Success!! Today Victoria City Council voted 8-1 on the motion brought forward by Councillors Hammond and Gardiner to halt the Centennial Square project! The Sequoia, the other mature trees and the entire Square have therefore all been saved from destruction!
Many thanks to everyone, for all of your immense help, signing petitions, writing letters to mayor and council, providing information to the public, speaking on the radio, writing letters to the paper, and attending the rally this summer that shifted the course on the square.
Congratulations to everyone who has been involved!!! We've all earned it after well over a year of hard and very well applied effort. We saved the Sequoia and Centennial Square!!!!!!!
And please, stay involved. Please contact the treesmatternetwork@gmail.com asking to take part in the Community Trees Matter Network and to receive emails from the group. There are many other trees in our communities that need to be saved, and the more we are united, the better chance we will have to save them.
Thank you again for all of your immense help in making our dream to protect the mighty Centennial Sequoia and Square, a reality.
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References:
Victoria council stops Centennial Square redevelopment project, will redirect funds
Sequoia supporters relieved it will stay — for now - Victoria Times Colonist (Article during the summer. Now it has been saved fully).
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Additional petitions aimed at protecting trees:
That the Province of B.C. Protect Native Tree Species within Building Envelopes:
https://www.change.org/p/that-the-province-of-b-c-change-the-building-envelope-to-protect-native-tree-species
Much on the same theme as the previous petition: Bill 44 massively expands building envelopes, for which there are no tree protections in place, a major source of natural habitat/urban forest loss, taking place in communities across British Columbia.
https://www.change.org/p/repeal-or-amend-bc-bill-44-to-restore-public-hearings-and-municipal-powers-over-zoning/
See: B.C. Bill 44 could trigger ‘catastrophic loss’ of urban forests | The Narwhal