If a Tree Falls on the Escarpment

If a tree is felled on the escarpment and no one is around to hear it, did it really exist? If two trees are felled on the escarpment and no one but the developer hears it, did they really exist? Three, four, twenty, a hundred trees? After years of nibbling away at the escarpment trees, it seems the sudden clearing of land for more houses on our hilltop has caught the attention of the media, environmentalists and our City Fathers and Mothers.

In a city that was once all forest, the cutting and clearing of trees is expected as we add more homes to our assessment base. Developers only build houses where they think someone is going to be willing to buy them, and a hillside with a view is good selling point. A building lot on the waterfront is even more desirable, but we have already lined all our accessible lakes with homes and cottages, so it is to hills that we now must lift up our eyes.

We can in-fill the old rail lands and vacant lots in the old city, but these are not the choice lands that will encourage a developer to build a large, expensive home. And everyone likes the more expensive home. The builder makes a larger mark-up; the successful and affluent buyer want a large, modern, stylish home; the City wants the additional taxes a bigger house brings to its coffers. It seems like a win-win situation, so why the sudden outcry about a few trees on the escarpment?

The folk of the Pinewood area stalled the cutting of their parkland trees, but those people of Campbell could not forestall the felling of their beautiful mature trees. The copse of white birches on McKeown were slashed without a murmur and soon another badly-needed fast-food outlet will grace those lands. Almost every day a tree or two is cleared away in the name of progress. Wetlands are filled, swamps reclaimed and rocks and soil moved to build our shelters and workshops and we say bravo to our developers.

The residents below the hill may be worrying about erosion but surely the developer’s engineers and the City’s planners have carefully considered this danger. Only in California where they get heavy rains, do the houses slide down the hillsides. We have already had our 100-year storm last summer, so we can forget about the erosion problem. As far as the aesthetics are concerned, some fine homes on the escarpment will only showcase the affluence of this northern town. Mayhap some day we will have enough homes and people to attract the big box stores and fine shopping we seem to dearly desire. Mayhap some day our escarpment will look like Barrie. It seems to be what our modern market demands.

It will be interesting to observe how our officials react to the clearing of the escarpment. If there is no issue of safety, then all that must be left is that nebulous ‘quality of life’ argument. But perhaps we should save that argument for the decision to save or sell the Sweetman Gardens.