Nature Matters in Surrey?
Posted on February 4th, 2008 in environment, health, rants, society, surrey, vancouver |
Two maps I worked on recently to show you. First off, here’s the ALR in Surrey. Sure, it’s nature I suppose, despite the fact that none of it is public land (meaning the nature is inaccessible to most people), and that very few of these places actually make any edible food for our region. Still, it’s good for containing sprawl.
Secondly, here’s the other green spaces in the City - basically areas that were densely green on the aerial map (mostly forests and whatnot). Some of this greenery is parks (i.e. you can see Tynehead, Green Timbers, and Bear Creek), other areas are sections like the grass along the power line corridors.
Nature truly is the arteries of our cities. It’s too bad politicians and developers don’t understand this.
Not much of a “city in a sea of green”, is it?
15 Responses
If you’re out near Holland Park could you take a photo of the giant cement “cenotaph dedicated to nothing” and post on your Flickr for me :-P?Man they really cut that place up.
Side note - have they decided on a logo yet?
Hehe I’ll actually be out there in a few hours. I’ll be sure to grab a pic.
No clue about the logo. The city definitely isn’t very open or clear about their going-ons…
In Surrey, those ALR regions are also highly correlated with easily flooded areas. Even if you don’t mind sprawl, it’s better for everybody if people aren’t living two feet above sea level.
In my opinion the Surrey mayor ,Diana Watts, isn’t doing much to help the enviorment? What do you think Paul?
Also how do you think that Richmond will do, if there is a major flood because it is below sea level?
@L: I agree with you. Dianne Watts main success lies with cleaning up Whalley, to a degree. In the meantime, the whole Campbell Heights development has been an environmental fiasco destroying key animal and plant habitats. Not to mention all the continuous developments that are wiping off huge swaths of old growth forest. The tree bylaw has been a huge failure. I guess the only other success she can claim is the City’s purchase of Camp Kwomais to become parkland.
Certainly the mayor and the City could and should be doing far more to protect the environment before it is developed - because once it is, it’s extremely difficult to reclaim. Growth should be redirected back into the town centres with densities to support complete communities with rapid transit. Furthermore, there should be tighter bylaws to protect the environment, and levies and fees on developments which go back into preserving and enhancing our green spaces.
Another thing is, how do you think that people can get
Dianne Watts to start making a difference and a least try to
get schools to plant more trees.
P.S. please don’t tell me to wright a complaint letter.
I am a fifth grader and I am just wondering how do you find out all the information about the transporatations in Surrey? Did you actually went around or did you find it on the internet and post it on your blog?
@L. It’ll take a major flood to get Richmond and all the other developments that are currently on flood plain lands to wake up and STOP BUILDING ON FLOOD PLAINS! It’s just a matter of time. People will do stupid things for money. I’m sure it will be shock but at least it will redirect growth to other areas in the region and certainly make the GVRD seem a lot smarter for developing the ALR and the Growth Concentration Area. Various Richmond councils will be panned for allowing certain developments, and the province will probably step in and introduce legislation to stop all development on flood plains.
Why does Dianne Watts have to plant the trees? Why can’t you go plant some trees? I mean, be the change you want to see.
If schools aren’t planting enough trees, you could go talk to the specific principals and the school board about that.
There’s a lot of programs in Surrey to plant trees. Unfortunately, I don’t think they are being planting in the right spots.
You will likely see a large planting effort in the coming years though with the Province’s Trees for the Future program they announced in the throne speech, which is a huge urban reforestation project.
@L. Email-me. Info is on the About page. Let’s talk!
What school do you go to? Are you in that class that proposed a future vision of Surrey to council a few weeks ago?
Info I get is partially based on personal experience in the community, partially based on information from local newspapers, and partially based on planning documents by the City and Metro Vancouver throughout the years that are available on the web.
Talking to my friend earlier about how every swath of wild green space gets stamped with a development notice, I forgot to mention to him how they could stop bulldozing nature and still create more housing by opting for denser housing instead of so many single family homes. I realise a lot of townhouses are going up and not just on top of what used to be nature, but I think it’s pretty excessive when they leave no patch unharmed and tend to rip out everything. It’s like shoot now, ask questions later, but rather, take it all out now, and plant some back later. Unfortunately, I’ll be 40 and living somewhere else before I see trees the size they used to be. It’s depressing to think about what we have here compared to the amazing trees in Vancouver on streets like 10th Avenue. What pisses me off the most right now is the Fraser Hwy widening between 152 and 142. They took every single damn tree out… they’d better put in a boulevard with some nice big ones or someone’s gonna be hearing from me. This is the kind of backward-minded crap that wouldn’t happen if they just put in some nice quiet LRT instead.
I actually go to Morgan Creek Elementary.And about 4 years ago, my family immagrated to Vancouver (Morgan Creek) from Taiwan because of the atmosphere, (trees,forests and etc.) but
now all the trees have been cut down and more houses are being build my family is starting to think about moving.
Also about the question wether I’m in the class that porposed a future vision of Surrey to council a few weeks ago, the answer is no I’m not.
@ Erika.
Well, if the current politicians don’t make the right decisions, maybe it’s time we replaced them :P
@L. Hey that’s really interesting! Do you live in a big house then in South Surrey? Or one of those new townhomes? How did you find my blog?
Erika if you want developers to make denser houses why don’t you go tell them.Or write a complaint letter to the developers.