Green Langford

posted by admin on Apr 26

By Edward Hill – Goldstream News Gazette
Published: April 21, 2011 11:00 AM
Updated: April 21, 2011 11:25 AM

Christina Willing opens the tall wire gate to what was once a community garden, now overgrown with broom and largely forgotten. She scowls at a sign that reads “Willing Park Closed.”

About 10 years ago the garden was abandoned, although the tall deer fencing and a broken down shed remains. But with homes and townhouses cropping up next door in Valley View Estates, Willing wants the community to get better use from the park that bears her family name.

“We already have a fenced in area for a garden. The rest is a natural area enjoyed by animals and birds,” says Willing, as she walks through a pasture that was once part of her family’s dairy farm.

“I’d like to see a garden and community trails. It’s a place people can go as a family and have a picnic in a natural area. There are all kinds of possibilities.”

More than 12 years ago Willing and her late husband donated about five acres to Langford, and the City purchased the rest to create 14-acre Willing Park, a public greenspace that, despite the initial stab at gardening, has remained idle and little known.

Willing, 85, has walked the property almost every day since settling on the farm in 1945. A stream cuts the rough land under a canopy of alder and cedar trees. It remains home to chirping birds and deer, and in earlier days, the odd bear and cougar.

Melanie Willing, the wife of one of Christina’s grandsons, says as higher-density housing becomes the norm across Langford, the demand for community gardens will only increase. A decade ago, the land next door was a chicken farm, now it’s a growing residential neighbourhood.

“The numbers (of people) are here now. There’s lots of homes with little or no yard,” Melanie says. “Langford’s focus is big box shopping and all the amenities, which is great. Still there is room for heritage agriculture and farming.”

“We need people interested in it and not to leave it. It is a valuable piece of land as far as agriculture goes. It’s very good soil,” the elder Willing says. “If you look at the community now, houses lack any type of garden. And people are becoming more interested where their food comes from.”

Langford Coun. Lanny Seaton, chair of the parks and recreation committee, admits that indeed, the City doesn’t have any plans for the greenspace.

At one point part of the park was eyed as a place to run dogs, and rough measurements were made to see if ball diamonds would fit, but nothing is on the table.

“We’ve been so busy with the Sportsplex and the new fields, that’s really taken a lot of energy and resources,” Seaton says. “If we were to do something (with Willing Park), we’d get together with the community.”

The fenced-off garden has no running water or power to run a well, he noted, making a potential community garden more difficult to maintain.

“I could see a community group running (a garden),” Seaton said. “Our vision is to keep it open and wild. But it’s good property, and we’re holding onto it, but we have no real plans for it.”

Ideally, the Willings would like to see it left wild too, although with a few maintained walking trails and places to have a picnic. Access is better too, they say, since the completion of Frederic Road off Willing Drive. People can also access the park off Wild Ridge Way.

“I want it developed into a park while I’m still here,” the elder Willing said. “People need a place to go where there is peace and quiet, especially these days. I’d love to leave some places around so my grandchildren and great-grandchildren can enjoy the outdoors.”

Holding her young daughters’ hands, Melanie agrees, and hopes people will step forward to help re-establish the community garden.

“The neighbours have no idea it’s here. It’s so hidden away,” Melanie says. “I hope people in the community become aware of this hidden little secret.”

Anyone interested in a community garden at Willing park can email Melanie Willing at mkwilling@hotmail.ca.

posted by admin on Sep 15

lands and farms are being taken over by housing subdivisions

This semi-rural area in a flood plain is subjected to heavy construction as houses are levelled, soil is scraped and farmers try to cope with the new reality.

There will only a chain link fence separating a herd of cattle from the new subdivision, with no buffer between city and country.

posted by admin on Aug 23

Dean Murdock
Saanich Councillor, and
Peninsula Agricultural Commission Liaison

Once again, our region is faced with the challenge of proposals to develop agricultural land for residential purposes. The market value of farm land as potential real estate is a tempting cash infusion for farmers struggling to maintain a profit.  But this is a short-term solution.  In the long run, it is no solution at all — and brings major consequences for future food production, land use, and our valued quality of life.

As our population grows, there is increased demand for development and pressure to break through our urban containment boundaries and encroach upon agricultural land. Many local governments in the province have done just that. But developing agricultural land to accommodate growth is killing the goose for its golden egg.  It compromises our food security and makes a mockery of our land-use plans (and the citizens’ input into them), while contributing to car-dependent sprawl.

