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Friends of the Cawthra Bush & Greater Mississauga Area
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Longer
Urban Forestry version
Nearly an Acre of Mississauga Forest to be Preserved by Developer By Therese Taylor From the beginning, nearly everyone I spoke to said it was a done deal. The clear cutting of the one hectare woodland in my new neighbourhood. With a flight path directly above, a major road that stretched for miles with no other forest to speak of, a huge rolling landfill site close on the forest’s heels, childhood asthma on the rise, and 1800 premature deaths attributed to bad air by the Ontario Medical Association, this didn’t make sense to me. As long as the mature trees, more than 400 of them, had not been severed from their roots, couldn’t accept that nothing could be done to save these oxygen producing, carbon sequestering trees, many of them from the rare Shagbark Hickory family. A call to the International Society of Arborists lead me to urban forestry consultant Philip van Wassenaer. We spent a half an hour on the phone talking about the one hectare forest on the north side of Britannia near Creditview. That afternoon Mr. Van Wassenaer walked the forest and later prepared a report on its state. The city claimed through the botanical report prepared and paid for by the developer that the forest was in poor condition and not worthy of saving, though that was not even the report’s conclusions. With the help of neighbours, 373 signatures were gathered in 2 1/2 days leading up to a deputation made before City Council. They had already approved in principle the application to amend the Official Plan to delete the "Natural Area" classification of City Plan as it related to the one hectare forest on the property, allowing for the clear cutting of the majority of the trees. Surely “approved in principle meant there was wiggle room for the municipality to change its collective mind, I naively thought. The mayor had said at the public meeting, on January 7th, 2002 that “she did not wish the woodlot to be destroyed and requested that she be provided a copy of the report that recommends that it not be preserved .... She further stressed that she did not wish the trees preserved, but that the woodlot be preserved." Indeed, there was no report that said the "woodlot" should not be preserved. No follow up. No Environmental Assessment. This evidence came to light after the deputation, after the Mayor told us that the only way to save the forest was to purchase it ourselves. Though 1 1/2 acres of the forest had just been purchased for $650,000 in 2000, a bargain for a municipality with $630 million in reserves, it seemed unlikely that the developer, with city council at his side would sell, even if the community was able to raise the money. Treesavers,
a small community group of outraged citizens was thus formed to determine
what could be done to prevent the destruction of this small mature forest,
60 -75 years old in van Wassenaer’s estimation. With advice
of staff from Evergreen Common Grounds, 3 meetings were arranged, first
with the Mayor, then with the ward councillor and a representative of the
property owner and finally with the owner himself. Evergreen's
former Land Trusts & Conservation Manager, Barbara Heidenreich
identified the salient points of the case, gave advice on what tasks needed
to be taken care of, the key information that needed to
Heidenreich offered concrete options for preserving the site including ideas for revising the site plan, providing examples of other developers who preserved forests and substantiated the belief that subdivisions with forests are just as profitable to developers in terms of dollars. Her extensive knowledge of planning and development and her knowledge of other cases kept us on solid ground. A site plan was submitted to area residents that pledged to save 173 of 429 trees, 60 of them along the periphery of the property. When council approved the rezoning application February 12th 2003, the site plan included a tree preservation area that represented about one quarter of the forest. Because our environment is going to hell in handbasket, I continued to lobby the landowner and the developer, hoping to persuade them to save at least ½ the forest. Only one of the other members of Treesavers, Susan Karranadjas shared my view that that more should be saved and together we appealed the by-laws. Back and forth we negotiated with one face to face meeting, but mostly by email for more than two months. In the end the landowner agreed to redesign the townhouse complex and nearly an acre (.86) will be saved by a decision ratifed by the OMB. The settlement agreement provided for a rectangular, contiguous tree preservation area stretching from Killaby Road to Britannia. Van Wassenaer, who helped in the community effort to preserve the one hectare forest, and gave evidence at the hearing said, “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.” In his letter of opinion, van Wassenaer commented that the enlarged, contiguous strip of forest “is preferable to the originally proposed Tree Preservation Plan” passed by the by-laws, which allowed for two smaller tree preservation areas, together about one half acre in total. “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," he stated. Certainly Fitzwood Investments, their representatives Mark Mandelbaum and Linda Warth, and their parent company H&R Development should be commended for being good corporate citizens. They seriously listened to the concerns of this community and responded favourably, not once, but twice, the second time, enlarging the tree preservation area by 36 trees and one third more of an acre. Though I was pleased that the developer made some serious concessions, I was terribly disappointed in the lack of leadership by the Mayor and Mississauga City Council. Municipal budgets need enlarge the budjet forbuying and managing our forests. When are our elected officials going to wake up and smell the toxins. In the meantime, more people need to stand up for it and can make a difference. - 30 - If you would like to share your views about this case or have questions, contact Therese Taylor at tmtaylor@idirect.ca Reach-out and make a difference PLEEASSE SIGN OUR PETITION It will make a difference! Home Page - Main Table of Contents - Back up a page - Back to Top |
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