Southlands in Transition

Here are two good articles for your online reading:

First, from this weekend's Focus section of the Globe & Mail, "Sustainability: The Human Scale Urban Village-- Windsor is Running out of Gas." "A city built almost exclusively by and for the premier transportation method of the 20th century now faces the 21st century's core socio-economic challenge: the urgent need to move beyond an automobile-centred, gasoline-driven way of life."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080419.TURNER19/TPSto...

Next, from the NY Times, "Why Bother?" for which a brief abstract would not do justice...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magazine/20wwln-lede-t.html?_r=2&oref=...

I was interested in a comment in a previous posting concerning the inability of the Southlands to “feed the masses” in its farming endeavours. The SCPT has a clear vision for Southlands: 1/3 of the land to be preserved for agriculture, in perpetuity; managed by the community, through an agricultural land trust, for the health and education of the community. Another 1/3 of the land is to be set aside for amenities, which many of us hope includes an educational facility for lifelong learning opportunities, to nurture and “feed” the intellectual, philosophical, practical, personal, and overall holistic aspects of our community. A large part of this learning could be around sustainable agriculture.

There’s an interesting article in last weekend’s Globe & Mail, “Guerilla barley growers go against the grain.” An artists’ cooperative whose members are suburbanites have been doing installations around their suburban homes to “launch… a series of satirical assaults on the conventions and conceits of the modern world’s most common, and least sustainable residential lifestyle…. Paint[ing] a vivid, microcosmic portrait of the increasingly pitched confrontation between the suburban monoculture and the mixed-use imperatives of a sustainable community.” Recently, they grew a crop of barley where “suburban propriety dictated a putting-green lawn should be.

I wish to clarify my thoughts on ALR, and preservation of ALR from my previous posting, which were actually stated in the context of Southlands, and that in respect to the Southlands ALR is a notion that is not useful. As part of a package, the owner has agreed to go beyond ALR protection on a portion of the land, to provide 1/3 of the land to the community in the form of a community land trust to be used for agriculture and education (that's the wider community, not just the people who live on the Southlands). Another 1/3 of the land would be set aside for community amenities/usage, and a portion of that could be agricultural and/or ecological.

The future of agriculture on the Southlands is so important to our volunteer planning team that we designated a sub-committee to research and present recommendations on it. Among the needs our Agricultural Committee identified: long-term food security, community-based agriculture (CSAs), local, small-scale, sustainable agriculture, education for life-long learning about agriculture, enhancement of biodiversity and protection of wildlife, and large expanses of green spaces as vital to our community’s future.

Did anyone listen to this CBC radio program on today? It was featuring a group in 100-mile-house that is saving farmland in perpetuity (133 acres on the Horse Lake Community Farm; see their 'aims' below). The interesting thing that the host, Mark Forsythe, initially noted was that this dedicated group discarded notions of using ALR to preserve farmland because it was insufficient.

What they did instead was far more progressive and ensures their land forever remains agricultural and is used for the community's benefit: they used The Land Conservancy (basically a charitable land trust) to create a permanent covenant on the land that ensures preservation in perpetuity.

A couple of us are going up to Yarrow Ecovillage on an informal field trip to look at their small-plot organic farms and take a tour from the development coordinator, who will show us their housing and ammenities plans. It is very small (25 acres) and in the Cultus Lake area. I don't know how many team members are checking the blog, but if any other planning team members want to come give me a call/email me directly & we can set up carpooling. I have either 5 or six seats in a vehicle and can offer to drive. We have not set a date & are looking at calendars at this time.

Carla

Hi everyone,

On your trip through Fairview, did anyone note how many feet there were between homes? I lived in a similar development to this, done by Parklane. It was built on sustainable principles, and had many of the features Fairview has. In fact the houses look very similar and there were some amazing gardens in the back of these small lots. The original trees had all been cut down and new landscaping done, which looked neat and clean but was wholly detrimental to privacy and sound supression, but was done for ease of building.