Night before Council
Current Music – Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts I-IV (album)
I took a walk through the nearby Garden City Lands yesterday on Sunday the 9th. My goal was to see first hand the area that I am now spending time and mental energy in trying to protect and preserve for the benefit of everyone in Richmond. It’s an intriguing place and the thoughts floating about with what we should do with this forgotten bog land are even more intriguing.
As with every story, there are two sides to the picture.
In this case, the people of Richmond and city council are debating whether this land would be better used to help expand the housing situation in Richmond and to appease the Musqueam band of First Nation’s by developing the site and using it in a near 50/50 split of revenue to assure local residents that their land is being used to the best of it’s ability.
The other side is seeing this area as a spot that is of particular ecological and agricultural value – that must be preserved for the sake of all the bird and plant life as well as to be slightly developed to use the land as a community garden, an agricultural educational facility, recreation area, and potential farmland for local blueberry or cranberry crops.
I personally am fighting for the second opinion after reading a lot into this story. I see the population boom and I understand the other side of the story as well though. We are facing a housing crisis – our rental levels are at a all time high with almost no vacancy, we are nearing the olympics meaning more tourism, the canada line is nearing completion and the construction industry is hungry to keep feeding it’s employment levels. Unfortunately, this side is also not very well though out. It’s a very similar concept to using the metaphor of what happens when a child does a summer job and gets paid – They spend it right away on something not needed down the road and are hungry to make more. Our city council has wasted a lot of money trying to finance our Olympic expenditures and just because we have land sitting idle – doesn’t mean it is useless unless it is rezoned for construction. The land was put aside for a reason a long time ago – and it was never properly utilized in all of these years. Just because it is in the ALR (agricultural land reserve) does not mean that it should be left idle and ignored. This is just a city strategy to help force the views of the public as seeing this land as useless unless they develop. What needs to be done – is action towards using the land in a eco-friendly way that encourages parkland and our city’s agricultural history. The popularity of our city core is overshadowing the rest of the city and leaving it behind in the dust. Just because we’re thinking ahead doesn’t mean we should ignore the past.
Tomorrow night (Tuesday) at 7pm – I’m going to the city council to hopefully speak and present a speech/letter I’ve written in regards to this issue. I will also post it here afterwards. I hope – the community can come together on this issue and truly listen and understand what is right for every resident of Richmond.
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