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On July 6, 2010, there was a free agri-tour of Cherry Lane Farm, where
visitors could see urban farming, organic farming practices, and
more diversity in action. Our
agr-tours
page provided details. Thank you to Miles Smart and everyone else who
made it such an informative and enjoyable event.

The Garden City Lands is active at local events like this one at
King George Park
and, most recently, the Green Zone at the Steveston Salmon Festival on
July 1, 2010.
The Garden City Lands Coalition is a community of people who
want the Garden City lands, Richmond, BC, to remain green
in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) for
agricultural, ecological and open-land park uses for community benefit. The
coalition has just rethought a key question,
"Why keep the lands green in the ALR?" in this PDF.
If you support that goal, you may wish to receive the
Garden City News, a brief newsletter emailed to the Friends of
Garden City about twice a month.
To subscribe, simply send this
subscribe email.
If you support that goal, you may also wish to
become a member of the Garden City Lands Coalition Society.
Thanks to
Michael Wolfe for guiding a great eco-tour of the Garden City Lands on
the morning of International Biodiversity Day. People of all ages from 2
to 75 enjoyed the experience together. Relevantly, since the City or
Richmond is conducting the
Social Planning Strategy Public Survey, it enabled experiential
learning about community social development. As always with our
eco-tours and agri-tours, the experience involved environmental
respect and gratefulness. Our
eco-tours
page provides some details of past eco-tours
and will announce future ones when they are scheduled.
The Garden City Lands, shown at top, are
mapped
with details here. The
main entrance is shown here.
- BC's Agricultural Land Commission was asked to
exclude the Garden City Lands, 136 acres of prime farmland in
Richmond City Centre from the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) so
that over half the property could become high density development.
- Good alternatives had been proposed to keep the
Lands as green open space in the ALR. The massive public input,
evident in the
ALC's Garden City Lands section, overwhelmingly opposed the
application.
- The federal Minister of Agriculture indicated in
a
letter to the Garden City Lands
Coalition that his department will consider using the lands for
a program need if they become available.
- A key agreement expired on Dec. 31, 2008, after
Richmond council refused (by a 6-3 vote) to take drastic means to
extend it.
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On Feb. 12, 2009,
the Garden City Lands panel of B.C.'s Agricultural Land Commission
(ALC) REJECTED the
application to remove the Lands from the ALR.
Here's what we told the commission in a thorough
analysis, and here's the
commission's decision.
- Under the basic Garden City Lands
memorandum of agreement (MOU), which has no expiry date, the
City of Richmond renegotiated with Canada Lands Company and the Musqueam Indian Band to determine the future of the Lands. There
could also have been occasion for the federal government to become
involved.
- Along with unified strategic action by Richmond
council, community action on this issue remains very important.
Visit the Action page.
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The City of
Richmond purchased the Garden City Land on March 31,
2010. The Musqueam Indian Band
sued the City of Richmond, making various claims on the premise that it
sold its interest to the city under duress,
in a writ dated April 9, 2010.
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To read a PDF file, you may need to download
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