The Gorge Waterway - an environmental success story

I am going to start doing some Vlogging as well as posting on this blog.   Here is my first short piece

My Street = Orillia Street

I live on Orillia Street, a completely unremarkable street in the Tillicum Gorge neighbourhood of Saanich.   I have lived in the neighbourhood for 12 years and on this street for 30 months now.

The street:

• is only 900 meters long, for 500 meters of that we have a sidewalk
• has 59 houses on Orillia 
• most of the houses were constructed between 1920 and 1940 but a number of them have been demolished to make way for much, much larger houses
• the oldest house is from 1890 
• has Tillicum elementary school on it
• has one book box
• there is no pedestrian light to get over Burnside even though the bus stop is at the corner of Burnside and Orillia.   There is no light either at Gorge and Orillia even though the main park in the area is across the Gorge from Orillia and the sidewalk on Orillia makes it a street people use to get to the Gorge park
• there is no crosswalk at Orillia and Obed.   People have tried to paint one in since the crosswalk on Orillia and the one on Obed do not connect
• Orillia is a short walk from shopping at Tillicum Mall and at the shopping centre at Gorge and Tillicum.   Pearkes Rec Centre and the Saanich Centennial Library are also a short walk away

26 years since the Eaton/Bay Centre opened and it has never been a good fit

Eaton's building facing Broad Street

In 1990 Caddilac Fairview opened a mall in downtown located where a dozen heritage buildings were located.    26 years later and the Bay Centre remains a blight on the city landscape.    Malls started to become a big thing by the mid 1960s and hit their heyday in the early 1980s.   By the time the Eaton (Bay) Centre was proposed the classic suburban mall was in decline.

Overall the Bay Centre mall harms the streetscape for blocks around

Issues with the Bay Centre

• A very bland suburban mall - the stores are national chain stores and the interior has nothing that lets you know you are in Victoria.    The mall was supposed to have four floors for stores but never managed to rent out retail space on the fourth floor
• The Bay Centre has no destination stores, it is not a draw for the general public.  It replaced a whole series of small downtown boutique type stores that did draw people 
• The mall bisects Old Town.   Before the mall opened there was a natural flow of pedestrian traffic from the Inner Harbour to City Hall along Gordon and Broad Streets.   The loss of this path for the public means that on either side of the mall traffic is down from what it used to be.   You can see this impact clearly in how often store fronts on Broad street south or north of the mall are empty.
• Government street between Fort and View Street is cold because of the huge empty facade of the mall on the east side of the street.    It is also the only block side on Government between the Inner Harbour and Pandora that has very little street level retail
• View Street between Government and Broad has never regained the vibrancy it had - it is a very cold and dead.   
• Victoria Old Town is small enough already, the loss of the heritage buildings reduced the tourism draw of the city.
• The mall is very closed in and does not have clear sight lines to the outside.  Once inside the mall it is as of you are no longer in Victoria.   The mall not only is not drawing people downtown but it is keeping people away.

What we really need to have happen is for the City to develop a plan on how to deal with the failure that is the mall.    There has to be some way to improve the streets around the mall and to bring more people out onto the streets

Cuthbert Holmes Park - workparty Saturday, November 30, 2013

This came into my email box, I will not make it because I am at the Winteree at Mount Doug Park:

Hi everyone,

It's looking great in the park, and we're going to take advantage of the great weather and host a workparty in Cuthbert Holmes on Saturday, November 30, 2013 from 10 am to noonish. We will meet behind Pearkes Arena and proceed to the site at Area A.

Although we have some tool and gloves, please feel free to bring your own as well as some water.

I hope to see you out there. Cheers.

Julian

Good News for the Day - Record Coho run on the Colquitz

Colquitz Fish Fence - all photos courtesy of the GCTA

One of the Colquitz Coho

The run is not yet done and much larger numbers of fish have migrated up the Colquitz than any previous year I am aware of.   Last year there was a total of 210 fish, this year we are over 1000 already.  In the 13 or 14 years there has been active count on the Colquitz, there have been between 200 and 300 Coho, nothing like this year.  I am told the record was something like 525 a decade ago.

On November 2nd of this year they counted 446 fish, a new record that is much higher than the past recorded record of 162 in one day.

In an inner city suburb it is good when nature is not far off

The fish are counted at the fish fence, which is that bridge like structure just behind Montana's at Tillicum Mall.  It is easy enough to find if you want to go see what is going on.  I have been told the best time to come and watch the action is at around 10 am which on most days is when the count is done.  I will go check it out on Thursday morning.

The recovery of the Gorge waterway and the Colquitz are examples of what can be done when people put their mind to making positive change.   It is a great example that doom and gloom is not the only path, we can make changes to improve the world.   There was a time when the Gorge was filled with raw sewage as well as pollution from the Inner Harbour.   The Colquitz was effectively nothing more than a fetid drainage ditch.   Now we have a strong return of the fish, we see otters and seals in the Gorge, we can swim again in the waters.   In about half a generation we recovered the waterway heart of this region.

