An update on the Victoria St garden

Drill Hall Community Garden Association

The small Drill Hall garden park between Therry and Victoria streets is a City of Melbourne accessibility project, originally advocated by local social housing residents in 2013.  

Many had mobility challenges, who wanted a nearby place, where they could enjoy a bit of greenery and even develop a community garden. The council has now temporarily fenced it off due to anti-social and challenging behaviour among homeless people and others passing through. 

The council, together with community volunteers, are now gradually repairing the damage and restoring the area. 

After the fencing was erected, local residents and workers noticed the difference. The area is safer, quieter and tidier. Some residents even want it to remain closed.  And the marginalised souls who occupied the garden, who were never safe even among themselves and, of course, will not be safe, until they are decently housed and receive the care they need? Well, they have moved on. 

Nevertheless, they have rights. There must be a place again for them in the future; the garden has to be open to everyone, but how that can be successfully managed is still to be worked out. Many of the social housing residents have experienced homelessness themselves and despite the setbacks, retain empathy and tolerance for their former street mates. From the 19th century onward public space has always been seen as democratic space and that must include everyone.

The City of Melbourne, for heritage reasons, must remove the fence in October. To repeat: the task now is not to allow the area to revert to the previous situation, where despite constant efforts by the council’s compliance officers, supported by police, the garden remained a socially barren out-of-control area and no-go zone. This excluded its legitimate intended use as a healthy amenity for everyone, particularly for those with mobility and accessibility challenges – irrespective of whether they are homeless or not. Essentially, everyone, even those exhibiting anti-social behaviour etc., were excluded from the benefits of the garden. 

One constant presence, despite the chaos of the past many months, has been the community garden run by local residents. It has taken a battering, but volunteers led by garden manager Sam Weaner continued to do what they could to maintain it, despite the often-challenging circumstances. 

The separate (unfenced) Victoria St section remains largely unaffected and continues to provide a picture of what a community garden exposed and open to a public busy street and pedestrian pathway can achieve. Sam only needs to spend a couple of hours a week to tend it, but the constant attention that it receives from passers-by is truly inspiring. 

The pedestrians; men, women and children, tourists and students from all round the world stop, look, sometimes take photographs, single out particular herbs and flowers for attention and then pass on. It is noteworthy that it has never been seriously vandalised, certainly never on the scale experienced by the now fenced off main garden and might that not suggest ideas for the restoration of the whole garden again? 

The council has suggested that the community garden volunteers “activate” the garden by having a constant presence and a lot more volunteers. As Sam's experience with the Victoria St garden suggests, this is not necessary and, in any case, the implicit suggestion that garden workers become a sort of “flowerpot home guard”, contradicts the spirit and purpose of a garden/park/public space – and why should they be more effective than a posse of council compliance officers supported by police? 

Perhaps the Victoria St garden flourishes without anyone standing guard over it, precisely because it fronts a very busy footpath? The garden and the pedestrians comprise a sort of transient mutual spectacle, where the garden is a small theatre of nature, and the pedestrians are a passing parade and interested audience. It is an inclusive passing crowd; no one is excluded. Is that not what we need on a larger scale in the main garden? 

However it can be described, it seems to work. Perhaps what will work in the main garden is not a fence or human bodyguard, but measures to encourage people to use the garden in varying active but also transient ways, mirroring to some extent the very varied levels of interaction between pedestrians and the garden in Victoria St? One suggestion is for the council to place a small outdoor gym in the area, which has a large local student population. Another is to have a sort of “hide and seek” play area for young children who also appear to be a significant part of the local population and the pedestrian traffic. 

If we are to give real meaning to terms like “inclusion”, “diversity”, “engagement” and “activation” beyond the buzzword routine, we need to analyse them in terms of observed and actual lived experience as with the Victoria St garden example. We need to break it down to the particular needs and behaviours of groups and individuals likely to use the space and then find ways in which they can become part of a general community experience. 

It will take keen observation, hard work and experimentation, but it can be done. Hopefully the council will recognise and support such an approach for rehabilitating the garden. •