Protesters decry tree cutting on Tewin lands, which city has deemed permissible
"There's lots of laws, lots of regulations ... but somehow there's a little bit of a Swiss cheese thing."
Taylor Blewett, Ottawa Citizen
Published Mar 12, 2023 • Last updated 3 hours ago • 6 minute read
Tree-clearing on a property near the edge of Ottawa’s developable area has been OK’d to resume, drawing dozens to a rally at a nearby park Sunday to decry the actions of the developers behind the future Tewin project, and the city’s apparent inability to “stop the clear-cutting.”
Dramatic drone footage was captured last month after neighbours heard activity on the site in Ottawa’s rural southeast, showing piles of trees felled and stacked across what CBC Ottawa has identified in their reporting as roughly 70 hectares.
Taggart Group has partnered with the Algonquins of Ontario (AOO) on a new satellite community in the area called Tewin. They’ve apologized to neighbours for not notifying them before starting the tree-clearing work, which is on their land but not among those hectares admitted into the urban boundary in 2021. The tree-clearing follows damage by last spring’s derecho, and Taggart says it supports plans they’ve had to use the area for farming.
That this is permissible, according to the city of Ottawa, is one thing that didn’t sit well with attendees at the Sunday rally — a group that included Carlsbad Springs residents, environmental and progressive groups, and Algonquins from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg community, critical of the AOO.
“There’s lots of laws, lots of regulations … but somehow there’s a little bit of a Swiss cheese thing,” said speaker Paul Johanis, of the Greenspace Alliance of Canada’s Capital. “You’ve got all these layers, but you can get through it somehow — because that’s what happened here.”
Five days after learning about the tree-cutting operation on Feb. 17, city staff issued a stop-work order to investigate. In an update to council last week, interim general manager of planning Don Herweyer said staff had determined that the tree-cutting was exempt from the city’s tree protection bylaw and the stop work order would be lifted.
They didn’t need a tree permit, as Herweyer explained it, because there’s an exception in the bylaw for instances where “the injury or destruction of trees is required for farming practices.”
In a March 7 letter to the Carlsbad Springs Community Association, Taggart Group’s vice-president of land development, Michelle Taggart, said the city had confirmed that two exemptions in the tree protection bylaw applied in their case: where “the tree is an immediate threat to public health and safety” and where “the injury or destruction is a normal farm practice carried out as part of an agricultural operation by a farming business.”
The property, located at 4401 Eighth Line Rd., was “heavily impacted” by last spring’s derecho storm, Taggart wrote. She attached photos, showing felled trees, and explained that after seeing the “extensive damage” and “immediate threats to public health and safety,” they decided that the worst-hit portions of the property “would be cleared and would be renewed with dedicated farming activity.”
It’s a return to how the property’s been used in the past, Taggart pointed out. It had a history of being farmed, but by about 1991 that activity had mostly stopped, she said.
“Aerial photographs show that between 35-40% of the property was, by 1991, covered with a coniferous plantation farm, with the remainder of the property maintained as open fields,” she wrote. “Since 1991, additional portions of the property have been subject to further tree plantings.”
Taggart said that after engaging in discussions with multiple commercial agricultural operators, they’ve “signed a long-term farm lease with a local registered farmer.”
The site in question is immediately south of the Tewin land that was approved for inclusion in the city’s expanded urban boundary back in 2021. A controversial decision at the time, it made 445 hectares developable by Taggart and the AOO for their planned satellite community. Sustainability was a major part of the sell for Tewin, as was its rootedness in Algonquin values.
In an email to this newspaper, Chief Wendy Jocko of the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan challenged Sunday’s rally.
“Protesting farming activity that is not breaking any laws and has been deemed appropriate by the City of Ottawa is colonialistic and insulting to the community we are building and our rights to farm the land,” Jocko wrote.
“Why should the Algonquin people not have the same rights to farm our lands as all the other rural landowners in Ottawa?”
According to Tewin media contact Jennifer Stewart (a strategic communications entrepreneur who also worked on Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s campaign), there are no plans for the future of the property “other than to farm the land.” A separate statement, attributed to the Taggart side of the Tewin project, said farmland use of this land “is what our partnership with the Algonquins of Ontario had always intended.”
Information about the kind of farming operation the site will host is not being provided at this time, said Stewart.
George Darouze, the councillor for the area, was not available for an interview for this story Sunday, but his assistant, Owen Murdoch, said the councillor had consulted with the planning department’s Herweyer, and confirmed his understanding that “there will be at least a 10-year period where this land will continue to be agricultural use, and that any changes would change the exemptions for tree-cutting or site alteration.”
“The land is currently not within the urban boundary, and would take at least eight to 12 years to be a ‘development ready status’, according to staff.”
Darouze had previously released a statement, provided Sunday by his office, which said that as chair of council’s agriculture and rural affairs committee, “I am pleased to hear that this land will be used for agricultural purposes in the interim, particularly with the need for more fresh produce in our local rural economy.
“Many residents are feeling the struggles associated with the inflationary prices of grocery items that put food on their table, and I am hopeful that more initiatives like this will be undertaken around the city.”
Darouze’s assistant said the councillor was not aware of any future plans for the privately owned property.
In his memo to council, Herweyer said that staff would monitor activities on the site to make sure the farming exemption was being adhered to.
Carlsbad Springs residents also got an apology from Taggart for their “communications bungle” — moving ahead with the tree-clearing without informing the community.
In her letter, Taggart wrote that it was a mistake not to include these particular lands — being rural-designated and outside the urban boundary — in their consultation program for the Tewin community.
“Given the sensitivity of the project, people in the surrounding area are rightfully interested in what we are doing with all our lands, not just those inside the urban boundary. I apologize for not coming to the community sooner and commit to doing a better job of keeping the community informed about the work we are doing in the rural area,” said Taggart.
A Tewin community advisory committee is in the process of being set up, but Taggart also proposed “an act of goodwill” to help with a community project, such as paying to fix up the rink at the Carlsbad Springs Community Centre.
The scrutiny over the tree-felling could continue at city hall later this month.
Coun. Shawn Menard, the chair of council’s environment and climate change committee, says he’s asked for a standalone discussion of the issue at their March 21 meeting, but that will require two-thirds support from the committee.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...-lands-which-city-has-deemed-permissible
Prev
Linear Mode