These fish remarkably have swum past two bridge construction projects.  They also all swum through the Inner Harbour with all the floatplanes, yachts and the Coho ferry.  

There are reports of spawning salmon on the Colquitz as far as Mann Ave, in the Copley Park area and Swan Creek upstream from Violet ave. The most common place for the Coho to spawn is on a small gravel bed near the fish fence.

I have not heard for certain, but I hear other creeks in the region are having decent salmon runs.

A view of the fish fence in operation

I think it is important for us as people to have functioning parts of the natural world close to where we live.   It is too easy for modern urban humans to become disconnected from the natural world but each time we recover something like the Colquitz we become a bit closer to how we humans managed to exist for hundreds of generations.

The work to recover the Colquitz to what it can be has been done by hundreds of volunteers.  People have done this not because they are being paid to do it, but they have done it because it is the right thing to do.   Humans by nature are cooperative and have a deep need to make the world a better place.  

This recovery of the river is because of the work of many people and organizations
Colquitz Salmonid Stewardship and Education Society
Gorge Tillicum Community Association
Julian Anderson and his friends of Cuthbert Holmes
The District of Saanich
Gorge Waterway Initiative
and others that I have missed.

Chris Bos of the Colquitz Salmonid Stewardship and Education Society at work

The Earl Grey Street Halloween Party

A sign of a good neighbourhood is when people get together and hold their own small events.   The Tillicum Gorge neighbourhood has some.  One example is the annual garage sale of Balfour Street and another is the Earl Grey Street Halloween Party.

Each year the 3000 and 3100 blocks of Earl Grey Street in Saanich hold a street party for Halloween.  It is local organic events like this that build stronger social connections in our neighbourhoods.   I ran in a number of friends.  Max met kids from his preschool and his kindergarten class.

Many of the houses are well decorated for the event, at least a couple too spooky for my five year old Max.



The party attracts kids and adults from around the neighbourhood.   Many people do as we do and trick or treat with their kids from home to Earl Grey.   By 6:30 most doorsteps are non-stop busy with kids coming to the door.  A friend said she lost count at 168 this year and she thought traffic was down from last year. They also have a great fireworks show each year starting at shortly after 8 pm.

 

Where the fireworks happen one of the houses turns their garage into a haunted house.  Across the street there is free hot chocolate, pop as well has hot dogs and other food.

This year about 300 people were on the street to watch the half an houe long firework display.   This is not one of the big professional Canada Day firework displays, but because of the smaller scale of it and the community setting, it is impressive in it's own right.

Opening of the new Victoria Downtown Public Market at the Hudson

I took some video of the opening on Saturday of the new Public Market at the Hudson.   I am very glad to see the space in the Hudson has been given over to this project, was not sure what to expect and somehow in my head it was not going to be this much space.

This project makes for a very interesting and unique space in this city.   I am not sure how it is going to play out over time because it will be defined by how the vendors do, which ones succeed in the space and which do not.

We really only did a walk through, with the crowds there for the opening most of the vendors had long line ups, though we did buy some fresh ravioli from Cowichan.  Here is my video of a bit or our walk through.


There are still many spaces not yet occupied, some are not rented and others were simply not ready to open this last weekend.

Some of the vendors in the space are
The French Oven Bakery
Island Spice Trade
Olive the Senses - it has been open already for some time and I think rent directly from Townline
Salt Spring Island Cheese Company
Silk Road Tea
Victoria Pie Company
Vij's Sutra - I have to come check out their food

Many of the vendors were not yet open such as
Cowichan Bay Seafood
Il Dolce Gelato
LaCocina de Mama Oli
Roast

There is supposed to be a green grocer coming soon.  If I have any concern, it is that the Victoria Public Market will become an upscale food fair more than anything.   I would like to see something more about selling food the public would cook, but the nature of who will pay for the space and can make it work may dictate how it turns out.   Whatever it evolves into, it is a good space for the city.

Overall I have nothing but praise for Philippe Lucas and his vision to see this happen.   Here is his speech at the opening - he gave many, many people credit for the success.



I do hope the farmer's market aspect continues at the site.  I think it is a degree of vibrancy the public market will need while at the same time the public market will ensure people shopping at the farmer's market will be able to find what they need.

Protests against the proposed tennis courts in Cedar Hill Park

There is a group calling itself Save Cedar Hill Park that is opposed to the proposed addition of clay court tennis courts in the park by the Cedar Hill Clay Court Tennis Society.   I do not know if this is a group or just one person that put the website together, based what I can find out there it seems to be a vocal minority and not much more than that.

 Honestly I find the opposition odd after reviewing the proposal and seeing that Saanich has to contribute very little for the construction of the facility.  This is within in park that is mainly a golf course which is not free to the public.

Many of the outdoor municipal tennis courts in Victoria are not well maintained so to have a facility built that would have someone else look after them and a revenue stream to cover the costs makes a lot of sense.  Tennis is a popular sport be really does require better quality facilities and a municipal park is a reasonable location for them

I am do not think the tennis courts are much of a threat to the park because the space they are going into is not used much at all.  My kids lived with their mother in the immediate area for several years and never did I see any significant use of the ball diamonds.  At the moment is an unnatural environment that is mowed by large mowers which drip oil and other fluids onto the field which then gets into the ground.   I note this because one of the more absurd objections to the clay courts is that there might be some run off issues for the Bowker Creek tributary in the park.

