The former Garden nursery site is being transformed for Dickson families. Photos: Victoria Wachniewski.
The old Garden nursery site in Dickson is seeing green shoots as a community recreation space while the Tradies proposed development makes its way through the ACT planning system.
Instead of the disused site lying idle, a group of Dickson residents has teamed up with the Tradies to convert the space on Poppyfield Street into an informal family-friendly community centre for indoor and outdoor activities.
This includes clearing out the old nursery, refurbishing it and acquiring second-hand furniture and play equipment.
Local artist James Houlcroft is also creating murals to decorate the space.
The Tradies has launched a community survey that invites people to share ideas for activities, events or groups; express interest in volunteering or contributing skills; outline how they or their group might use the space; and to stay updated as the project develops.
A few families hatched the Poppyfield Commons idea over a beer about six months ago and when approached, the Tradies was open to the idea, knowing that the site would be vacant for some time before the first stage of its The Green mixed-use proposal won approval and started construction.
One of the instigators, NSW town planner Haydon Murdoch said the Garden site would be ideal for a place where Dickson families and groups could gather and connect with each other, much like informal childcare and school gatherings.
Mr Murdoch said the Tradies had kicked in time, money and resources, seeing it as a test case for activating community spaces in its proposed development.
The first working bee back in September drew about 20 families and Tradies officials including CEO Alison Percival but the next few months were taken up with talking to the ACT Government about what could actually happen on the site under the lease.
For example, the initial idea for food trucks and other commercial activity would have triggered the unwanted complication of a lease variation.
But the vision had always been for people to be able to bring their own alcohol and enjoy a drink with food somewhere safe for the kids to play.
Mr Murdoch said the past month had seen a burst of activity on the site and now most of the works needed were complete.
“It’s essentially just a community space so there’s kids games, couches, lounges, inside dining tables,” he said.
“We’re trying to source a pool table and table tennis table so that we can have a bit of an activity area.”
The outside space had a compressed granite surface and outdoor tables and the group was gathering play equipment, such as a cubby house and mud kitchen.
“It’s a bit of whatever you want to make it,” Mr Murdoch said.
“So if a community group had a projector and they wanted to run a movie night, the space is set up for them to be able to do that.
“It’s meant to be flexible and agile to meet anyone’s needs.”
Mr Murdoch said just how open the facility would be was still to be worked out, as was a booking system.
“The feedback that we’ve got is that the community needs it, because we’re all sort of young families in the area and there’s nowhere to socialise safely with the kids,” he said.
A get-together this Friday night will be a trial run, with feedback given to the Tradies about how it went.
“So they’re going to try and take as many learnings as they can from this and hopefully through placemaking and the operation of the actual build they’ll be able to sort of be on the front foot on what the community needs.”
Walking past the site one day, lawyer Victoria Wachniewski had thought it would be great for a type of pop-up community place.
She said ideas were still evolving and the intent of the survey was to get more of the community on board and to hear what they wanted to do with it, particularly as it would come without prohibitive hire fees.
The Tradies would still manage things such as waste as part of its precinct but the aim would be for groups to leave it as they found it.
Ms Wachniewski said the site would mean a lot for the community and meet a need in a changing Dickson for family-oriented spaces.
With the City Renewal Authority street works getting under way, what spaces there were would become sparse.
“We love this area and all our friends are in this area,” Ms Wachniewski said.
“It’s that bringing together of community and showing what’s possible for the area.”
Ms Wachniewski said there was a demographic shift occurring in the area with young families moving in as older residents retired or passed on.