Instead of paving our farmland for housing to generate real estate income, we should be looking for more ways to support our local farmers and their food production by keeping farming profitable. There are lots of options: creating “pocket markets” to sell local foods, encouraging local governments and businesses to bring in a “buy local” policy for events, and working with senior levels of government to create incentives for grocers to offer local food choices.

As we develop an Agricultural Action Plan, I welcome your ideas and suggestions on ways to support local farmers and encourage local food production.   Send me your ideas: http://deanmurdock.ca/contact-me

Buying local food doesn’t just support our farmers, it’s good for our health and environment too.  Local food is fresher and has a much smaller carbon footprint. Since it arrives fresh, it needs less (or no) preservatives.

Protecting and enhancing local food production starts with saving our agricultural land and maintaining our community’s urban containment boundaries. We have already planned, through public consultation, technical analysis, and council approvals, to concentrate future density in urban centres and to buffer farm lands from suburban intrusion.  It reflects our long-term commitment to a future that avoids further urban sprawl, reduces congestion and greenhouse gases, and ensures we have an abundant local food supply.

Let’s support our farmers and save our farmland.  Doing so will protect our quality of life, food security, our health, and our climate for now and future generations.

posted by admin on Aug 14

Manufacturing our local landscapes

Published: August 03, 2010 1:00 PM

A native black-cap bush used to grow beside the road just along from my place. It yielded tasty berries unlike anything you can buy.

To me the bush seemed such a treasure that in a dry August I carried buckets to water it. So I was shocked to see one summer morning that a neighbourhood-improver had tidied the road margin by leveling the ground and rooting out all vegetation, including my valued black-cap, for a couple of square metres.

Walking past the patch of brown goat pasture where the black-cap used to grow, I am troubled by the sense of loss that bites me when someone spoils the local mini-landscape.

I felt that kind of dismay on a larger scale when I looked out the window of the No. 58 Langford Meadows bus and saw a tract of seasonal wetland at the foot of Langford Lake advertised for sale or lease — presumably to be developed and paved over, like other wetlands in this lake’s tiny watershed and flood plain.

The advertised stretch of land includes a trail bordered by a thick hedge of blackberry bushes — a trail which some of us simple-minded, unwary people imagined was public property. Linked to the trail that skirts the lake is a thin fringe of woodland screening off the general expanse of concrete.

People gather hundreds of pounds of blackberries on the auxiliary trail that lies on the land now advertised for sale. Couldn’t something be done to save this source of food close to home? Buy and keep the land as a public trust, maybe?

I know other people who feel a sense of loss in a variety of contexts. Along the stretch of Wishart Road that fronts on the federal woodland adjoining Royal Roads University, for example, some people are seriously bothered because Colwood municipality has filled in a grassy ditch or small valley which used to be the perfect place to walk a small dog.

Now it is just a flat, sterile stretch of gravel. Did the municipality really save money on cutting the grass within that miniature valley, by filling it in? Several residents of Wishart have been unable to get city hall to answer that question, or pay any attention to their complaints.

This issue may seem trivial. But it is a sign of the coarse texture of local politics, the insensitivity of local government to the feelings of citizens. This blurred connection is especially troublesome on the boundary between human settlement and wild nature — if those realms really are separate from one another.

One trend of thought suggests that wild areas are no longer truly wild, and the whole planet has become one zoological garden, destructively mismanaged by its human keepers.

The high fence that used to enclose that stretch of woodland on Wishart — too high for deer to jump over — has been replaced by a low barrier. It’s an easy jump, so deer routinely cross over and browse on the neighbourhood gardens.

Deer have become halfway domestic animals, as expanding residential development invades their habitat, and there are no cougars to thin their numbers. They are a pretty sight, grazing along the edges of golf courses and in our remaining tracts of woodland.

But they make trouble for themselves and humans when they crowd across roads and cause traffic crashes. What are we supposed to do about all that? Humane birth control may be the answer. For deer and rabbits you do it by capture; for people, by persuasion.

Zero growth — the steady-state economy — is strongly argued in the current issue of New Internationalist magazine. Population control is part of the design for reducing world poverty while cooling and reversing the doctrine of growth which, ecologists contend, is killing the planet.

—G.E. Mortimore is a Langford-based writer. Think About It runs every second week in the Gazette.

http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_south/goldstreamgazette/opinion/99837539.html

posted by admin on Mar 16

Former agricultural land to become subdivision in Langford

BY BILL CLEVERLEY, TIMES COLONISTMARCH 16, 2010

A 501-unit subdivision on a 13.9 hectare parcel at 936 Flatman Ave. was given Langford council’s blessing Monday night following a low-key public hearing.

