Keeping Green Space Should Be A Priority

Wednesday, August 03, 2005 03:45 AM

With the possible sale of Prince George Golf and Curling Club there will be even more pressure to sell off Pine Valley to prospective developers.

This par 3 gem in the middle of our city provides affordable, accessible golfing in a facility that is very well managed and run by friendly, helpful staff. Pine Valley’s driving range was recently sold to Wood Wheaton car dealership and much of the course is now looking like a chip yard between fairways.

With the rapid devastation and loss of our urban forest to the beetle infestation there is an even greater need to restore our parks, recreation places and green spaces. There needs to be a considerable commitment and desire from the City of Prince George to invest into refurbishing Pine Valley and begin replanting trees where beetle-infested trees were logged. If left the way it is, I’m afraid this property will be as ripe for the picking as our pine trees are to the beetles.

With millions of dollars of extra streams of revenue coming into the City of Prince George from the Terresan Gas deal, traffic fine revenue, the GST rebate, and possible infrastructure monies to municipalities from the federal government, the City of Prince George, can if they chose to, allocate sufficient funds in the 2006 budget, to not only fix our potholes throughout the city, but also set aside enough money for the re-plantation of trees in high social value areas throughout the city. We need to send a clear message to developers that our beetle-infested parks, green spaces and recreation places are not for sale.

-Debora Munoz

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Posted on Wednesday, August 03, 2005 03:45 AM in Views by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: damyzz on August 3 2005 11:18 AM

Thats all great to plant new trees and make or keep parks.but I think the city needs to adress the needle problem first,before more kids get hurt.All the trails and parks right now,are hang outs for the junkies and homeless.So yes keep our geen spaces,but I think this city has more problems with needles than trees,a tree can be replaced,a persons life can't.

Posted by: Chadermando on August 3 2005 3:10 PM

This city has no plan at all for green space. Heck the city trail master plan is now over 10 years old without any progress what-so-ever.

Its a quality of life issue that is forgotten about by our city administrators and is a driving force behind PG's negative image, which is a shame when we have the natural resources to make PG an example city for others to look up to, but we are caught up in defeatism when it comes our natural advantage.

Time Will Tell

Posted by: gypsy on August 4 2005 8:24 AM

One question Chadermando!!! What are all these natural resources we have to make Prince George an example city for cities to look up to??? Give us some positives straight up just what all these natural advantages are!!!
I can hardly visualize in my mind the devastation that we will feel when the beetle infested trees are all fallen at the golf course, as it is a pitiful sight on vacant properties. The loss of so many trees is totally changing the appearance of many areas. If only the problem had been dealth with years ago, when it became obvious the forests were in trouble I wonder at how governments set priorities when problems surface?? They certainly neglected to perform any positive action to prevent the pine beetle disaster. Another 8 years to see this situation worsen. What a pity.

Posted by: Chadermando on August 4 2005 8:08 PM

Gypsy, the pine trees account for a small percentage of the overall tree population. I think we can all admit that they are ugly most of the time anyways.

A local liberal with ties to Initiatives PG once pointed out to me, "why would any tourists want to visit a red forest tour operator".

I disagreed with that statement. Trees die and the forest starts anew, its not the end of the world.

I think we can all agree that the 'fur' species which was natural to this area is a far more plesent tree to look at, as well as the spruce that are abundant in this area. The pine trees will be red for a year then the needles will be gone and you won't even notice them anymore. Hopefully they are all logged by then anyways.

In the place of pine we have an historic oportunity to change the image of Prince George by replacing the pine trees with other species that help to create a more plesent civic landscape.

As for current resources there are just far to many to name and because of a conflict of interest I can't even name them all. For starters though I think we can all agree that anyone who has hiked the numerous trails and lookouts along Crandbrook Hill Crest will tell you that it is an asset almost unparallelled in the world. Dito for the two magnificant rivers that run through our city and the tributaries that feed them. PG has more potential for lookout point parks than any other city in BC and yet we only have a couple of delapitated ones to show for ourselves opting instead to make our parks at the bottom of sinkholes. Also what ever truely unique assets we do have are blocks from public access; such as the river front drive at Fort George Park, where we either do not trust our own citizens as a city, or we lack the vision to provide better civic services to compensate for the hassals of making PG the city that it is under all those layers of appologists and defeatests that are set on using the downtown as our city image. (rant lol)

I'm not sure when this city will wake up to its potential under a new image with the resources we have utilized, but until that happens we are bound to live up to our downtown as the image we sell for ourselves as a city.

Time Will Tell

Posted by: Chadermando on August 4 2005 8:12 PM

Also 100 Million Chinese tourists a year are expected to flood the tourism market in the next five years as they can now travel for the first time as of a couple of months ago.

Many of these Chinese long to get out of the city and experience the country side. Ditto for the Europeans if we can market ourselfes and the 'services' we have to match our natural resources.

This is an industry that has the potential to make the forest sector look normal if we had the vision to exploit the oportunities.

Time Will Tell