When it comes to the Bowker Creek tributary, I can not see how the clay courts could have a measurable impact on the creek when compared to the impact of the golf course.   Whatever is going on with Bowker Creek tributary at the clay court site, the primary impact is from the golf course.   Nothing has been done to alter the unnatural environment of the golf course to improve the drainage.

Another complaint is that this would be a private facility.   Not for profit societies operate various different facilities within parks so this is not anything new or different than is done elsewhere.  We have baseball diamonds and soccer fields all over the place that are looked after by not for profits.   We have not for profit groups that have buildings on park land.  This is not something new or different.

I find the concern about the loss of the open space for public use weird given that there will remain a larger and nicer open space to the north and east of the proposed clay courts.  The total area of the courts will be something on the order of 1 hectare in a park that is 54 hectares and has close to 1 hectare of land covered by buildings.

This park, because of the golf course, is not one that can offer a natural environment.   Lawns are un-natural, just because people like the look of them does not make them a natural eco-system.   If there is a desire of have a natural eco-system in the park, the first thing that needs to happen is the golf course has to come out.  The natural eco-system based park role is served by Mount Tolmie and Swan Lake in this area.

The proposal is a good one and should happen.

New Farmer's Market at the Hudson

The Downtown Farmer's Market has moved its permanent home at the Hudson.  The market is organized by the Victoria Downtown Public Market and had been at Market Square over the winter.  It is going to be held at the Hudson every Wednesday from 11 am to 3 pm.
We visited it recently just around noon.   It was mildly busy but not busy enough to really make it worth being at.   You can get a sense of it from the above video.  People wanted farmers's markets but for a host of reasons the ones in the Victoria area are less than successful in my opinion.

In my work life I have worked with growers who sold at markets in the lower mainland.  I personally did an experiment to see what it takes to make a buck selling at a farmer's market by taking a stall there and selling a friend's produce.   I have a good idea of what a good busy market looks like and what the sort of scale of sales I would should be able to achieve.

Here is what I do not see at Victoria markets:

• Crowds of people - a busy market has line ups at peak times at every produce vendor, not just at the ones selling food to eat
• Large volumes of produce - I know what I took to Whistler every week and I have not seen anyone is this region come to a market with the volume I sold.   I was a very small vendor in Whistler.   The area behind my table and under it was loaded with produce at the start of the day.  I see very limited amounts in local markets here.
• Buyers - people go to the markets as attractions and not as their place to shop.   People that show up just wander up and down the market but are loaded down with goods they have purchased.   During the peak time of 10 am to 2 pm at the Whistler market I would do about 200 to 250 transactions, close to one a minute.
• Reasonable prices - in Whistler there was a premium people were willing to pay for good local produce, but not as wildly expensive as what produce costs in Victoria markets.   A head of lettuce should be $1.50 or so, not $3.00 as seems to be the Victoria market prices.

I would like to shop at a local farmer's market, but I need to know I can buy what I need when I go there and the prices would be reasonable.  At the moment this is simply not the case with this market.

 Here is a news report on the opening.

Here is a video of El Guapo who make great Chorizios

Gorge Canada Day Picnic

The 15th Annual Gorge Canada Picnic was on July 1st in the Gorge Waterway Park.   We finally went last year for the first time.  

What I like about this event is that is not a professional event, but a simple community event, though on a large scale.    There are thousands of people that come for the pancake breakfast, to hear the performers, to take part in the kids zone, and just to see the neighbours.   :Laid back and relaxed is what describes this event.

Here is a bit of my video of the event

Fernfest Friday June 21st and Saturday June 22nd

This is the 18th annual Fernfest.   It is one of the ever growing community based festivals/celebrations that feel more connected to neighbourhoods than the older style events like the Bucaneer Days.

Fernwood’s annual neighbourhood celebration is about to hit the Square and beyond! Are you ready for this BC’s best urban block party?

For the 18th year in a row, we will be rocking out with musicians, performers, dancers, food, bikes, artists, magic, and so much more! There is no better place to be on June 21st and 22nd. Join us and watch the revelry unfurl as the Fernwood Square is transformed into a 2-day circus extravaganza of fun with all your best neighbours and friends!

Special guests, Surprises! Spectacles! You name it! All will abound….

Cost: FREE

Where: Fernwood Square, Gladstone Avenue, and the Vic High Field 

Friday, June 21, 2013 from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

• Live Bands: Dylan Stone Trio, Boots of Mischief, Masala World Percussion Band, The Woodsmen, Grandpa Phunk, and Micro Bongo Sound System
• Beer Garden & BBQ
• Hamburgers & Stage Sausages (we have gluten-free buns!)

