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In a last-ditch effort to save the South March Highlands forest, Kanata North Councillor Marianne Wilkinson will ask city council to buy the 30 hectares slated for imminent development — using expropriation if necessary — and turn it into an environmentally protected area.
“We’ve got to put it forward and say, ‘Do you, council, want to save the land that comes highest in the ecological ratings, ever (in the City of Ottawa)?’” Wilkinson said. “I decided about a week ago (that) the only way to know for sure is to try.”
The land, north of Kanata’s Beaver Pond, is part of a 182-hectare parcel that belongs to KNL Developments Ltd., a partnership between developers Urbandale and Richcraft.
Covered in mature, leafy forest, the land forms part of the 895-hectare South March Highlands ecosystem, is home to animals such as black bears, red-headed woodpeckers and threatened Blanding’s turtles, as well as rare plants, including endangered ginseng and butternut trees. The city owns 457 hectares of that.
A 1997 report commissioned by the Regional Municipality of Ottawa Carleton said the highlands were “one of the most significant areas in RMOC for maintaining biodiversity and ecological functions and support a variety of landscape features found nowhere else in the RMOC.”
KNL had hoped to begin cutting down trees and blasting rock in the area this summer for construction of phase nine of its Kanata Lakes development, but that has been delayed by public pressure and the need to meet certain conditions, including a tree preservation plan.
Now, Wilkinson plans to table a motion at today’s city council meeting asking for an independent appraisal of the land.
Wilkinson said she would also table notice of a second motion, to be debated at the next council meeting on Oct. 6, “that the city acquire the land, using expropriation if necessary, and that we redesignate it as environmental protection land.”
Mary Jarvis, director of planning and development at Urbandale for the KNL development, said she had heard about the motion, but did not know the details and preferred not to comment.
Steve Hulaj, a Kanata resident who had spearheaded recent efforts to save the land north of the Beaver Pond from development, said passing Wilkinson’s motion was the right thing to do.
“If they turn it down, never, ever, ever again will they have a chance to save an old-growth forest,” Hulaj said. “This has been churning for 25 years. This is the last opportunity we have to save it. It has 18 species at risk, and, if we throw it away, it’ll never return.”
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