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Land Trust |
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Coquitlam Foundation Land Trust Fund
The Coquitlam Foundation Land Trust Fund (the "Land Trust Fund") provides a means for the acquisition, conservation, and stewardship of sites, areas and objects of ecological, historical, recreational or agricultural interest in or near the City of Coquitlam, primarily for the use, enjoyment and benefit of present and future inhabitants of the City of Coquitlam. The Coquitlam Foundation is the Trustee of the Land Trust Fund.
The purposes of the Land Trust Fund include:
- aiding in the conservation and stewardship of lands of ecological, historical, recreational or agricultural interest;
- protecting lands of vital importance to water supplies and water quality;
- ensuring public access to waterfront lands and corridors;
- preserving natural areas recognized for their ecological value in terms of biodiversity including fauna, flora, fish, and wildlife;
- protecting lands of regional significance for recreation, scenic beauty, historic preservation. habitat connectivity and biodiversity, including fauna, flora, fish, and wildlife;
- cooperating with local governments, citizens and organizations in meeting land use purposes of the Land Trust Fund; and
- promoting land stewardship through public education and technical assistance.
Conservation covenant ensures land will not be developed :
by Leneen Robb - Staff Reporter (Coquitlam Now Newspaper)
Saving a little bit of Burke Mountain
A Burke Mountain resident has become the first in Coquitlam to register a conservation covenant with the Coquitlam Foundation's land trust committee.
The historic move ensures that Steve Vida's .72-hectare (1.8-acre) piece of land near Partington Creek in northeast Coquitlam will be preserved - in perpetuity.
In an ironic twist, Vida, a retired engineer who turned 83 yesterday, worked for the company that got the contract in the early 1970s to develop a subdivision on Burke Mountain.
He worked on the project, but says that "Every time I went to the office, I got so boiling mad that they're ruining my place and what have you, so that's how we started."
What started was Vida's decision to fight what he calls the "mutilation of the environment."
He and his wife Donna - who died eight years ago - had already bought their piece of land on Victoria Drive in 1968.
It cost less than $6,000 then, but the land alone is worth more than $300,000 now.
Once their single-level home was built, Steve began a bird-feeding routine that now sees him buying about 40 pounds of black sunflower seeds every two weeks just to fill the feeders hanging by each window.
"I've been feeding the birds here for 33 years now, and that was the main thing," he says of his decision to sign a conservation covenant. "I don't want my poor birds to be displaced."
His love of birds began decades earlier, in his native Hungary.
Vida grew up in the agricultural area of Mako, where his parents where both teachers. He lived in the building where his mother taught, and when he was about four, someone gave him a bird - a thrush - as a gift.
"I put him in a cage and I tried to feed him chicken feed ... and it didn't eat and my father said, 'You know, you are going to kill this bird,'" he recalls.
"So two days later, he said, 'Let's open the cage and let him go.' So we opened the door and the bird flew up to the top of a mulberry tree and then he started to sing.
"You know, I never forgot that singing since then. It is always with me - how he greeted the freedom."
Vida came to Canada in 1951, and while he has no children, he has discussed the idea of entering into a conservation covenant with his nieces and nephews.
He is not only signing a document saying he will protect the land, but is bequeathing his property to the Coquitlam Foundation in his will.
Conservation covenants are known as "easements" in the rest of Canada and in the United States.
They're registered against a property while the owner is still alive, and take effect immediately.
Tamsin Baker, regional manager of TLC The Land Conservancy, says conservation covenants are individualized to suit the needs of the landowner.
In Vida's case, the conservation covenant provides for the home, driveway, sheds and garden to be preserved - meaning that while Vida is not allowed to clear-cut the land or subdivide it, he can continue to live as he does now.
Michael McPhee chairs the Coquitlam Foundation Land Trust Fund Committee.
The Coquitlam Foundation is a philanthropic organization that hands out between $40,000 and $45,000 a year to various community groups.
The foundation was formed in 1992, while its land trust fund was created about three-and-a-half years ago.
The committee McPhee chairs administers the land trust fund, and he says it accepts donations of properties for environmental reasons.
While the land trust fund committee could hold a conservation covenant on Vida's land - once it is bequeathed to the Coquitlam Foundation - McPhee says that would be a conflict of interest.
That's where Baker gets involved.
"Our role is that every year, we're back monitoring the covenant," she says. "That's how we make sure to keep that continuity. I mean, you can put a covenant on a piece of land, but if no one's there to keep an eye on it, what's the point?"
TLC The Land Conservancy is one of four major groups of its kind in B.C. The others are Ducks Unlimited, the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Nature Trust.
TLC The Land Conservancy holds about 100 conservation covenants throughout the province that add up to almost 100,000 acres.
The largest is for a 1,000-plus-acre ranch in the Chilcotin.
While one property - the Emerald Forest in Whistler - is a well-known hiking and biking area, most lands with conservation covenants placed on them are not open to the public.
"It would never be open that anybody could just wander in here and have a look," McPhee says of Vida's land.
Possible future uses of the Coquitlam property include guided tours by nature groups or schools or even some of McPhee's geography students at Douglas College.
"It's like a little gem in our urban area," McPhee says of the land, which contains a diversity of native flora and fauna.
Vida has seen bears, deer, skunks, coyotes and even a cougar on his property.
His bird feeders are visited by five different kinds of woodpeckers, and last year, he made the local media when a rare Rose-breasted Grosbeak visited his property - attracting birders from as far away as Vancouver Island.
Stellar's jays, junkos, house finches, purple finches, chickadees - there's no shortage of wildlife on Vida's land, which also includes a mature stand of second-growth forest.
Conservation covenants are not to be entered into lightly, since they are attached to the property in perpetuity and there are legal means written into them to ensure compliance, but Baker says Vida is fairly typical of someone who signs one - "just someone really wanting to protect the greenspace in their backyard."
And while they're not too common in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley yet - TLC The Land Conservancy has less than half a dozen in those areas so far - conservation covenants are gaining in popularity.
Most of the ones Baker's group oversees are on Vancouver and the Gulf Islands, and in the Interior and other parts of B.C.
Before 1994, the agreements could only be registered with the province, not with non-profit or conservation groups.
Once a landowner decides to sign a conservation covenant, the process can take years to finalize.
"We want to encourage other people to consider doing the same thing," Baker says.
"It doesn't have to just be a donation of land ... you can own the covenant and still own the land. It doesn't mean you're making it into a big public park. It just means it's a way to protect green space on your property forever."
While the permanency of conservation covenants - if, for example, something happens to TLC The Land Conservancy, the province or another conservation group will assume control of its properties - means signing one is not a decision to be taken lightly, the permanency is exactly what appeals to Vida.
"It will be something, when they rape this whole mountainside and make another Mary Hill out of it, this will remain as is," he says of his land.
"And I just hope that there will be some other person who will do the same thing here."
For more information on conservation covenants, visit www.conservancy.bc.ca, or www.landtrustalliance.bc.ca or call TLC The Land Conservancy at 604-733-2313.
published on 11/04/2005
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