Saturday, June 22, 2013 from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

• Pancake Breakfast
• Field of Dreams Activity Centre
• All day Volleyball Drop-in, Archery, Laughter Yoga, Capoeira, ViVi Massage Tent, and roaming performers..
• Kids Zone (located on the Field of Dreams) - Pirate Ship Bouncy Castle, face painting, FUN Society activities, Fortis BC activities, George Jay Button-Making Table, Herb Sale, and much more
• Kidical Mass Bike Parade
• Artisan Market
• Heritage & Garden Tours
• Senior’s High Tea at The Fernwood Community Centre
• Beer Garden and BBQ
• Live music performances by The Gleesons, Geoff Howe, Fox Glove, The Sweet Endings, Estella, Gold & Shadow, Larson Music Choir, David P. Smith’s Golden Country Clan, Waves of Days, The New Groovement, and BoneHoof

May 11th 9:30 am to 1:00 pm Quadra Village Day

This is a great community event and you should check it out.   Everything is free, no vending or selling

JOIN US SATURDAY, MAY 11, 9:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

FOR QUADRA VILLAGE DAY 2013!

Drop by Kings Rd between Quadra and Dowler, and enjoy fun, free, all-ages activities.

Begin with the Pancake Breakfast and Healthy Start Breakfast at 9:30am.

Stay for musical performances from 9:30 -1:00 by West My Friend, The Grass Tracks and Towers and Trees.

Watch for dance performances on the second stage.

Parents, kids and teens: check out all the fun activities, including: face painting, Bouncy Castle, an obstacle course, games, and Mother's Day crafts.

New this year!  A climbing wall for teens.

And don't forget to visit the informative folks from community groups such as: Blanshard Community Centre, Child Find BC, Cloverdale Traditional School Parent Advisory Council, George Jay Elementary School Parent Advisory Council, Inter - Cultural Association of Greater Victoria, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Oak and Orca Bioregional School, Kiwanis Club of Victoria, L'Ecole Quadra School Parent Advisory Council, Hillside Quadra Neighbourhood Action Group, Capital Region Beekeepers, United Way,  Sons of Norway, Hulitan Community and Family Services Society, Angel Choppers Bike Club and the Salvation Army.

There will be demonstrations by the Angel Choppers Bicycle Club and an instrument petting zoo too!

Interested in finding out more? Or wanting to know if there's still time to volunteer for this fun event?

CONTACT US:

Quadra Village Day Planning Committee

c/o Blanshard Community Centre

901 Kings Rd. Victoria

250-388-7696

quadravillageday@gmail.com

Thank you to major sponsors:

The Times Colonist, 100.3 The Q!, 91.3 The Zone, CHEK News, Play in Victoria, Island Farms, Fairway Market, Caffè Fantastico, Cascadia Liquor Store, 5th Street Bar and Woodfired Grill, Il Terrazzo, Blanshard Community Centre, CDI College, City of Victoria, Long and McQuade, C.E. Craig & Associates, Simply Computing and Island Tent & Events

Municipalities own too many road right ways and should consider selling some

Location of Evans Street in Vic West

Looking south on Evans

Too much land in most cities is owned by the municipality as road right of ways.  This is something I have been interested in seeing changed for many years.   There many examples of unnecessary roads in Victoria, here are a couple of small examples from Vic West.

Evans Street in Vic West is an odd connection between Raynor Ave and Langford Street.   It is s short street with no houses fronting on to it.  It is a piece of road that the City does not need and should consider getting rid of.  

The area of the road right of way is about 650 square meters or 7,000 square feet, it is 32 feet wide.

Looking north on Evans

You could make two 32 foot wide lots on this this land, neither one would be large, but they would be wider than other properties in the neighbourhood.  The lots would 3500 square feet, which is small, but certainly not unreasonable for Vic West.

In the immediate area there are similar small narrow lots at 914 and 930 Russell Street, 650, 654, 723, 725, 727, 729, 731, and 735  Belton Ave or 655, 657, 661, 665, 725 and 727 Pine Street.   Two of the Belton Ave and the Pine Street properties are only 2200 to 2400 square feet in size.

310 L:angford Street is narrower and much smaller, only 1850 square feet.

A property that would be about almost the same size and shape as the two that could be created out of Evans Street is 313 Edward Street.

Evans is not the only street without a purpose in Vic West.   I can see a number of other locations where there are road right of ways not doing much of relevance to the world:

• The southernmost block of Fullerton only serves as a private drive way for the two houses which do have good frontage onto Langford Street.
• The City owns a full right of way for Russell Street between Edward Street and Wilson Street but there is a 35 meter chunk that is missing.  This is an area of 350 sqaure meters, enough to have another house on it.  
• South of Wilson the City owns a right of way for Russell Street that is not being used, this could be two more houses.
• On Burleith Crecent the very last 39 meters are not needed and two houses could go into this 780 square meter area
• Northcott Ave on the eastern end could be closed off allowing for another lot

All in all this is space for eight more house building lots in Vic West on land currently owned by the City and not being used to any real public benefit.  Selling this land would bring in $2,500,000 or so for the City, it would also increase the property taxes of the City by about $20,000 a year.

