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SHORT
WETLAND QUIZ:
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Related to the
two landscapes, pictured below... |
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1. Which property is
newly designated "wetland"?, and,
2. Which property is
city-approved "development land"?
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South
side of Flewellyn Road, at Conley Road |
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North
side of Hazeldean Road, at Main Street |
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The City is
attempting to downgrade the manicured lawns and dry forest of
the private residential property (shown above left), by
re-designating it from General Rural (RU2) to "Wetlands", thus
reducing its resale value by approximately 85%. |
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Meanwhile, not
too far away, the City is simultaneously upgrading this wetland
property --with its wall-to-wall cattails-- (shown above right),
located at the entrance to Stittsville ...for development into
housing and other commercial use. |
To make matters even worse, many of
the more than fifty private property-owners, with lands similar to
that shown on the left, are being subjected to "contrived" wetlands
designations by a series of City maneuvers that landowners consider,
at very least, unfair, but some say is more likely the result
deliberate backroom connivance.
There are several points at issue:
Drainage failures
abound:
City drainage failures are causing
seasonal, (and in some cases, year-round), flooding of portions of
many of the subject lands. Under the Drainage Act, the City is
responsible for maintaining proper drainage. It is NOT
doing that. The area in question has experienced years of City
neglect, even after repeated requests for proper ditch maintenance to remove
accumulating water that has been redirected to the Fernbank Road and
Flewellyn Road areas from development projects to the north, (projects that were largely built on true wetlands).
The City has an obligation to its
ratepayers to return these downstream properties to
their original un-flooded state before ANY honest and fair
evaluation of their wetland potential can be considered.
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WOULD THE CITY'S ROADS
AND DITCHES EXPERTS PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY THESE INCREASING FLOWS,
THROUGH DECREASING CULVERT SIZES WOULD NOT CAUSE FLOODING OF
PRIVATE PROPERTIES?
Upstream flows
from a 7'x5' culvert crossing Fernbank Road
collect more water from inlets along the unopened road
allowance, (shown at left), then cross Flewellyn Road and
continue through a
4'
culvert, then proceed along Conley Road, having to pass
through a 3' culvert, before making a 900 turn to the
right, pouring into the overgrown Hobbs Drain (shown at right). |
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Unopened road
allowance on north side of Flewellyn Road, just before crossing
to south. |
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Overgrown opening
to Hobbs Drain as it heads westerly from its Conley Road
starting point. |
Working behind the backs of
impacted
landowners is unacceptable:
The fact that the City had secretly
worked with the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority (RVCA) and Ministry of Natural Resources
(MNR) for close to two
years, to plan wetland re-designations on specific properties,
before informing residents of its intention to re-designate these
private properties, appears dishonest. Given that this clandestine
project is now seriously tainted as being unethical, the City should
cease and desist its wetlands acquisition project in this area, and
begin an open and transparent review of the matter, some years down
the road, after the City's own drainage
problems have been corrected.
City must develop a
policy for fair compensation before playing 'Robin Hood in reverse':
The fact that the City was doing
all of this secret planning, while at the same time was destroying
hundreds of acres of TRUE WETLANDS in the Stittsville area for
development use, also appears to have created a distrustful double
standard. It's a sort of 'Robin Hood in reverse: Rob from the poor,
and give to the rich' scenario. If the City wishes to artificially create
replacement wetlands, then it should first develop a policy of fairly
compensating landowners for their losses in property values.
(Anything short of that smacks of fascism.)
"Complexing"
not legitimately used in this case:
The overused
buzzword in all of this is “COMPLEXING”, used to describe
connectivity of one recognized wetland with other potential wetland
sites. The
arbitrary distance of 750 Metres is used to apply wetland
designations to new properties with very little, if any, real
science or detailed study to back it.
“Complexing” may
have limited application in a legitimate wetland context, but used as
a ruse to re-designate non-wetland properties to wetland designations by
mere use of the term --rather than through the application of scientific
diligence-- is a scientifically and morally specious exercise and a
fraud.
