Yellowknife (Oct 15/04) - A number of residents are demanding the city do a better job protecting greenspace -- in particular Tin Can Hill, which is slated for future development under the 2004 general plan.

Resident Vicky Johnston told council Tuesday night that greenspace in the city faces "death by a thousand cuts" because of city development plans. - Mike W. Bryant/NNSL photo

Vicky Johnston, who often leads community nature walks through Tin Can Hill, said the remaining greenspace in the city faces "a death by a thousand cuts" due to city development strategies.

"That's what I'm afraid will happen with this general plan," said Johnston.

She recommended the city develop a ranking system that categorizes greenspaces by priority.

"You can use that ranking to determine what should remain as greenspaces," said Johnston.

In all, seven written and three oral submissions from residents and community organizations were entered during Tuesday's statutory public hearing to the proposed general plan. Six of them specifically called for no development on Tin Can Hill. The general plan is up for second reading by city council later this month.

Tasha Stephenson accused the city of consistently putting development interests ahead of protecting greenspace.

"One of the things that leads to development always winning is that we can't put a dollar value on greenspace," said Stephenson.

"These things have value, but we tend to forget about them when we have a development proposal on our desk worth a half million dollars."

Coun. Mark Heyck told council he intends to bring forward a motion at the next council meeting calling for all references to residential development on Tin Can Hill be dropped from the general plan.

He said the hill is too valuable in terms of hiking and other recreational activities to start putting houses on it.

"There's no way we're going to need this land for residential development anytime soon anyway," said Heyck.

"Phase VI of Niven Lake is going to take three years to complete. Phase VII, which is the biggest phase, we haven't even started talking about that.

"Yet, we're charging ahead with a development scheme for Tin Can Hill when clearly we don't face that pressure right now."