Save Our Southlands

Why should the Southlands be preserved as agricultural land?

Because it is good farmland. Numerous scientific reports affirm the good quality of the land and the Agricultural Land Commission judged the land worthy of inclusion in the Land Reserve. The Southlands also has a rich farming history, with many cash crops grown in addition to a large dairy operation that ran for decades.

The description of the Southlands Community Planning Team in a recent article about Southlands development brought to mind another group of community volunteers.

They too worked long hours in a team setting. In cooperation with municipal planners and through community input, they formulated a vision for Tsawwassen.

Since I have been participating in the public discourse related to the future of the Southlands, I have noticed a few labels that have been applied to myself and others who hold similar views.

In this post, I will focus on three of them.

When I was just a couple of years out of high school I worked for two seasons at a farmer’s market on 52nd Street near Robert’s Bank, which at that time was just a coal port. The market was owned by the Guichon family and run by one of the Guichon sons, Tim. Throughout the spring, summer and fall, we would get fresh produce from all over Delta, usually brought to the market in the back of various pick-up trucks. There was a bumper-sticker on one of those trucks that has always stuck with me. It said “Farming is Everyone’s Bread and Butter.”

There has been some discussion of the meaning of the word charrette as it applies to Southlands development.

One very specific definition: it is part of the services you purchase when you hire Andres Duany.

As promoted in advertising materials, “the DPZ charrette has become well known throughout the industry as an extremely effective means of transforming vision into reality.”

It is touted as being especially effective for controversial projects