June 25, 2012: Open letter to City Councillors
In June 2011, the Ridgewood South Precinct Study Team held a public meeting to notify Charleswood residents of plans to develop the area known as ‘Ridgewood South’, approximately 1,000 acres of largely vacant land that supports a diversity of wildlife not seen in other areas of the city. It is bound by the Harte Trail, Wilkes Avenue, Assiniboine Forest and the Perimeter Highway. The City expects 3000 to 4000 new homes to be built with an influx of 5,000 to 8,000 people. Qualico, the developer, owns about 60% of the area. To facilitate and guide the development process, the city and Qualico created a ‘Study Team’, comprised of City of Winnipeg planners and naturalists together with Qualico representatives.
Concerns about effects of the development sparked the formation of Citizens for Charleswood Habitat Preservation (CCHP). CCHP is a community group with a mandate to represent and promote Charleswood residents’ concerns about protecting existing natural areas, as well as transportation and drainage issues related to the proposed development. Please see our website (http://www.cchpcharleswood.org/) for further information about our group and what we are trying to accomplish.
We are sending you this letter to ask your support for our vision of a development that conserves natural areas that contribute to urban biodiversity that benefits not only wildlife but also the people within the community. This development represents the last opportunity to conserve natural areas in the Charleswood community.
Charleswood is unique. It has a distinctive country feel in large part because of the plant and animal communities both south and north of the Harte Trail. The combination of the Harte Trail and adjacent patches of aspen and oak forest, wetlands and grasslands give Charleswood residents a unique connection with nature. These natural areas contribute both to biodiversity in this part of Winnipeg and to the rural feel of the community. For these reasons, it is a desirable part of the city in which to live. We are concerned that the development planned for Ridgewood South will destroy the very features that residents value and that make Charleswood unique. Further loss of urban biodiversity should also be a concern for the City of Winnipeg and Province of Manitoba as the natural areas in urban communities continue to decline.
CCHP has always maintained that at least 25% of the natural area in the precinct should be protected from development. Though only required to protect 10%, the developer has reflected 14% green space in the most recent concept drawings presented by the planning team at its April open house. It will be up to the City to work with CCHP and other community groups to find tools to identify and protect the additional 11%. We had hoped that a 2007 Memorandum of Agreement (MOU) between the Province of Manitoba and the City of Winnipeg would assist with habitat preservation in the precinct. Within this MOU the co-signatories agreed to work together to protect biodiversity as part of urban planning (http://news.gov.mb.ca/news/index.html?archive=2007-06-01&item=1781). Although this document may have been the framework for the Ecologically Significant Natural Lands (ESNL) Strategy, we have determined that no natural lands in Winnipeg have ever been protected under this MOU.
Our attempts to discuss preservation of natural areas with the City have not been encouraging. In the fall of 2011, the City conducted a Natural Areas Assessment (NAA) in the Precinct as the first step in identifying natural areas that may be considered for protection from development under the ESNL Strategy. CCHP raised a number of concerns with the assessment. Natural areas were graded solely on the basis of plant surveys that were either old (dating back to 1993) or conducted after the end of the growing season in 2011. Some species groups were lumped as a single category raising the possibility that rare plants were not identified. Habitats were graded on their level of disturbance and presence of introduced species without regard for their use by wildlife including COSEWIC listed species. Six high quality areas of either aspen or oak forest were identified but no grassland or wetland habitats were listed for consideration.
Through Native Plant Solutions (NPS), Qualico is now conducting plant and wildlife surveys on property that it owns in the Precinct. With the help of volunteers, CCHP is concurrently conducting surveys on natural lands of interest, not owned by Qualico. City Naturalists declined to work with us to conduct a more comprehensive assessment of the plants and wildlife in the Precinct. We are currently working in cooperation with NPS and expect to submit a joint report of the results to the City for use in better supporting the Precinct design development process.
The planning team has been responsive to traffic and drainage issues raised by CCHP. The extension of the WRCP (W.R. Clement Parkway and connection to Wilkes Ave.) will permit direct access and egress from the Precinct without having to traverse the existing residential areas. The closing of Charleswood Rd. at the Harte Trail will prevent a dangerous overloading problem at Oak Park High School, and studies are underway to mitigate the anticipated major impacts on traffic volumes on Harstone and Dieppe Rds. We are also in the process of drafting a noise and vibration abatement protocol to mitigate the impact of the WRCP, and CN Rail’s main line on the adjacent residential areas which will be presented to the developer and the Assiniboine Community Committee for their consideration and possible incorporation into the Precinct Plan this fall.
We are hoping to work with city planners to work through the infrastructure needs of the expanded community as well as to identify a methodology that will permit the purchase of additional lands to make up the 25% or more of natural areas that CCHP wants set aside in the new development. We look forward to your cooperation in this regard, and your assistance in making it happen.
Sincerely:
Victoria Macdonald
President - CCHP