I am know that many of the people neighbouring on these unneeded road right of ways might not be thrilled to see a change.   My suggestion would be that 21 neighbouring properties all be given part of the value of the sale.   If each one were to get to $25,000 to $30,000 this would go a long to making them happier with the change ans still leave the city with around $2 million more than they have now.   

The eight new houses would also add an extra 20 people to Vic West, I know this is not a huge number but it just that many more to make local schools and businesses just a little bit more sustainable.

I do not know enough about the individual examples I have highlighted here and there may be some important reasons for the City to own the right of ways such as for utilities, but I doubt many of them have any reason stopping their sale.

Cuthbert Holmes Park, a potential jewel being under used

Map Cuthbert Holmes Park and related parks around it

I should have written this ages ago, I had meant to submit some of this as my thoughts and comments to Saanich as part of their review of the park last year.

Cuthbert Holmes park is an underused park beside the Tillicum Mall.  Actually it is several parks that abut each other and some other land.  There is the actual Cuthbert Holmes park, then there is  Tillicum Park, which is mainly the land under the arena and Pearkes Rec Centre, there is also Meadow park across a small foot bridge from Cuthbert Holmes,  there parts of Colquitz park that look and feel like part of Cuthbert Holmes, there is private land beside Silver City and finally there are several hectares of Ministry of Transportation road right of way on the northern edge.  All in all, the areas that function as what we know as Cuthbert Holmes park is about 30 hecatres in area.

It is a a park that is effectively neglected and I think underused, yes a lot of people walk in the park, but large parts of the park are at best empty wasteland overgrown with invasive species.   There is a full eight hectares of land that is covered in blackberries and not much else, that is more than a quarter of the whole area.   In all my years of going to the park I have never seen Saanich Parks staff in the park, though admittedly there is not much for them to do as there are no lawns to mow.

The park was created not so much as a park but as a renaming of empty lands in the late 1960s.   Saanich gained control over the area in 1986 and 1987.   Much of the park is actually owned by the Provincial Capital Commission.

The park was named for Henry Curhbert Holmes, the Holmes of the local real estate company Pemberton Holmes

From the UBC website

MAJOR HENRY CUTHBERT HOLMES
Major Henry Cuthbert Holmes, who died in May, 1968, at the age of seventy-seven, lived a full and active life. A native of Victoria, B.C. he was educated at the Royal Naval School, England, at Victoria College, Canada, and Balliol College, Oxford. He served with distinction in the First World War, after which he settled down in Victoria where he was to become a great force in civic and provincial affairs. His service to his city resulted in his being made Freeman of the City of Victoria in 1968. A co-founder of Brentwood College, he was a Governor from 1923 to 1948. He worked continuously for the University of Victoria and was Chairman of the University's Extension Association. His interest in education was wide, as is shown by his Chairmanship of the Fairbridge Farm Schools Committee in 1935. He was active in a score of civic clubs and enterprises. His connection with the University of British Columbia goes back many years. He first joined the Senate for a six-year term in 1933; he returned in 1946 and remained a member of that body until 1955. Finally, he was appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor in Council in 1958 and it was not until 1965 that he resigned. He was a faithful member of Senate with a keen interest in the academic wellbeing of the University and, indeed, of education throughout the province, He leaves three sons and two daughters. This University will miss him as will our sister institution in Victoria.

For a long time I have thought so much more could be done with this park.

Map of who owns what parts of the park

The core of the woods and the area along the river are fine as they are now as a natural area, though it would be nice if there were more work to rid the park of English ivy and other invasive species.   The core natural areas of the park do suffer because a lot of people walking there choose to walk all over the place and make the compacted "trail" areas much wider than they should be.

View of the North East Corner of the park for the road

It is the area along the northern edge that needs help and could be used for more.   It is a large piece of land that is not providing a natural environment or any recreation for the public  At the moment the area could at best be described as scrub land.   Since the 1990s invasive species have utterly taken over the space and for the natural environment to return one would basically have to plow everything up and start again.  .

A major problem is this area is the use by people camping there and people doing a lot of drugs.   It is not an area most people think is a safe to walk through.   I avoid walking there because of the menacing attitudes of the people hanging out there even during the day.   One other problem that happens because of these people is the area is full of garbage which includes broken bottles and needles.   Something active needs to be done to reclaim this area for use as a park for the people of this city.

Ideal would be for Saanich to get formal agreement from the Ministry of Transportation to use their right of way as part of the park.  The reality is that the extra right of way is not of any benefit to the government for road expansion.  The existing constraints where Highway #1 crosses over Burnside Road and Colquitz Creek would make it impossible to use it in any meaningful manner for more road space.   Leaving it formally in the hands of the Ministry of Transportation means the land is not going to get money spent on it by Saanich.

One reason this part of the park could be used for something more is because the area along the northern edge of the park is the area of the least sensitivity to human disturbance.  The area is not critical for wildlife or the general ecosystem of the natural environment.

