What to do with the University Endowment Lands

[Vin]

Originally Posted by madog222

Pacific Spirit is currently a Metro Vancouver regional park, it should be able to remain that way regardless of what happens.

Totally. Save the remaining forest land. It should remain the green lung of Vancouver in perpetuity.

[GenWhy?]

Personally, as I know little about forests outside of a great building material, but isn't the desire to keep the forest more to do with the ground plane and below rather than the effects from the canopy?

[cairnstone]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

Personally, as I know little about forests outside of a great building material, but isn't the desire to keep the forest more to do with the ground plane and below rather than the affects from the canopy?

Yes this is a big part of it. Trees dont use as much CO2 as people believe but mainly storage and when the rot or burn all the CO2 that was stored in them are released. What they do a good job is taking ground water and introducing it into our air to keep humidity balanced and the same to help stabilize temps.

[Migrant_Coconut]

The canopy is useful too - get rid of that, and you kick a lot of birds (eagles, owls, etc) out of the inner metro.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

The canopy is useful too - get rid of that, and you kick a lot of birds (eagles, owls, etc) out of the inner metro.

Oh, are we going to start complaining about demovictions for birds now?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Given that a large part of the city likes to keep those birds around? Absolutely. Given enough rezoning, the people are much easier to house.

If we're so bulldozer-happy, we should probably start with the cemeteries - right now the dead are starting to have better accommodations than the living.

[mcj]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

If we're so bulldozer-happy, we should probably start with the cemeteries - right now the dead are starting to have better accommodations than the living.

Actually a great idea, cemeteries are such an inefficient land use.

Also stoked to see you onboard with letting birds have their homes, let's keep that same energy when we're talking about suburban sprawl in Surrey/Langley/Maple Ridge/Coquitlam/West Vancouver destroying multiple times the habitat

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Given that a large part of the city likes to keep those birds around? Absolutely. Given enough rezoning, the people are much easier to house.

If we're so bulldozer-happy, we should probably start with the cemeteries - right now the dead are starting to have better accommodations than the living.

That would be a great idea (especially to build an Urban Park in Brentwood)- except the last time someone's moved a cemetery was to build the New Westminster High School.

Now, they're trying to turn the area into a park or keep it fallow because building that school was insulting to the Asians buried there... or something.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Given that a large part of the city likes to keep those birds around? Absolutely. Given enough rezoning, the people are much easier to house

I didn't take you for a conservative "status quo must be maintained at any cost" minded individual. Were you up in arms when UBC evicted an eagle to build housing on campus?

If we're so bulldozer-happy, we should probably start with the cemeteries - right now the dead are starting to have better accommodations than the living.

Abso-fricking-lutely. As someone with family members buried in Vancouver and Burnaby, I'll come out and say it's a tragedy that we have politically untouchable sacred ground polluting our city centres. Second growth forests with sparse pathways through them make better parks than god forsaken cemetaries.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by mcj

... Also stoked to see you onboard with letting birds have their homes, let's keep that same energy when we're talking about suburban sprawl in Surrey/Langley/Maple Ridge/Coquitlam/West Vancouver destroying multiple times the habitat

Don't remember saying that was a good idea either. Rezone the West Side for multiplexes, and neither the gravedigging nor the deforestation nor the sprawl have to be a thing for the next fifty years.

Though I do agree crematoriums and back-to-nature funerals should be more common in BC...

Originally Posted by chowhou

I didn't take you for a conservative "status quo must be maintained at any cost" minded individual...

You may recall me suggesting above that we find a balance between developing the outskirts of the UEL while preserving the forest in the middle. It's a known fact that access to flora and fauna improves a city's quality of life and overall mental health.

[djmk]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

The canopy is useful too - get rid of that, and you kick a lot of birds (eagles, owls, etc) out of the inner metro.

I'm all for deforestation if we can get rid of a few canadian geese.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

You may recall me suggesting above that we find a balance between developing the outskirts of the UEL while preserving the forest in the middle. It's a known fact that access to nature improves a city's quality of life.

Access to second growth forest or access to city parks? My understanding is it's the latter. I'd also hardly call the interior of Pacific Spirit Park "accessible".

Originally Posted by djmk

I'm all for deforestation if we can get rid of a few canadian geese.

I wonder if you've heard...

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Access to second growth forest or access to city parks? My understanding is it's the latter. I'd also hardly call the interior of Pacific Spirit Park "accessible".

There's trails all over the place. Keeping (let's say) two-ish Stanley Parks' worth of forest isn't going to raise the cost of living, but seeing a bald eagle or a woodpecker up close definitely makes your day.

Again, I do agree that some of the UEL could be landscaped for public use. Gardens, ponds, lakes, rec/sports centres, maybe a zoo, would satisfy both humans and non-humans.

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by chowhou

I didn't take you for a conservative "status quo must be maintained at any cost" minded individual. Were you up in arms when UBC evicted an eagle to build housing on campus?

Sounds like the eagle had right of first refusal at the same rent.

[GenWhy?]

Biophilia anyone?

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

Being able to take the subway into a forest from the middle of the city sounds amazing! I honestly don't know what I would do if I just had easy access to a bunch of tramped-on turf or soccer field. Quite similar to providing good transit to Balcarra or Deep Cove. Just in this case the next westerly stop is a major university.

Why can't overgrown parks have good transit?

Sperling-Burnaby Lake SkyTrain station is sad you've forgotten about it.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by fredinno

..I doubt that Metro Vancouver Forests make any meaningful contribution to slowing climate change.

I imagine every jurisdiction says that.

Originally Posted by fredinno

The problem with the UEL SFHs right now is their status in Electoral Area A.
Block F has renewed the discussion to incorporate it, which is why we are here.

There's no way UEL would be incorporated or merged into CoV without adding the UBC's lands into the package.

Merging UBC and UEL into a single incorporated municipality would give UBC the privilege of buying up the SFHs and turning them into general rental (the residential lands in UBC itself are designed for student housing- aside from (kind of, sort of, not really) Acadia Park.

Incorporating just the UEL into the CoV or its own municipality sans UBC gives little potential for redevelopment of the SFHs, as they have the power to dictate planning in the area..

Those houses are already being used in some cases as multifamily. Check out the pics in this listing (and seriously, who writes sh!t like this?!):

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