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Greetings Everyone,

    I'm pleased to report that the settlement agreement reached by Fitzwood Investments, Susan Karrandjas and me will be ratified by an order made by the Ontario Municipal Board.  The tree preservation area noted in the
amended by-law provides for a rectangular, contiguous area that preserves .86 of an acre of mature trees opposite Carradine Court and stretches from Killaby to Britannia.  An oral decision on the amendment to the by-law was given at the hearing.

    The board adjourned Fitzwood's site plan referral to April 2nd at 10:00 am to be heard in the Municipal Hearing Room, 2nd floor Mississauga City Hall, 300 City Centre Drive.  We agreed to conclude the matter as long as it was understood on the record that the tree preservation area on the final site plan would not be modified from that which is reflected in the amended by-law.

    Member John Aker said that he believed that if this is what the other parties agreed to then he believed, they would carry out these plans.  We commented that we merely wanted to ensure that we have dotted all our "I's" and crossed all our "T's".  Of course, we intend to appear again on April 2nd.  Aker said he would remember us and if we needed to seek party status then, we could request it at that time.

    One resident from Killaby did object to the settlement agreement. She provided a two page statement about balance and said in it that "a proposal for additional small gains in preservation are at the expense of it's (sic)
immediate residents..."

    Certainly we would have wished for a tree preservation plan that would have preserved the trees behind the resident's townhome as well as those of her three neighbours to the east according to the original plan passed
by the by-laws in February 2003.  Indeed we did our best to negotiate the preservation of periphery trees behind these town homes and nearly lost any gains in the  negotiations.

    One of the points of the final settlement agreement stated: "The development of the balance of Fitzwood’s lands will be subject to the City’s current policies and practices respecting the site plan approval process;” which, if I understand correctly, means that depending on grading, some trees along the periphery of the property may indeed be preserved.

    We sincerely regretted having to make the choice between a preservation "arm" referred to as  Area A (.15 acre in area) in the settlement agreement or  a continuation of forest Area B (.47 acre in area).

    We left the decision to an urban forestry consultant, Philip van Wassenaer. In his letter of opinion regarding the settlement:

    "The Proposed Area (B) is larger, contains more trees overall, but slightly fewer Shagbark Hickory trees.  The Proposal provided for the preservation of one contiguous strip of forest between Killaby and Britannia, opposite Carradine Court, rather than two smaller tree preservation areas.  It meant a gain of about 36 trees and an increase in acreage of about 1/3 of an acre from the tree preservation plan passed by the by-laws on February 12th, 2003.  Ecologically, this configuration is preferable as it provides one continuous forest block with considerably less edge than the previous configuration.  This area will be easier to preserve effectively during the construction process."

    Further he stated:

    "Having visited the site and reviewed the documentation you have provided to me, it is my opinion that the proposal for Tree Preservation provided to you by Fitzwood in the settlement agreement on June 30, 2003 is preferable to the originally proposed Tree Preservation Plan.  The new tree preservation area has less exposed edges and will be easier to effectively protect."

    Because of  the opposition to the settlement agreement,  Mr. van Wassenaer was required to give evidence at the hearing and later sent me an email in which stated:

    "I felt really good when I left knowing that we had come together and helped to save at least a part of the forest . Considering the whole forest was slated for removal and approved I think this is really something.  I have not seen something like this happen before."

    Thank you for your interest and support. If you have any questions or comments, please email me.

Sincerely,  Therese Taylor  <tmtaylor@idirect.ca>

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