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Topaz Park Natural Area This webpage is dedicated to ensuring the Natural Areas of Topaz Park are appropriately protected and enhanced as the City of Victoria (B.C., Canada) implements its improvement plan for the park. INTRODUCTION: Topaz Park is the third largest park in Victoria, with a variety of sport and community activities. The City had decided to develop a Park Improvement Plan for Topaz Park and had engaged the community through a series of consultation processes. One of the concepts (Concept #2) that had emerged threatened the Natural Areas in the park and a focused effort was put together to stop it. After the tremendous response to the public process from many of you, the importance of the Natural Areas has been recognized and now it looks like the Natural Areas of Topaz Park will be preserved and enhanced. Job well done!! Key aspects of Natural Areas in plan: - One of the key features is: "enhanced natural areas and increasing tree canopy" - "Enhancement and protection of natural areas" was noted as one of the top five priorities of Topaz Park - One of the guiding principles is to "Celebrate the Urban Forest" - "Most common requested revisions: - - Should include natural areas/trees (41 responses) - - Recognition of daily use/role as a neighbourhood park (7 responses) - - Should be 'a' destination park, rather than 'the' destination park (7 responses)." - "The Parks and Open Spaces Master Plan (2017c) found that environment features, natural areas, and ecosystems within the City's parks and open spaces are highly valued by Victoria residents. Preserving and improving environmental features and benefits throughout the park system emerged as the highest overall priority for Victoria's parks through multiple engagement methods. This was reiterated through community consultation for this project, when preserving and enhancing trees and natural areas ranked fourth in overall priorities." - "The urban forest plays a vital role at Topaz Park by providing shade, beauty, character, and habitat. The park contains a healthy tree canopy, including several large canopy tree species and a significant remnant Garry oak ecosystem. The plan locates future park activities to preserve existing trees wherever possible, and provides the opportunity to expand canopy coverage in the park over time (see. Fig. 10). Protection and management of natural areas will improve biodiversity and ensure that park activities and natural areas are mutually beneficial." Design Guidelines: Trees & Natural Areas - Plant new trees in locations that provide canopy coverage, shade, definition, and character to new park areas. - Where planting areas are included through detailed design, consider native plants, edible plants, or plants that offer wildlife habitat value. - Retain, protect, and enhance the environmentally sensitive Garry oak woodland ecosystem in the northeast corner of the park. - Where trees need to be removed due to poor health or to facilitate construction, plant replacement trees to ensure no net loss of canopy coverage, with a preference for planting large canopy park tree species. - Ensure long-lived, healthy park trees by providing sufficient soil volumes, root barrier, and irrigation where appropriate. - Selectively remove underbrush in the southeast section of the park to facilitate new park activities, sightlines, and safety.  Approved Plan; northeast Natural Areas are preserved! Notice that the Natural Areas are now shown on map Key Documents Topaz Park Report Topaz Park Improvement Plan Topaz Park Improvement Plan Appendices Topaz Park Council Presentation HISTORY OF CONCEPT #2: Two concepts have been presented for comment by the community. We have reviewed them and decided on the following recommendation:  Concept #1 recommended; northeast Natural Areas preserved  Concept #2 not recommended; northeast Natural Areas threatened by Disc Golf Course DISCUSSION: Piece of Heaven The Natural Area in the north east corner has healthy Garry Oaks, and lush mosses and ferns along the rock outcroppings. One Garry Oak was measured at 9.5 feet (3 feet in diameter). There are almost no weeds, invasive plants or garbage. It is a little piece of heaven in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the city. It is rare to have a Natural Area in such good shape in Victoria. We spend so much time in other areas of Victoria removing invasives and trying to reconstruct the Natural Areas, yet when we have a prime area sitting right in front of us, it seems that we have to destroy it.   Disc Golf While Disc Golf might be appropriate for some locations, we believe it would not be appropriate to put it in the north east corner of Topaz Park, which is such a environmentally sensitive area. There are many courses where discs have damaged the trees, including making them more suspectible to disease. If you want to see what damage can occur, take a look at this report from Rifle Camp Park. Players often scramble for discs resulting in compacted soil, and at Topaz Park this would result in killing the lush ferns and mosses. A comment (page 8) to BC Parks highlighted this by noting the condition of the Disc Golf course in Mouat Park on Saltspring. Question: "Human activities that I feel will damage the environment". Answer: "1- Disc Golf course. This is a very damaging activity and is totally inappropriate to this park [Burgoyne Bay]. One only needs to go to Mouat Park and see the immense damage that this beautiful park has had over the last 8 years of use to understand why I completely oppose disc golf. There is literally no understorey plants left in the course area at Mouat Park." The discs used are often not your average discs, but made of extra hardened plastic causing yet more damage. Once a course is established, it has been shown that players often claim it as theirs alone, to the detriment of others. So much for the nature loving folk wanting to enjoy the area also - they would essentially be pushed out. Perhaps we can learn from Disc Golf experience in California: "In fact, part of the thrill of the game for many players is trying to fly their discs over bushes and around trees to get to the basket. Discs occasionally smack trees, and players often go bushwhacking through the landscape to search for wayward throws. This 'bushwhacking' is what causes the majority of environmental damage. Each throw's trajectory is determined by random forces of wind, natural obstacles such as trees and shrubs, and the player's skill. Leaves and smaller limbs are stripped from trees, and a majority of the course is, over time, beaten down to bare dirt from heavy foot traffic." We note that 6 holes are in the south section and 3 holes situated in the north section. If a course does go in, perhaps it should all be contained in the south section. Parks and Open Spaces Master Plan The City of Victoria has recently released its Parks and Open Spaces Master Plan. The City has noted that the Topaz plan would be guided by the Master Plan. The Master Plan reported: "the most important value was protecting and highlighting natural areas and environmental stewardship" (section 4.1.1) and 95% to 98% of the people surveyed felt that these natural areas were very or somewhat important. So what is the Topaz Park Improvement plan doing to address this? - destroying the last bit of the Natural Area in the park (if Concept #2 is decided on) does not seem like the way to go. Map oversight We note that new plants have been recently added in the Natural Area and a "Environmentally Sensitive" sign has been posted on the site highlighting the significance of the Natural Area to Topaz Park. While most key features presently in Topaz Park such as parking lots, fields and washrooms are shown on the existing Topaz Park map, one key feature of the park is missing - the Natural Area in the northeast corner. We feel this puts the Natural Area feature of the park at a disadvantage as the community members commenting through the City process might not be aware of what they might lose or that it (the Natural Area) even exists. If you would like to us send us comments, please send them to topazcomments@blockcommunities.com. |