To be known as McCormick Meadows, the proposal made by architect Herbert Kwan for Sydney and Gay McCormick, is to create 102 single family lots, 61 townhouses and 338 apartment units in five buildings of up to six storeys on the formerly agricultural land.
Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/travel/Former+agricultural+land+become+subdivision+Langford/2689931/story.html

RELATED: Houses planned for farmland

posted by admin on Dec 14

To City Planning:

I am writing in regards to Bylaw 1262

a) Planning, Zoning & Affordable Housing Committee – November 9′”, 2009 14

1. Rezoning Application – 3324, 3328, 3348 & 3352 Hazelwood Road and 1024 Englewood Ave (Application to Rezone from AGI [Agriculture 1] and R2A [One and Two Family Residential] to a new Comprehensive Development zone to allow for the development of approximately 65 residential lots (File No. Z -09-16)

——————————————–

I was unaware of this zoning proposal until recently when I decided  to walk down Hazelwood Rd. instead of my usual route on the Galloping  Goose and saw the sign.  Truthfully, it is very difficult to keep up  with the speed of the rezoning proposals that come forward.

The traditional layout of this neighbourhood is well suited for being  situated on a flood plain. (http://bilstoncreek.org/floods.htm)  If/when the floods come, (and they always will), very few homes are  affected, and the agricultural land is not affected, and at best, it  helps prepare it for the dry summer ahead.

The more I learn about food security, the more I know how extremely  fortunate Langford is to have agricultural land and neighbourhoods  like Hazelwood, and how important it is to save them from becoming  some generic suburb that could be anywhere in North America.

This unique, old neighbourhood can be preserved and with support from  the city, as per the Langford Agricultural Strategy, make parts of  the yards into productive food gardens. This would bring more  families closer to becoming self-sustaining, and add further produce  to the Farmers Market.

It could also be showcased to the world, to highlight a city with  great vision and foresight, that realized the true value in having  and retaining such places as the Hazelwood neighbourhood and it’s  agricultural lands in the ALR.  When the situation soon arises, and  communities need to rely more on their own resources to produce food,  Langford could be among the “haves”, not a “have not” like all the  other cities.

I am not anti-development because development and growth can be  parsed various ways. The main core surrounding downtown is the most  practical and logical place to develop for housing and density by  adding high rises and multi-family units to that corridor rather than  outlying areas. – The main roadway and public transportation corridor is in this area – It is already developed and not agricultural land. – It is easy to walk to amenities – pedestrian friendly

In contrast, South Langford lacks road infrastructure, amenities,  good public transportation, no bus shelters and claws away more  scarce agricultural land. The long run costs to the city in terms of  services and infrastructure needed, will outweigh the short run  financial benefits, not to mention the new social costs  that arise  with increased density.

A one acre organic micro-farm has the potential to generate a $40,000  income while maintaining the land’s fertility.  (http://www.new-terra-natural-food.com/micro-farming-for-profit.html )

Landowners producing food and value-added products and services can  begin right now and generate money for the local economy year after  year with stable, real sustainable, local employment for those  involved.  The low density also mean no further infrastructure,  services or increase of flood damage claims. How is that not a  win-win situation?

Various groups of citizens are organizing in response to Langford  Agricultural Strategy to work with the city, other regions, and  organizations, on many of the issues outlined in the Strategy.  Alternate plans that include developing a strong agricultural sector  in the local economy could be more beneficial to the city and  citizens over the long run, and a chance should be given to compile  and present the data. (In development: http://greenlangford.ca/)

It would make a great deal of sense to place a moratorium on any further housing development in these low density /  agricultural/Greenbelt lands until there is chance for this report to  be discussed by interested local residents. It would be a great show  of faith and commitment on the city’s part that it is taking the  Langford Agricultural Strategy seriously.

Regards, Deb Harper

http://homegrow.ca/

posted by admin on Jun 21

By Zoe Blunt

June 2009
Langford’s farmers, food lovers, and political bodies are struggling with the dilemma of farmland preservation

Along Bilston Creek, fat mallards flap and quack over a willow thicket and red-winged blackbirds perch on cattails to sing their spring songs. Nearby fields are dotted with blackberries, horse paddocks, and hay bales. But public notices on Happy Valley Road warn that new housing developments are on the horizon, and these farmlands and wetlands are getting squeezed by creeping urbanization. For years, Langford’s fastgrowth policies have put the city squarely at odds with local food and farming advocates.

Read full article here…