GUEST FORUM: Vaughan's natural heritage network city's best-kept secret

Yorkregion.com
March 13, 2014
By Sony Rai

Vaughan is embarking on one of the most ambitious and ground-breaking projects in its history and you probably know very little or next to nothing about it.

This project will increase the quality of life of the city’s inhabitants and also re-imagine how the city will grow in the future.

The Vaughan natural heritage network is the city’s best-kept secret.

The casino was rightly rejected by Vaughan citizens as the future vision of the city. Now it is time to make the natural heritage network that vision.

Natural heritage refers to the existing biodiversity that Vaughan is blessed with and has inherited, thanks to the protection of past generations.

This includes the ravines and river valleys, creeks, meadows, grasslands, woodlots and other natural features that make Vaughan unique within the Greater Toronto Area.

The city is currently undertaking a study to understand how this biodiversity can be protected and connected to form a larger network.

Nature doesn’t work in patches of green. For biodiversity to thrive, it must be allowed to flourish in a larger, connected system.

Many Vaughan residents live adjacent or close to one of many natural features the city is blessed with.

Some newer subdivisions in Vaughan are built around storm water retention ponds, many of us also use city-owned and operated parks and open spaces.

All these currently disconnected spaces can potentially become part of this incredible system.

The natural heritage network is ecological infrastructure, it is storm water infrastructure and it is recreational infrastructure all wrapped together.

The city’s natural spaces, storm water ponds and parks and open spaces should all be seen as part of this system.

The network will be an invaluable and critical piece of infrastructure that cannot be replicated or replaced.

This infrastructure already saves the city tens of millions a year in storm water retention and diversion. The more of the natural heritage we lose, the more taxpayers will pay to replicate this work through buried pipes.

Vaughan is great at championing infrastructure projects such as highway extensions, but what we tend to forget is the infrastructure we’ve inherited.

GET INVOLVED: Sony Rai is an architect who lives in York Region. He is a member of Sustainable Vaughan. To get involved, email sustainablevaughan@gmail.com or visit sustainablevaughan.com