One thing that I think is needed in Victoria is a space for community gatherings or festivals and this part of the park could function in that way for all of us in the CRD.   There is a three hectare area that could be set aside as meadows and an off leash area for dogs most of the time but at the same time could offer a large open field which allow for concerts or festivals.  With the closure of Beacon Hill Park to community festivals and concerts, there needs to be some other location to have these events.  Most of the parks in this region are not big enough to host a major public event.   Cuthbert Holmes has the space.

It also makes sense to create this as a regional park amenity because of the decent access.  The fact we have Tillicum Mall nearby means there is parking available and good bus connections.  Creating it here works well because it is much more central to the region than anything downtown or in the City of Victoria.

I am not sure why there is no playground.   The mall and rec centre are right there so it is an area that is high family traffic, I am sure many of them would be happy to have a place nearby to go with their kids.   There is the land available just over Colquitz Creek to put in a skookum playground.

My sense of the planning process conducted last year is that there will be little change from how things are at the moment.  I think this is shame because this is one of the larger green spaces in Victoria in the core of the city and is about the only one that has the flexibility to be more than it is now.

Fish Counts in Colquitz River for 2012

I got this from the Gorge Tillicum Community Association about the 2012 salmon run on the Colquitz river

Total Fish counts in for the year at the Colquitz River Fish Fence: (Behind Tillicum Centre)
71 Male Coho
91 Female Coho
44 Jacks
2 Cutthroat trout
2 Smolts.
TOTAL= 210 fish.
Not nearly as big return numbers as in years previous...those oil spills have taken their toll...

I asked about past data and here is what I got from Scott Karpes:

Last year, (2011) they had to take the counting fence out on about Nov. 25th (due to the oil spill, they wanted to let the fish get up stream quickly, to avoid the contamination.) Up to Nov. 25th, the numbers were:
62-Male coho
119-Female coho
104-Jacks
1-Cutthroat
TOTAL= 286 fish 
'All the other years are in single daily sheets that would take a very long time to add up the totals.'

'From what I can remember we have had a low of about 52 to a high of about 650 or more.' This information comes from Barrie Goodwin (Stream Steward/Volunteer.)

Douglas Street from Hillside to Burnside - a dead streetscape

Getting from my home to downtown means I often drive the stretch of Douglas between the end of Burnside to the intersection with Hillside/Gorge.   This 420 metre stretch of Douglas is one of the deadest streets in this region.

Douglas in this area is very wide, about 24 to 25 metres wide.   The width makes distance between the two sides of the street feel very far apart.   The very wide street with wide lanes means even though the distance between the lights is not far, the traffic often moves at close to 70 kmh.  

On the westside there is the BC Transit yard which is lower than Douglas which means you have a narrow sidewalk along the edge of a busy street and a drop off on the the other.   This property makes for an unpleasant walk and that reduces the walkablity of the area.  It also means the sidewalk is very exposed and in the rain you get very wet along here.

On the eastside there are some car dealerships and the Brick which is closing, right?    The best place for car dealerships is in automall.  When they are located along the sides of urban streets they suck up large amounts of space for parked cars but not a parking lot.   A parking lot is at least alive with constant activity and is a defacto public space to walk through.   The sea of cars at a car dealership are completely static and without people.  They also tend to be a mass of uniformly similar vehicles.

I do not have an easy answer on how to fix this area because of the properties are privately owned.  The one property that could in theory be changed would be the BC Transit property.  

What if the City of Victoria allowed BC Transit to develop a building over top the eastern third of their property?  A five to six story office building with ground floor retail over top of the current bus parking would make for a major change on this part of the street.   You can have some street level parking off of Gabally and Douglas for the building.  

With say 25,000 square feet of ground floor retail and then 100,000 to 150,000 square feet of office space, you would add a lot more people to the area on a regular basis.   The new building would allow the pedestrians on the westside of Douglas a much more pleasant experience and likely be offered some coffeeshops or retail locations to go to.

The offices would be located  next to a huge number of bus routes.   It would be a very easy location to commute to by bus.

Doing this would also be one more shift of taking Douglas from what it is now to something that is more of a commercial core area to the city.   With redevelopments at Speed and Douglas as well as Finlayson and Douglas at various stages of moving forward, adding one further development south would help shift how everyone sees Douglas Street.

Public Orchards for Fernwood and Vic West

Among the food security movement there has been a lot of people talking about planting vegetables instead of flowers in parks and such but I never thought those were such great ideas because they take so much work.   I have for a long time thought that public fruit trees were a much better idea because they require a lot less ongoing maintenance      If you look around the region you can often find old apple trees abandoned years ago.   I know of some in Cuthbert Holmes Park and some in East Sooke Park.   The apples are still good and the trees have been ignored for decades.

There is now a proposal to create two community orchards in Victoria.   One in Vic West at Banfield Park and the other in Fernwood at the Fernwood Community Centre.   There will be a meeting this evening at the Vic West YMCA to discuss the one for Banfield Park.

I really like the idea of public orchards.   There are so many people these days that have never eaten fruit from a tree and therefore have no idea what it should taste like.  It is quite possible for us to produce a lot more food locally and have us a community connect again with the fruit we eat.  I love apricots but the ones I can buy in the stores are a waste of money, only those straight from the tree are worth eating.   I rarely can find apples in the stores that match the ones picked freshly from the tree.  

