Jan Card

Member since February 22, 2019

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Jan Card10 months ago The overal objective of any revitalisation plan should be to have the least possible impact on the existing flora and fauna and built environment possible. Tree cutting and brush trimming should be limited to what is necessary to keep the site sustainable and provide improved access for people. Removal of damaging invasives is obviously required but those that have become established and give the site it's character should be husbanded rather than destroyed. Access for the public should be the objective. A logical first step would be to focus on walking trails and cleared picnic spaces and open space and immediate partial restoration of the built structures to ensure their preservation.Once stabilised, each of the structures could be offerred to private or charitable interests to be turned into exhibits, venues or activity centres for appropriate uses under license. Garden Clubs/Historic Societies/Audubon Society/BAMZ/etc. could all be invited to create informative/educational exhibits and venues for club and public meetings. Availability of light food-service and beverages is crucial to encouraging public enjoyment of any park venue. One of the buildings - Mimosa Cottage - could be designated as a restaurant with responsiblity for managing light food and beverage service at satellite areas around the main site and with the special provision that it could operate as a family restaurant during hours when the site was not formally open. It would have it's own access via the west gate and it's own parking to scale. It could also offer catering for on-site meetings and events.Beach access should be improved with the main access at the East end and the East Parking area designated as public parking. Beach use should focus on family use and NOT on large scale Tourist use. The existing and planned tourist focus at Horseshoe Bay and East should NOT be replicated at Southlands. Use by Busloads of Cruise visitors should be discouraged by policy. Amenities should be restricted to minimal sanitary facilities and mobile, as opposed to built structure, food services on a tendered concession basis. The Western parking area on the beachside property should not be developed until there is proven need. In the meantime the Cafe, Parking and PicNic areas should be incorprated into the labelled Woodland Walking Area which could include small PicNic areas overlooking the beach.Once the site is minimally organised and maintained and public access begins, those who visit the site will begin to form their own impressions of what further development should happen and in what order. An ongoing feedback-monitoring program ( a feedback webpage, on-site questionnaire, social media a "Friends of Southlands" email newsletter) should be continuously monitored to stay abreast of public sentiment and plan accordingly. The Southlands development should not be a single long range plan developed and executed by a list of "Stakeholders" that are almost exclusively Government Departments or Entities. It should be planned as an organically developed project guided primarily by citizen and public interest group inputs.

Jan Card5 years ago The best way to avoid the stifling effect of bad legislation is to not pass it in the first place. A perfect case in point is the terrible suggestion fromn the BRSC to require all electric-assist bicycles (and, one assumes, scooters (not vespas), electric skateboards, future segway-style people-movers, etc) to be licenced and insured as if they were 'Auxiliary Cycles'. The future will hopefully see such vehicles being used more and more; they will eventually begin to be attractive for commuter and errand running and will be reducing SUV, Card and cycle traffic. This is all good. The same person who hesitates to pedal from Devonshire or Smiths to Hamilton to arrive sweaty for a day at work (remember the good old days !) may well be attracted if his assisted cycle turns a workout into an enjoyable ride and he arrives relaxed. To be clear, I am not talking about the full-on electric versions of what would otherwise be called motor-cycles or dirt bikes or vespa-type scooters. I am referring to pedal-able cycles that are pretty clearly of a style and construction normally seen in Bicycles which are fitted with small (typically under 1 Kw max power) motors. A host of local opportunities will come as these evolve from what are now mostly early concepts to mass produced, inexpensive vehicles. Jobs in selling and fixing these bicycles. Leasing and renting them to both locals and visitors (The Railway Trail would be a far more attractive experience by asssited cycle or segway-type mover than when walking - particularly in the heat), the list is long. Visitors to St.George would have access to all of Ferry Reach and St.Davids in a way that is simply not available now. The cost and the inconvenience of Licensing will certainly suffocate all that. As for insurance; . . . . . Really !!!!. With the sizes, weights and speeds of the vehicles we all have to put up with on the roads today to take the position that the riders of assisted-cycles contribute to the risk and should therefore pay into the pool is arrant nonsense. That logic would suggest that unassisted cycle riders, skaters, runners, joggers, walkers and just plain pedestrians should all be required to be insured before they use our roads as well. Government should "just say no" to this ridiculous over-exercising of the natural bureaucratic urge to expand authority to fill the available space.