REGINA - The fencing that has been up in the Regina City Hall courtyard since late July is now gone.
The city had announced Wednesday that the crews would remove the fences on Thursday morning, and that was indeed what transpired as the courtyard is now fully open again.
City manager Niki Anderson spoke to reporters Thursday and said "the green spaces on the City Hall courtyard are safe and clean and they are now open to the public.”
“The fences allowed the grass to recover and we won’t know for sure until spring, but we expect that significant restoration efforts will not be required. Overall, I am confident that the fences will have saved the city money.”
Anderson also said that the city will “enforce the Parks and Open Spaces bylaw on the courtyard as it does in any other park.”
The fencing had been put up after a homeless encampment that had set up there was cleared from the lawn in late July. The encampment was ordered cleared by order of Regina Fire and Protective Services due to concerns about a number of fires at the location.
There had been some confusion about whether or not the City Hall courtyard fell into the definition of what was a park under the Parks and Open Spaces Bylaw. The initial thinking at the time the encampment was cleared was that it did not, but now the city is saying the space is indeed a "park."
Anderson explained there is “no official definition or bylaw that says ‘this is a park’ or ‘this is not a park.’ So, if you look at it, it’s a park. There’s a green space, there’s a fountain, there’s tables. It’s a public space owned by the city that has public access. It’s a park.”
As for monitoring the area, Anderson said they were doing some reallocation of resources to watch for violations, but “again, we’re hoping for voluntary compliance.”
Previously, the City was looking at a cost of $60,000 for remediation, but now with the fences removed it looks as if that amount won’t be needed. The cost of having the fences up came to $2,300 per month, or $4,600 total.
As for damage, Anderson said the grass had been “very damaged.”
“Everywhere that the tenants were, there was damaged grass. There was feces, there was needles, there was just a general garbage. There was tents. There was clothing. And frankly, there was just lots of people walking on it and as we all know if you have lots of people walking on the grass frequently sleeping on it or staying on it, it could damage the grass.”
When asked if it was ever a “biohazard” as was suggested by Mayor Sandra Masters in comments to the media earlier this year, Anderson stopped short of saying that, saying she "didn’t want to get caught in a definition.”
“But I would say there was urine, there was feces, there was needles, there was blood. Not knowing what constitutes a biohazard, I would say that there were things in the area that we wouldn’t allow... anyone to be on that before it’s cleaned up.”
Previously, the indication from the City had been that the fencing might stay on the lawn until next spring. But the decision to remove the fences was made following consultation with staff.
“I was asking weekly: is there still a reason to have the fence up to make sure the grass continues to recover. So recently, the park staff said no, it’s looking pretty good, and frankly with the fall weather coming, there’s no benefit to having the fences there.”
Anderson added: “I think for me, I always said I would take the fences down once the park staff said there was literally no reason to have them up for the grass. So when they told me last week, I wasn’t going to keep the fences up. There was no reason to do that.”
As for why the grass was able to recover, Anderson pointed to a multitude of factors. “It rained, nobody stepped on the grass, and a lot of the things that were on the grass were removed.”
On a related note, the fences around the Knox Metropolitan United Church located across from City Hall are also now removed: reports are those were put up to protect the property in response to fires near that location.
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