A community orchard is not a short term idea, it will take time for the trees to reach maturity.  It is for that reason I think it is important that both community associations consider tree fruits that require very little maintenance.

It is important to also only consider trees that thrive in our climate.   This rules out peaches and apricots, they are very borderline in the CRD.   Cherries may grow well here but birds clean out trees very fast and we have too much danger of rain just as they are ripening as well would see western cherry fruit fly infestations.  I think it is also important that most stone fruits not be considered because such soft fruits tend to have the whole tree ripen at once and require the fruit to be picked and processed during a narrow window.  

Best would be to stick to apples, pears and various nuts.   Apples have long proven they can grow here without any help of us humans.   Within a small community orchard it is possible to plant numerous different varieties of apples to ensure there is a constant harvest of fruit from the end of July to early November.

I would ideally like to see apple trees planted at every school in the CRD, enough to ensure that for the first two months of each school year there are abundant apples for everyone in the school.   Each youth should be able to grow up eating apples straight from the tree everyday in the fall.  It is important from an early age to connect kids to where food comes from.  If these community orchards work well, I hope the idea spreads.

Lights on the Gorge - Sunday December 9th 3 pm to 6 pm

Lights on the Gorge: Multicultural Celebration of Midwinter - This is an event hosted by the Gorge-Tillicum Community Association, the United Way and the Greater Victoria Public Library and organized as part of the Gorge Tillicum Community Table.

The event will be in the Gorge Waterway Park at Dysart on Sunday December 9th from 3 pm to 6 pm

So what is the event?   A good question, I suspect it will be a fairly open ended and free form event with candles, lanterns singing and such.   This is neighbourhood has several fairly laid back and anarchist events each year that just sort of happen such as the Earl Grey Halloween party.

The Sunday before, December 2nd that is, the Saanich Centenial Branch of the GVPL will be hosting a lantern making workshop.  Drop in and create a weatherproof lantern, candle scepter or a clay Diwali diya to light up the Gorge on December 9. Enjoy an afternoon of craft and community with your Gorge Tillicum neighbours. Materials supplied-bring your imagination! Registration not required but if you register, you will get an email reminder of the event.

When I lived in Lillooet there was a lantern event in the mid summer where people made the lanterns at the beach on Seton Lake and then let them float off on the water, I would love to see this be something similar as an event.

So what traditions would I bring?   Ideally some carol singing, in my family a child we would have cake and coffee on each advent and then sing carols, normally friends would come over and join us.   I might also break out the Xmas Tree candle holders and claim a tree to put a bunch of candles on in the park.

If you want to help, which I will try to do, contact Kay Stewart.  

New chicken farm on Mount Douglas X Road?

There is a small four acre lot that is ALR within an area of residential housing on Mount Douglas X Road for which the owner was seeking to remove it from the ALR to allow it be developed as housing.    Protecting farm land only makes sense if it is a viable economic farm and in the case of this property that would only be in theory possible with the sort of farming that will cause major complaints from the neighbours.    In March of 2011 Saanich council voted against supporting the removal of the land from the ALR.  The owner is now thinking of putting a chicken operation on the property.

When asked again this year the council voted 5-4 to refuse to support the removal of the land from the ALR which leaves the owner few options.  Council seems to have listened to voices opposing the removal of the land though this has primarily come from people that are not neighbours of the property.

The problem is that people pushing to protect farm lands at all cost have no understanding of farming.   A working farm is a business and not a bucolic green landscape.   Farms work with a lot of loud equipment and often have a lot of chemicals on site.   Farms are not ideal neighbours for suburban residences.

Four acres is a very small piece of land to work with as a farm especially when it is surrounded by housing.  If you were to put it all into apples you could produce about 80,000 to 100,000 pounds of fruit.   The realistic gross revenues from that would be $100,000 but the costs of production would be around $75,000 to $125,000 without a salary for the owner.  Pruning, thinning and picking all take labour.   This also assumes there is no loss in getting the fruit to market. You would have to sell about 8,000 pounds of fruit a week over a 12 week season.   This means selling at three to four farmers markets a week if you can achieve the sort of scale of sales you see in Vancouver farmer's markets.  

Almost any potentially viable farming activity on the site will be intensive farming and will cause disputes with the neighbours.  Many of the most successful small scale farm operations will require the majority of the property to be built on - the land is effectively a garry oak meadow, that will all be gone..  

A poultry farm is only one option and not the worst for the neighbours.  A mushroom operation smells even more.   Four acres of blueberries might be viable but that would mean propane cannons.    The land is the right size for composting.   If economically farmed it could be worse

The neighbours will have to learn to live with the smell of ammonia from the chickens. The chicken shit will either have to be composted on site or trucked away, either way the smell will be intense.  The poor people on the west side of Mercer Place are unlikely to want to use their backyards ever again - intense chicken crap smell is going cause a significant fall in the property values.  

Intensive farming will also mean Mount Douglas X Road will have a lot more commercial truck traffic.

