Awareness, identity, and the Lands

Please visit our very special new page, “Earth awareness,” by guest blogger Howard Jampolsky. Well known in Richmond, Howard is a businessman, officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress (Pacific Region), and politically active citizen. In this well-informed column, Howard relates the Garden City Lands issue to Earth awareness and his own identity and encourages the [...]

MLA candidates – May 5 update

Note: This is an updated version of an earlier post.
This blog does not endorse any provincial election candidates, but it does aim to identify candidates in the three Richmond constituencies who are likely to take “Save Garden City” action as MLAs if elected on May 12.
·        Michael Wolfe, Green Party Candidate in Richmond Centre, [...]

A quick Upton visit

We continue to monitor Upton Farm, the Prince Edward Island issue that has much in common with the Garden City Lands issue in British Columbia.
The Upton Farm Consultation Process has moved Charlottetown’s version of the Garden City Lands further ahead than ours, although their process moves slowly too.
Updates on the Upton Farm Preservation Network blog [...]

Happy Earth Day to you! Happy Earth Day to . . .

Update: Thanks to eco-guide Michael Wolfe and the twenty eco-enthusiasts who participated with him, the Earth Day tour was another big success. In true Earth Day style, the group even picked up several bags of litter on its travels.
From Wednesday, April 22, to Saturday, April 25, 2009, the Garden City Lands Coalition is celebrating Earth Day.
Join [...]

To Mark Laroche – from Carol Southgate

This post is a follow-up to the excellent “Optimal community value—CLC” post by guest blogger Carol Southgate. Besides publishing that message on this blog and in both Richmond newspapers, Carol sent it to Mark Laroche, the president of Canada Lands Company, with a cover letter dated March 29, 2009. At the same time, Carol forwarded [...]

Jessica Lai’s simplicity solution

Jessica Lai’s “Guest shot” column, published online and in the April 9 Richmond Review newspaper, provides insight into the difficulty of understanding the Garden City Lands issue.
Her simple advice combines idealism with common sense. If I’ve grasped the gist, it comes down to this:
If Canada Lands Company, the party that has had the greatest control [...]

A simple recap?

People often mention that the Garden City Lands issue is complicated. It is time to try again to simplify it. How is the following attempt at a current summary? All constructive advice is welcome, either in a comment below this blog post or via email to the Coalition. (Apparently we have a shy readership, since [...]

“Coffin hotel”—Sing Tao version

Local Traditional Chinese newspaper Sing Tao picked up the Richmond News’s “Coffin hotel to be built on Garden City lands” April Fool’s joke and published it as news in this article in Sunday’s issue. The following is from a free online automatic translation program, which no doubt does not do justice to the Sing Tao original.
Very [...]

Learning from Detroit—“Motor City” of all places!

We were copied on a brief message to city council today bringing attention to “World’s largest urban farm planned for Detroit.” It’s food for thought.
In some ways, the Detroit plan seems parallel to the urban agriculture proposals for the Garden City Lands. Evidently “Hantz Farms is working directly with Michigan State University to add its expertise on [...]

“Coffin hotel”

The April 1 Richmond News devoted the front page to an “affordable housing” article, “Coffin hotel to be built on Garden City lands.” The content about bodies was dicey, but the story was clever, funny, and appropriate for the occasion, April Fools’ Day.
Judging from outraged reactions that reached me, many citizens took the article seriously, though, [...]