It took three years of effort, but the city now has a new urban park.
The Roxborough Greenbelt, a three-hectare (about seven acres) site running west of Winchester Drive between Kingsmount Boulevard and Riverside Drive, was celebrated Sunday by residents and those in support of more public green space in the city.
Naomi Grant, co-chair of the Friends of the Roxborough Greenbelt, is a resident of Roxborough Drive — the green space begins at the street's western end. The site, mostly woodland, runs down to Junction Creek and is only 10 minutes from downtown. Grant spearheaded the push to preserve the green space in the city's core.
She was up against Dalron Construction, one of the city's biggest developers, who had begun plans to build houses on the rocky site. But thanks to family support, she and her supports were able to officially open the site to the public Sunday afternoon.
“I started out by doing a lot of door-to-door canvassing and talking to other residents just to make sure it was not just me. It was a widely supported feeling that we wanted to protect this space,” said Grant. “We tried to stay respectful of the people involved.”
Key to her strategy was respecting the fact that Dalron owned the property where the green space is located.
“I think Ron Arnold (president of Dalron) was easier to deal with when we accepted that his company owned the property. They had every legal right to develop the property. We did not think it was right to have clashes with them. Fortunately, we found a way for each party to get something out of an agreement.“Councillor (Frances) Caldarelli and Mayor (John) Rodriguez were very helpful in getting city council's support.”
What happened was a mutually beneficial arrangement, noted Caldarelli.Dalron owned two parcels of land it wanted to develop in the Valley, but the city owned 28 acres in between those parcels, she said. The city agreed to swap those 28 acres in the Valley for the Roxborough Greenbelt acreage, in addition to $65,000 Dalron had incurred in engineering expenses for the property development already underway.
The Friends of the Roxborough Greenbelt raised $50,000 as their contribution from donations and community fundraising efforts, while the city contributed $15,000 towards reimbursing the company's expenses.Gord Harris, former Sudbury riding Green party candidate, said he helped by raising awareness of the issue.
“I used to live just two or three streets away from here so that is how I found out about the effort to secure the space. I did my best to get the word out. It will be a major feature of the new upcoming Sudbury Ecology Map I will be distributing,” he said.
Peter Beckett, Laurentian University biology professor, said it is not every day the city announces a new green space.
“This is one of the areas along Junction Creek which allows for a diversity and wildlife access through the city of Sudbury. It is a fairly significant area, not in terms of rare plants, but it is a large area where one can find the typical kinds of plants and animals one would find in Sudbury,” he said.“It also preserves the integrity of Junction Creek,” he said. “It provides shade to Junction Creek for the fish, the frogs and other creatures. But it is a fairly large area in the city. We certainly need large urban green spaces, which helps to give habitat for plants and animals in the city.”
Beckett said trees help filter the air, besides providing shade for humans in the summer months.
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