A small and rapidly closing WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
Unprotected Shields Lake in the Sooke Hills at the south end of the Sea-to-Sea Green Blue Belt is a backpacker's paradise. Photo credit: WCWC file.
Growth experts in the Capital Regional District are projecting a 25 percent population increase over the next ten years 400,000 people by the year 2010. This will crowd the city and surrounding area. Many current green spaces that are not in parks or protected areas will not be green any more as they are gobbled up by growth.
Look around. It's the green spaces and the nearby wildlands that now make this region so beautiful and liveable.
To take a quote from the CRD's new Parks Draft Master Plan, "It is essential to plan now for a regional parks and trails system that will meet the needs of present and future residents. A critical part of that process must be to acquire the appropriate land base of natural areas, before they are lost to urban and suburban development."
This Draft Master Plan identifies properties that are crucial to achieving the Region's Green Blue Spaces vision. The Sea-to-Sea Green Blue Belt is an important component of this plan.
Other acquisitions are also required to protect the integrity of existing parks to complete the region's trail system. According to this Plan the cost of purchasing the lands is estimated to be between $25 and $30 million.
Are you willing to pay $6 to $10 a year for more parks?
On Election Day, November 20, 1999 many municipalities in the CRD will include an "opinion poll" question on their ballot. Voters will be asked whether or not they support the establishment of a regional parkland acquisition fund. It is not a referendum. The results will not be binding.
A parkland acquisition fund will allow CRD Parks to purchase significant natural areas identified by the public and documented in the draft CRD Parks Master Plan in 1998. This fund is needed because there are no "uncommitted" public funds to acquire additional parkland.
To date, 3.6 percent of Greater Victoria has been protected as regional parkland. Much of the area's remaining unprotected green space is at risk because of the region's rapid population growth.
Purchasing lands for parks today, to secure the health of our region for the future, makes sense. The land is affordable now, but it may not be for long.
Some of the region's ecosystems are extremely threatened. For example 95 percent of the original Garry Oak Woodlands in the Capital Region have already been lost to development.
The population of the Capital Region has already grown by 25 percent over the last 10 years and this extremely fast growth rate is expected to continue. New parks and additions to old parks are needed to keep our Capital Region one of the finest small cities in all of North America.