The decision of council not to support the removal of the land is now only going to cause major headaches for staff.  It will also create one more location in the region where farming and people get into conflict.   The only answer is for council to reconsider their decision before too much money is put into the development of the poultry farm.

Why did I choose to live in the Burnside Gorge neighbourhood?

3100 block of Balfour Street in Victoria

In 2004 for a host of reasons Catherine and I moved to Victoria.   The decision of Victoria was 75%   Catherine's.   Having decided on Victoria the question was of where we would live and that was heavily influenced by my experience of my days at UVic.

I had lived in Victoria while I attended UVic from September 1983 till January 1990 with a break of bit more than a year in 1985/86 when I lived in the UK and hitch-hiked through the Sahara.   I chose Victoria for university because it was the "near abroad" - it was the closest Canadian university to where I grew up that was not east of the Rockies.   I did not to live with my parents while at university but my responsible cheap side said that if I went to SFU I could not justify living away from home even if I had an hour commute each way.   UBC was never an option for me because their attitude of the time "We are the biggest, therefore we are the best" is the sort of thing that rubs me entirely the wrong way.    Of grad class of 350 from South Delta Senior Secondary, 250 were going to post secondary education but only a tiny handful chose UVic.

I enjoyed my time at university for the experience it was not for the education.  I had a couple of good courses and few brilliant profs but for the most part UVic of the 1980s was an adequate school and nothing more.   Honestly if I were to do it again and known early enough I would have worked to get into a US liberal arts college.  Any of you that know me well know that I do not fit with the mass of society and can not stop myself from challenging it.

I met many people at UVic, people I still like to this day but I also met a lot of people that were in a rut in their lives by the time they were 20.   These people finished university, got a government job and had mentally retired by age 30.   This was not and is not the life for me but I know this city and know how easily it can lull you into a pleasant slumber of "Good Enough".  

I was not keen on Victoria, it is not near the top of my list of places to live in Canada but when we were making the decision in 2004 Victoria was Catherine's number 1 choice by far and for my it rated ahead of Vancouver or Calgary, though only barely ahead of Calgary.

Vancouver was out of the question for two reasons - the climate and the commute.   I hate rain, 18 years of growing up in the Lower Mainland gave me an almost pathological dislike of rain when it is colder than 10 degrees.   My last year in high school in November I walked to school everyday in the rain - I made my decision then Vancouver's climate and I could not co-exist.

I also hate commuting.   Long periods on transit are vaguely bearable, sitting in a car in stop and go traffic makes me angry and stressed out.   When I lived in London in the early 1990s I took the bus to work even though the Tube was faster because the experience on the Tube in rush hour sucks.   When I lived in Vancouver from 1992 to 1996 it had to be in the City itself, a place we knew we could never afford with a family.   Starting in 1994 Catherine and I were looking for some form of an escape from the city to rural BC which we achieved over the winter of 1995/96.

Fast forward to spring 2004 and we realized we needed to make a move to a bigger centre which ended up being Victoria.

It was important to me for us to chose a neighbourhood that was something different that what I had been part of 14 years earlier.    We came and visited the city and drove around.   Most everything east of Douglas was ruled out for being too much of my past but also for being too smugly set in its ways.    The Peninsula and Western Communities were out because commuting was not something I wanted.   Esquimalt was also out because of my past prejudice against it from the 1980s and from that bit of uncomfortable feeling living so close to the base. I am a pacifist from my faith but it is not a black and white simplistic pacifism, it is deep and complex - living there could have lead to me acting in unthoughtful ways and having knee jerk reactions to the military.

It became clear that the only area left was that between the Gorge and Highway #1 - Tillicum-Gorge or Burnside-Gorge.    These were areas of the city I had never been to in all the time I went to university, I knew nothing of the area but it seemed to fit with what we were looking for.

On one of our scouting trips to the city we spent several hours exploring this neighbourhood.    I was not impressed with the streets on the Saanich side because of the lack of sidewalks.    Streets like Wascana, Albina and such all suffer from having this blank negative space between the edge of the street and the properties.   I was not seeing much that was inspiring me to live in the area.

We had started at the Craigflower bridge and worked our way towards town.   It was near the end of the day that we turned onto Balfour Street and I saw the sort of street I like to live on.   Sidewalks and big trees along the street give Balfour the feeling of being an urban residential street and not a suburban one.   I immediately said this is the sort of street I want us to live on.  As luck would have it an acquaintance had a house for rent on that very street.   On July 1st 2004 I moved into a house on Balfour street in this neighbourhood and have lived here every since.   In September 2007 I made a short move two blocks over to the house we now live in on Harriet at Maddock.

After moving in we discovered how good a location was had chosen because of how central it is within Victoria.   I have access to five different bus routes that can take me most places I want to go in the core municipalities.   It is walking distance from both Mayfair and Tillicum.   The Galloping Goose is a short walk away.   The Gorge is right here and accessible.  The roads to the ferry or up island are nearby.    Everything was really right at hand.

Our current house

I can not image living in a different neighbourhood in this city, if I move it will be to leave Victoria and move somewhere dramatically different but I can not see that anytime soon if ever.