A group of four landowners is pushing for land designated as part of
the Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes wilderness park to be re-zoned for
residential housing and apartments.
The proposed park is a chunk of land the size of the Halifax
peninsula, stretching from the Bayers Lake Industrial Park to Hammonds
Plains. It includes a dozen lakes, countless bogs and Blue Mountain,
the summit of which provides a spectacular view of several hundred
square kilometres.
Earlier this year, 1,350 hectares of provincially owned land in the
area were given wilderness protection, the first step in a process
outlined in HRM’s Regional Plan, which calls for the land to become a
regional wilderness park.
But the wilderness designation gave greater potential value to about
400 hectares of privately held land in the area, as new housing would
have the added sales potential that comes with backing onto a
wilderness area. City staff and environmentalists both say that any
development of that private land will essentially destroy the lakes and
the pristine condition of the wilderness, as oil from cars drips into
the watershed, ATVs tear up the terrain, dogs chase away wildlife and
so on. And while city staff is opposed to the development application,
mayor Peter Kelly told the CBC last week he won’t agree to the city
buying the property.
The issue will comes before the Regional Plan Advisory Committee on
December 16. See thecoast.ca/bites for more info as that
date approaches. —TB
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Blue Mountain-Birch Coves Lake: not saved!
Decision postponed on developing land earmarked as wilderness park
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2009.
gutless, gutless, gutless. aka Peter Kelly and the HRM council. My money says the city caves to developers and all that was thought to be protected will be lost. The Mayor and council may have forgotten that they are the ones who set the zoning and as much as anybody wants to pressure them, they hav ethe ultimate decision. Do they want to protect the interests of nature and HRM as a whole or do they want to protect the interests of developers? This is (pardon the pun) a watershed moment for Mr. Kelly. Who elected you, the people as a whole or a few greedy developers? Keep that in mind as well as who might vote for you in any future municipal or provincial elections.
Again, which counselors take money from developer?
Know that, and know the outcome to the person.
Here is a great idea. If you guys want to have your pristine wilderness area, pool you money and buy the land at fair market value from the developers. The group of you can decide not to ever develop it and no one will ever complain.
I know, I know, it’s a crazy idea. Who ever heard of putting your money where ideals are? It’s the alternative to using unethical political power to enforce your values on other individual’s private property.
I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with this. Not everything can be protected for the birds and the bees and trees and whatnot, cities need to appropriately grow and expand. It would actually be a great location for responsible housing and commercial development from what I see: relatively close to the city between two major 100-series highways. Perhaps they could try some sort of cluster development.
qpmzwonxeibcruv:
There is absolutely no shortage of similarly appointed land in the city that the government has planned for development. Future sites at Anderson Lake (entire area north of Burnside) with the 107 extension, the “Western Common” (Ragged Lake), the full BLT area between the 103 and route 3, Bedford South, Bedford West, Lucasville (new 101 interchange under construction), the land to the west of Bayers Lake, new Kingswood development, Geizer’s Hill at Clayton Park, filling out the area around Dartmouth Crossing, Russell Lake…
all this sprawl, much of it currently under construction, will help us achieve the city’s goals of driving everyone out of the core and into cars, and you can be sure that in 2030 we’ll be the Houston of the Maritimes. 🙂
So yeah, no shortage of developable land…
I’ve lived in hammonds plains all my life (49yrs.), & the new developments & overwhelming amount of traffic has gone too far. As far as hunting & fishing around here anymore, FORGET IT. Kingswood North was the last of my sancturarys for hunting(all gone) to so called progress. Why in hell they would put the new rinks on the hammonds plains rd. is retarded, it was supposed to be on the new Bedford commons, a far better location, off the 102hwy. (MORE TRAFFIC FOR A ROAD THAT CANT HANDLE IT NOW), gotta start using common sense people in power, just because you live elsewhere, start thinking of the impact on the lifelong residents who are fed up with this absurd thinking. We lived in Hammonds Plains for the peace & quiet we had years ago(all gone now) THANKS!