Environmental group Save Our Seine (SOS) must be pleased with the new Precinct K plan introduced this week. Usually Save Our Seine’s interest in development falls off precipitously beyond 300 feet from the river. To their credit, they enquired about the tree line connecting the Seine River to the CPKC Emerson Line. They even asked about the second growth forest found east of the railway tracks in South Fraipont. While SOS may have asked, those lands are not protected in the new plan. The Seine River riverbank and the intriguing Smith Farm coulee are protected, which was probably always the SOS bottom line.
Qualico owns surprisingly little of the Seine River riverbank in Precinct K. The privately held Sampson Lands to the north have vastly more trees in its floodplain than Qualico’s riverbank.
Initial signs are that almost all of the Sampson Lands riverbank trees are safely located within the waterway requirement, the flood plain. SOS will not need to mount a Bois-des-esprits level campaign to save those trees in the next decade.
The maps below show that the floodplain includes seemingly all of the riverbank trees surrounding Smith Farm coulee. Qualico used most if not all of its required 8% park dedication to square out the irregularly shaped parkland area. While Qualico has included an access road and a cul-de-sac with large Estate sized lots within the old Smith Farm homestead, on the surface it appears that no trees will be need to be felled there to create the new homes. That satisfies a SOS bottom line, no felled trees. SOS has no official policy on new housing development. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”
Living in a new suburban community adjoining the Seine River is a mixed blessing. When SOS doggedly protects the riverbank trees, developers are forced to use their meagre 8% parks land dedication to accomplish that. Do not expect playgrounds and soccer fields in the lands adjoining the Seine River. SOS has already secured the public parkland before the first house is even built.
That is why the location of new schools is so important. In an ideal world school grounds and their playing fields would be built beside the Seine River. Unfortunately, Qualico is hinting that any new schools will be built east of the railway tracks, not west of the tracks by the river.
School buses in the future would then be inclined to use Creek Bend Road, not Warde Avenue to the north. It gets better and better for urban Creek Bend residents currently living off of St. Anne’s Road.
