Playground construction begins on former tent city site in Victoria

The playground that area residents want is finally being put in, marking new beginnings for a controversial site in Victoria once home to a tent city.

For almost a year, the courthouse lawn in B.C.’s capital city was a make-shift encampment. It was filled with tarps, tents and garbage; about 80 people who had no other place to go, lived there.

But the province’s first attempt to shut it down last spring was rejected by the courts. The judge ruled those living in the homeless camp had to have a safe alternative.

“Despite all the negativity that’s surrounded the tent city, it really did wake people up and got the government on board to provide housing, so I think that’s fantastic,” Grant McKenzie with Victoria’s
Our Place Society said.

The province was forced to dig up and truck about a tonne of soil after testing found lead, gasoline, diesel, methamphetamine and traces of other drugs at the site.

It’s now been seven months since the last tent was removed.

“We consulted with the Victoria Police Department on the site for crime prevention through environmental design. It just all comes together: community, public safety, crime prevention, public supporters,” Minister of

Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services, Amrik Virk, said while at the site on Friday.

The playground’s design didn’t come together without the input of experts: about 500 children weighed in on what it should look like.

“There’s a large spinning net, a large climbing area, one area specific to two to five-year-olds, called the smart play cube. We’ve got swings,” Dave Warner with Habitat Systems, the company that designed the playground, said.

“I’d say about 80 per cent of this equipment doesn’t exist anywhere else on Vancouver Island.”

Warner said the playground is set to open in early April.