A new 3-part blog series on The Little Mountain Project.
Part 2

The Bad

Urban One builders enters Little Mountain with blazin’ chainsaws.

URBAN ONE – Construction or Demolition service?

I’ve heard the words “heritage-trees” uttered countless times.  Three years ago, arborists painstakingly mapped every tree, noting health and potential longevity.

Development Permit shows location of heritage trees bisected by new power lines.

Subsequently, the Planning Department of the City of Vancouver, gave heritage trees prominent status within the Little Mountain Policy statement (see downloadable PDF, particularly page 35 – “TREES”).

URBAN ONE slashes through the canopy for temporary power connections at Little Mountain construction site.

Power Lines once followed established roads through the site.

Trees should be removed to make way for the construction of buildings, not however, to make way for temporary power lines to be eventually buried underground.

So why did tree removal crews break through the orange tree-protection fences to chop a huge wedge through the the living canopy of the proposed Little Mountain Village Square?

Little Mountain: Detail of cuts to planned Village Square.

A power line route circumventing the heritage trees already existed. Why didn’t URBAN ONE communicate with the City of Vancouver’s Planning Department before launching their logging crew through the boulevard? And what does this say about the safety of the remainder of the “heritage trees?”

We have a lack of communication. After two years of consultation the parties involved might just be a little bit weary of Q&A. Well I have advice for everyone involved: Get used to it*.

If the HOLBORN GROUP and URBAN ONE wish to communicate with the community about what they are doing at Little Mountain and why they are doing it, I offer to them this forum – The Little Mountain Project – in order to clarify their actions.

Coming soon…the ugly.

These signs have been popping up everywhere at Little Mountain since the damage was done.

*The Major Projects division of Vancouver’s Planning Department has promised the community, that the Little Mountain Advisory Group will continue to have an active role to play in the rezoning of Little Mountain. We look forward to the resumption of that process.

David Vaisbord
The Little Mountain Project
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