The National Capital Commission fenced off Stanley Avenue Park in Ottawa's New Edinburgh neighbourhood after the soil was found to be contaminated with lead. (CBC)

Residents in Ottawa's east end said they have to put their plan for a community garden on hold now that the parkland they were hoping to put it in has been fenced off because the soil is contaminated.

Stanley Avenue Park, in Ottawa's New Edinburgh neighbourhood, was fenced off last week after soil tests showed high levels of lead and hydrocarbons.

The National Capital Commission said the park was built on what was an industrial area more than a century ago.

Christina Keys, one of the organizers of the garden, said that she knew about the park's industrial past, but hadn't realized that the soil contained three times the acceptable amount of lead.

"The extent of it is surprising, and it stops us right in our tracks," said Keys.

Would-be gardeners in Ottawa's Vanier and Hintonburg neighbourhoods said they've had similar experiences with city properties.

Christina Keys said she and other members of her neighbourhood had hoped to be able to build a community garden on the grounds of the Stanley Avenue Park this year. (CBC)

"We've just not grown on it, we just had to drop the project," said Terri O'Neill, who helps co-ordinate community gardens with the organization Just Food. "We don't have the resources to remediate [the soil]."

O'Neill said that growing plants in raised beds can sometimes be a way of coping with contaminated soil, but it only works in rare cases.

Replacing the soil, however, isn't in the city's plans.

Yolande Cremer, who handles requests for community gardens at the City of Ottawa, said that replacing the soil simply isn't in the city's budget.

"Any remedial situation, I think, would be probably too expensive and not even for sure," she said. "The park is out of the picture."

According to the city, the waiting lists for garden plots in most of Ottawa's neighbourhoods are two years long.