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Jack Knox: Capital region’s park users owe a debt to The Land Conservancy

With all respect to The Land Conservancy, it’s not the fate of the environmental organization that matters.
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CRD staff are keeping an eye on the parts of the Sooke Potholes land still held by The Land Conservancy. “If their security is at risk, we will look at options," says parks committee chairwoman Susan Brice.

With all respect to The Land Conservancy, it’s not the fate of the environmental organization that matters.

No, what’s important is the fate of green space in the capital region — particularly the potential parkland that could be paved over now that TLC is in the ditch.

The conservancy went into creditor protection Monday, no surprise to those who have followed the financial troubles/civil war that have hobbled the non-profit for the past four years.

That leaves people wringing their hands about the future of its properties, which in these parts range from pieces of the Sooke Potholes to Victoria’s Abkhazi Garden.

What gets forgotten is the vital role the organization has played in snapping up land for the regional parks system.

For a decade TLC and Capital Regional District Parks were a terrific team, buying up the south Island’s leafy bits before they were swallowed by the building boom.

Typically, the conservancy would leap in front of the bulldozers (figuratively speaking) and negotiate a property deal, putting up a third of the purchase price before turning the land over to the regional district, which would pay the balance.

But without TLC in the picture, the region’s ability to add to its parks is diminished — and once wilderness is gone, it’s gone.

Christopher Causton, the former Oak Bay mayor who headed the CRD parks committee during the partnership’s heyday, is among those keen to see what happens next.

“The question is, what happens to future green space? Are we done? I don’t think so.” He doesn’t know which angel will fly in to take the place of TLC, though.

Causton credits TLC with not only being the nimble partner that leapt through windows of opportunity, scooping up parkland when it became available, but being the driving force behind the creation of the CRD’s parks acquisition fund.

That fund was approved by voters in 1999. Financed by a property tax that averaged out to $10 per household, over the next decade it allowed the regional district to buy almost 3,000 hectares of the green spaces we often take for granted.

That includes the bulk of the Potholes property, land linking Mount Work and Thetis Lake parks, and the massive swath of the Sooke Hills that Victorians view as the city’s backdrop.

By the end of 2009, the parks system had acquired $28 million worth of property, with $17 million of that paid for through the CRD fund and most of the remainder raised by TLC.

It has been a good deal for local taxpayers, who have had to cover less than two-thirds of the price of their parks.

At least, it was a good deal before TLC’s house of cards wobbled.

Although the CRD parks acquisition fund was renewed in 2010 (with the property tax scheduled to eventually rise to an average of $20) it is tapped out, eaten up by that year’s decision to spend $18.8 million to save land next to the Juan de Fuca Trail from development.

When TLC was unable to play its usual role, the district found itself on the hook, meaning there will be no money for other purchases until 2016 at the soonest.

That means the CRD’s wish list — including parcels of private land that, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, would complete the Sea to Sea Green Blue Belt running from Saanich Inlet to Sooke Basin — will remain a wish list.

Not everyone is saddened by all this. There’s a certain smugness among those who equate land preservation with Prius-driving, Gore-Tex-clad eco-elites, and who resent having what they see as prime development land tied up so that the condo-dwellers can have somewhere to go commune with nature.

But the fact remains that local voters, when given the choice, eagerly opted for a tax increase to pay for more parks.

And while TLC might be in a mess, its lenders might be cranky and the CRD might feel as though it has had the rug pulled from under it, the bottom line for Victorians is thousands of hectares of green space that might not have been protected otherwise.

Susan Brice, the current head of the CRD parks committee, said she hopes TLC can find its feet and the relationship can be restored. In the meantime, staff are keeping an eye on the parts of the Potholes land still held by the conservancy. “If their security is at risk, we will look at options.”

Some places, she said, are too precious to lose.