Given the almost
confluent strings of cattails (and other wetland flora) in
Goulbourn's badly neglected municipal drains and roadside ditches (a
serious degradation since amalgamation), and following the above
mentality to its ridiculous endpoint, one could easily argue that
there are sufficient grounds to re-designate ALL of rural Goulbourn
as a significant wetland area.
That, to a lesser
degree, is exactly what the City and its cohort agencies (the RVCA
and MNR) are effectively trying to do when they “complex” new
wetland designations from their aerial ‘wish lists’ of properties
they malevolently seek to re-assign ---in
total absence of on-the-ground science or examination of City
drainage maintenance deficiencies.
Conflicts of
Interest are especially worrisome in Goulbourn's case:
Finally, it has
to be stated that the negatively impacted Goulbourn residents feel
doubly disadvantaged because the most targeted area of the City for
its ("Subwatershed Reach 2") contrived wetlands replacement
assault by the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority (RVCA) and
Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) ---at the behest of the City---
is Goulbourn ward, the Councillor of which: sits as Vice-Chair of the
RVCA.
The ratepayers
who are victims of this clandestine land grab feel that the Councillor’s work on behalf of the RVCA, puts her in direct conflict
with the landowners’ interests, when it is actually the ratepayers who pay
her salary, not the RVCA. Residents not only feel abandoned and unrepresented
by their Councillor, but they feel that their interests are actually
being sabotaged and undermined by this grave conflict situation.
The whispered
fear of the rural property owners is that their land is the Councillor’s
sacrificial lamb, or appeasement offering, for the 50% lost quota
of wetlands (3% vs. 6% according to the RVCA) that may have been
promised in trade for the exceptionally high Ward-6 loss of true wetlands bordering Stittsville,
that has been turned over to development interests.
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ONE
MORE STITTSVILLE WETLAND CONVERTED TO DEVELOPMENT* |
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BEFORE |
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AFTER |
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*FAIR SOLUTION?...
Perhaps the City should require developers of wetlands to pay
the cost of purchasing equivalent acreage of replacement wetlands out of their own
profits, rather than have the City simply "steal" it, at the expense of lost property values to small local
property owners.
That way, the
small landowners could be paid fair market prices for their
lands, and the City and its 'sub-agency', the RVCA (and others
such as MNR), could flood all they like, to artificially create
their desired replacement wetlands.
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Links to Related Elements
of the Story:
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Aug 24 - 2005
Two daily newspapers report on land stripping defense move
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Aug 22 - 2005
Lack of
trust of city's motives given as reason for clearing of land
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Aug 16 - 2005
Goulbourn
Landowners Group invite LLA to share ideas at presentation
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Aug
8 -
2005
City backs off on
wetland designations - for now - The Stittsville News
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Aug 9 - 2005
LETTER:
Complexing is a violation of natural justice - The Stittsville
News
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Aug 9 - 2005
LETTER:
Not a wetland! - The Stittsville News
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Aug 7 - 2005
THE POLITICS
OF WETLAND PROTECTION - The Ottawa Citizen
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Aug 5 - 2005
Goulbourn
residents voice concern with city decision-making - OVN
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July 26 -
2005
There is a
definite dual standard here - The Stittsville News
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July 19 -
2005
650 acres of land
are dry forest, not wetland - The Stittsville News
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July 4 - 2005
Wetlands
Designation Problems outlined in position paper presented to City
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June 8 - 2005
Rural
Council Protest Rally at City Hall - (Go to presentation
re: wetlands)
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May 16 - 2005
How farmland became
wetland - from The Ottawa Citizen
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May 3 - 2005
Heritage farm
threatened by city land grab - LETTER: The Stittsville News
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May 3 - 2005
Rural Goulbourn
residents are being robbed
- The Stittsville News
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Aug 4 - 2004
Report
on the LLA Meeting in Richmond - re: "Jock River Reach 2"
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