Archive for November, 2018

Volunteers Needed!

30/11/2018 by Janice

Les Amis du Parc Meadowbrook is a lively, dynamic group whose mission is to transform Meadowbrook, a 57-hectare green space that straddles the city of Cote St. Luc and the borough of Lachine, into an urban heritage nature park accessible to all. The group is also involved in a great many ways in the fight to preserve green spaces on the Island of Montreal.

If you would like to make a contribution and bring your special expertise to the table, here are a few suggestions:

Communications Committee

If you are a WordPress or a Wiki wizard, we would like to hear from you for help with our website (www.lesamsidemeadowbrook.org) and our ecomap project (www.montrealecomap.com). We could also use some help on our Facebook (www.facebook.com/sosmeadowbrook) and Twitter (@ParcMeadowbrook) pages.

Les Amis are celebrating their 30th anniversary in 2019. We have many projects in mind. So if you would like to lend us a hand, you are most welcome! Money, as always, is the crux of the matter, so any fundraisers would also be welcome.

Guardians of Meadowbrook

This is a special initiative to protect Meadowbrook until it becomes a nature park. A number of projects are under consideration: bird boxes and feeders (Meadowbrook is well known to birdwatchers), cross-country skiing and snowshoeing in winter, access routes to the area, etc.

Good research, collaborative and negotiating skills are required in this case.

Sauvons la Falaise

Les Amis and Sauvons la Falaise (www.sauvonslafalaise.ca) are partner organisations.  Sauvons la Falaise’s mission is the protection of the Falaise Saint-Jacques ecoterritory that stretches 4 kilometres from Montreal West to Westmount along St. Jacques Boulevard.

Here is a special assignment, one best suited to geography buffs. We need to make a map of the Falaise with GPS coordinates. For those with a more political bent, we also need volunteers to follow the proceedings of the Bon voisinage Turcot meetings in NDG and the Sud-Ouest, as well as volunteers to attend municipal council meetings.

 

Please contact us at lesamisdemeadowbrook@gmail.com to find out more and help us make Meadowbrook accessible to all!

Thank you for your interest!

 

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Les Amis Supports Creation of Falaise Saint-Jacques Nature Park

24/11/2018 by Janice

Les Amis du Parc Meadowbrook (Les Amis) expressed full support for the creation of a Falaise Saint-Jacques Nature Park in a brief presented to the L’Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) on November 20.

The OCPM hearings focused on the City of Montreal’s proposal to create a 30-hectare nature park beside the new Turcot interchange, including a lake, forested areas and a north-south link over the highway for pedestrians and cyclists.

“The City of Montreal’s determination to create a Falaise Saint-Jacques Nature Park that brings together the forested Falaise Saint-Jacques —currently designated as an Eco-territory—and the former Turcot Rail Yards is applauded by Les Amis du Parc Meadowbrook and other environmental groups, as well as thousands of residents from the CDN/NDG and Southwest boroughs, and residents from across the island who want the City to protect wilderness, wetlands, green spaces and former farmland from development as much as possible,” the brief said.

A park on the Falaise, a long escarpment beside the Turcot area, would help relieve pressure on the overused Mount Royal Park, Les Amis continued, adding that a similar park at nearby Meadowbrook would do the same. Both would decrease vehicular traffic across CDN/NDG, lower greenhouse gas emissions and improve overall traffic flow.

Les Amis was created by citizens 29 years ago to protect the Meadowbrook golf course from residential development. Its current goal is to turn that 57-hectare property into a nature park. The brief noted that, although the Falaise Saint-Jacques and Meadowbrook are not contiguous, they are interconnected since wildlife use both areas. The existing railway corridor provides a link for animals to travel between the two sites. In addition, a pedestrian and cycling corridor could be created between these two parks.

The brief added that the Falaise Saint-Jacques has been the site of illegal dumping for years. As a park, it would be cleaned up, replanted with native plant species where necessary, and the animals that live there would be better protected.

The Falaise Saint-Jacques Nature Park would also provide an opportunity to highlight the history of Lac à la Loutre, also known as Lac Saint-Pierre. The lake, which no longer exists, was fed from the west by the St. Pierre River which has been buried for decades. One of the few remaining open sections of this river is at Meadowbrook.

Les Amis noted that the plan for the Turcot section of the park calls for the creation of a lake, and this lake could be part of a project to daylight a section of the St. Pierre River. Storm water carried by collector sewers could be brought back to the surface to feed a larger lake here, with all of the advantages of a lake, including biodiversity, flood mitigation, and bioremediation.

Finally, Les Amis expressed the hope that the city will create a green corridor of parks around downtown Montreal with Meadowbrook, Mount Royal, the Falaise, the new Turcot park and Angrignon Park as its main components.

You can read our full brief at:

http://ocpm.qc.ca/sites/ocpm.qc.ca/files/pdf/P98/7.11_les_amis_du_parc_meadowbrooks.pdf

You will also find all the documents pertaining to the consultation and the briefs of other groups and individuals at the following address:

http://ocpm.qc.ca/fr/parc-nature/documentation

 

 

 

 

 

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