Conservationists vow to monitor plans for Saskatoon's swales
CBC
The Swale Watchers plan to keep watching.
Candace Savage, co-chair of the group dedicated to preserving the endangered ecosystems in northeast Saskatoon, said the conservationists will monitor plans for a new neighbourhood in the area.
City council unanimously endorsed a framework for a national urban park in the South Saskatchewan River valley on Wednesday, despite concerns over an altered boundary that excludes parts of the Northeast Swale and Small Swale.
Council had previously approved a more extensive boundary in 2023. The Swale Watchers and Wild About Saskatoon raised concerns that the new borders will result in less protection for the strips of land that provide a home to native prairie plant and animal species.
"Stay tuned," Savage said in an interview on Thursday. "We'll be looking for opportunities to encourage public discussion around the [neighbourhood] concept plan and around the maps that have just been revealed."
Council's governance and priorities committee endorsed the altered boundaries, but included a change proposed by Coun. Bev Dubois that included the phrase "subject to engagement and possible future refinements."
City hall's land development branch, Saskatoon Land, has submitted a conceptual plan for the city's next new neighbourhood that appears to border both the Northeast Swale and the Small Swale.
The city administration is studying the plan for the neighbourhood. The city has suggested the name Hawthorn be applied to it to reflect the area's natural history.
Saskatoon Land director Frank Long said he hopes the plan will appear before council for approval sometime next year. Such plans are approved at a public hearing at which anyone can speak.
City hall received correspondence from 160 people expressing concerns about the altered boundary, an unusually high number. Savage said the group encouraged people to write in and provided them with a form letter.
Long tried to assure the committee the ecologically sensitive swales will not face a direct threat from development.
"We have no intention of doing any development in the swales," Long said. "We've always recognized the swales are important natural areas that we're not going to develop.
"As a developer, we went out and purchased them. The city owns them, which is probably the best protection they can have."
But Savage said her group is mainly concerned with the buffer between the protected areas and the encroaching suburban development. The Swale Watchers lost battles to try to relocate McOrmond Road and the future Saskatoon Freeway, both of which cut through the swales.
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