Urban Retrofit Research Associate, Dr Ying Wang, considers the challenges associated with delivering urban retrofit outcomes in the built environment and what lessons might be drawn from the project visited on the Urban Retrofit Study Tour of Canadian cities.
The implementation gap between national-level policies that encourage the adaptation of existing places to mitigate climate change and the fragmented delivery at the local level is one of the central questions of the Urban Retrofit project. During the Canada study tour, we explored a wide variety of local practices that respond to this gap in various ways, such as innovative financing mechanisms, public-private-philanthropic relationship, and non-market means of delivery – just to name a few. What inspired me most across this rich tapestry of approaches, was the huge potential of community-led initiatives to create tailored and long-term solutions to both environmental and social challenges.
In Milton Parc, Montréal, we met passionate community organisers from the Milton-Parc Citizen Committee who shared their decades-long journey of managing neighbourhood spaces and assets through cooperatives and non-profit housing corporations—what is now one of the largest renovated cooperative housing projects in North Americai Emerging from a grassroots resistance to speculative redevelopment in the 1960s, the community mobilised to establish co-ops that secured collective ownership of land and property. These co-ops—comparable in structure and ethos to Community Land Trusts—have since become vehicles for long-term stewardship, affordable housing provision, community economies, and ecological transformation.
The process of setting up and managing these co-ops has significantly increased the capacity of local residents to organise and govern their neighbourhood—socially, economically, and environmentally—and has remained strong for well over 40 years. The tradition of community mobilisation and participatory democracy that developed over the decades played a crucial role in the development of initiatives such as the Urban Ecology Centre that was founded in the late 1990s. The Centre acts as an ‘ecological laboratory’ for experimenting and promoting urban greening initiatives in Montreal, such as green alleyways, community gardening, green-roofing, recycling and organic composting, many of which are now part of the everyday landscape of the Milton Parc neighbourhood we visited (Figure 1).
A green alleyway in Milton Parc, a space for everyday encounters and socialisation
This embedded ‘greenness’ also feeds into a cooperative business model that values shared working and collective benefit. Community gardens, often tended by residents and volunteers, supply locally grown food for community-supported agriculture, food banks, and local food distribution networks. These spaces also serve as critical social infrastructure, where marginalised groups gather, support one another, and cultivate a shared sense of belonging. Even during our brief afternoon walk around Milton Parc, informal conversations with residents we bumped into revealed their sense of community, formed around everyday activities in and around community green spaces.
A similar sense of solidarity emerged during our visit to Black Creek Community Farm in Toronto. Built on once-abandoned land, the farm now functions as an urban sanctuary where new migrants—many with farming backgrounds—reconnect with the land and one another. Through urban agriculture, educational programs, and food distribution, the farm fosters both ecological and social resilience.
The Urban Retrofit team with volunteers at the Black Creek Community Farm, Toronto
While community land trusts and urban farms are not new—examples like Bristol Community Land Trust and South Seeds in Glasgow come to mind—the scale, diversity, and longevity of Canada’s community-led initiatives was striking. Milton Parc, in particular, stands out not only for its scale but also for its wide and long-lasting impact beyond the local areas. These communities demonstrate how green initiatives and community economies can reinforce one another to support place-based sustainable development. The urban retrofitting interventions we visited might have been quite small in strictly physical terms, but they demonstrably have much wider social and environment benefits. Of course, there are no simple solutions—but these communities show that alternative urban futures are possible when residents have space and agency to act.
Milton Parc is perhaps the most radical of the cases we visited in Canada. For me, it was an inspiring example, a live experiment of resistance against the dominant growth logic . It shows what a post-growth urban future might look like—one that is rooted in local histories, shaped by everyday interactions with the environment, and driven by the collective agency of residents. It also serves as a vital reminder of what a meaningful retrofit should be: it should go beyond just buildings and infrastructure. It must start—and stay—with the people.
