In the grand scheme of all the costs, it’s really not a huge cost for the benefit it provides.”
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