Stealth Wrap up First Season in Langley
THURSDAY May 1, 2014 • www.langleytimes.com NEWS Frogs Given a Leg Up
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BUSINESS Langley Mom Gets Cheeky
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SPORTS Redhawks Rugby Rising
Clear cutting ban approved in 5-4 vote TO WN SHIP CO UN CIL SET S LIMIT O F EIGHT T REES PER PARC EL OF L AND DA N F E R G US ON Time s Re po rte r
DAN FER GUSON L an gley Tim es
Jim Davis stands on a street where crews were completing the removal of a large tree Tuesday morning.
Tree protection an issue outside Brookswood too, says resident DAN FERGUSON Times Reporter
Large old trees deserve to be protected outside Brookswood, according to a Langley Township couple who live in a rural area near Aldergrove and were unhappy to discover three towering evergreens have been cut down in their neighbourhood. Jim Davis said the trees, around the corner from their house in the area of 240 Street and 63 Avenue, were the tallest on the block, several times the height of subdivision homes in their shadow. “You can’t put your arm around [those trees],” Davis said. “You don’t grow them overnight.” Loraine Davis said she knew the trees well because she grew up on the farm where they were planted, which has now become a residential devel-
opment. Davis said her parents were told the trees were a kind of unofficial war memorial, planted some time after the First World War, but they were never able to learn more and the site does not appear to have been registered. On Tuesday (April 29), when Davis visited the location with a Times reporter, a crew was chopping a thick tree trunk into firewood and grinding down a stump below ground level. “To me, it’s stupidity,” Davis said. “The beauty of the municipality is green-ness.” When he called the Township, Davis said he was told the municipality had no power to regulate tree-cutting because the area was within the provincial Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) and under the authority of the Agri-
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cultural Land Commission (ALC), not the Township. However, a Times examination of an online ALC map appears to show the property in question is just outside the ALR. Davis said he supports some form of tree protection regulation that would protect older, larger trees, one that would allow property owners to cut down smaller “scrub trees” without a permit. He thinks the Township should extend its just-approved interim ban on clear-cutting in Brookswood to include the rest of the Langley. “It should be the whole bloody district,” Davis said. At press time, there had been no response to a Times call to the listed phone number for the house where the tree cutting had been carried out.
or 30 per cent, but reduced that to eight trees and 20 per cent of the An eight-tree limit has property after some quick been set for Brookswood/ negotiating at the council Fernridge. table with Richter, who An interim ban on wanted lower limits. clear-cutting was given With Long now voting final approval at a special in favour, the Tuesday night measure had meeting of Townthe necessary ship council. numbers to win It passed 5-4 preliminary apafter 50 minutes proval Monday, of often-heatfollowed by final ed debate, with approval at the Councillors Bob special Tuesday Long, Kim Richmeeting, schedter, David Davis, uled to ensure Steve Ferguson the law took and Michelle GR ANT effect as soon as Sparrow voting WAR D possible. yes and Mayor The “interim Jack Froese and tree-cutting bylaw” will Councillors Grant Ward, remain in effect until a Bev Dornan and Charlie new official communiFox voting no. ty plan is approved for Long revived the interBrookswood/Fernridge or im tree protection bya permanent tree proteclaw when he proposed a tion bylaw is passed. modified prohibition that It sets out fines of up to would allow more trees to $10,000. be cut. During the Tuesday The original proposal by night meeting, CouncilRichter would have fined lor Ward tried to have the property owners for cutvote deferred so the issue ting more than three trees could be sent to staff for per acre. study, a move Councillor That proposal was narRichter said was an atrowly defeated at the tempt to “obfuscate and April 14 meeting of Towndelay” and one that failed ship council by a 5-4 vote, to find enough support. with Long one of the votes An irate Ward comagainst. plained that council was Long proposed reviving catering to a vocal group. the ban and expanding it to allow cutting 12 trees Continued Page 5
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