Don’t bulldoze Valleyview’s vivid greenery and other special charms into an uninspiring expanse of grey urbanization.

That was the appeal several residents delivered to city council on Monday evening. They were using their chance to publicly pass judgment on the Valleyview South Master Plan.

The blueprint, on which council was briefed March 18, proposes the development of 3,500 housing units on the former “tank farm” land to provide homes for an estimated 4,200 people.

Implemented over 15 years, the plan includes a network of new roads.

Valleyview lies to the north of the site in question, the McIntyre subdivision across Hamilton Boulevard to the west, and Hillcrest to the south.

Valleyview Drive resident Sylvie Binette treated council members to some foraged food originating from the greenspace (Lot 66) behind several Valleyview neighbours’ homes.

Treasured plant species require a forest canopy to survive, Binette told council. She referenced a 60-year-old tree that was cut down near a powerline.

Mature forests create an excellent carbon sink, Binette added. The quantity of greenspace entertained in the master plan is insufficient, she said.

She also commented on the traffic disruptions, noise and dust Valleyview residents have experienced as the tank farm area has been prepared for development near their “small urban forest.”

Another resident told council that Lot 66 contains most of the area’s walking trails, and asked that it be preserved.

From her gleaning of the plan, the resident said, 90 per cent of the area’s trail network would be eliminated.

While the plan offers up Lot 12 as greenspace, she said, it’s sloped, and is negatively impacted by new power lines.

“A lot of the proposed greenspace would be unusable,” she told council. Users would instead have to walk to Mt. McIntyre, she added.

“I would suggest that the city explore alterntive options,” she said, adding the amount of greenspace in the plan has been “misrepresented.”

Nor have the impacts of additional lighting and snow-clearing on Valleyview residents been considered, she added.

“Residents are already affected by the noise of snow-clearing in the Canada Games Centre lot and the Alaska Highway.”

Valleyview resident Marc Champagne said he lives in a “small community where traffic is getting louder and louder.”

He listed the area’s suitability for such family outdoors pursuits as walking and sliding.

“All of these features “are going to disappear with this proposed plan,” he said. Residents will end up with too much terrain “criss- crossed by powerlines,” he added.

“Providing greenspace in Hillcrest doesn’t make up for that loss,” Champagne told council members.

“I implore you to have another look at this plan. It does not take into account the value of the small forest in our community. I really feel Lot 66 should be protected.”

Though the plan speaks of a recreation facility, Champagne said, “we have our recreation facility.”

Downtown resident Peter Long 
agreed that the master plan under-values the numerous recreational benefits of living in Valleyview.

Also appearing was Porter Creek resident Keith Lay, representing the Active Trails Whitehorse Association. He said the master plan conveys the false impression there would be no extensions of motorized trails as part of the development scheme.

“This statement (in the plan) defies reality, and needs to be corrected,” Lay advised council.

As the plan stands now, he said, “trails would be open to snowmobiles in the winter.”

Karen Baxter, a nurse who works 12-hour shifts, told council that Valleyview’s greenery has provided an oasis for her spiritual and mental health over the last several years.

Another woman, also working in the health care field, said there “is about to be a massive deforestation in the Valleyview subdivision. To keep this small amount of greenspace would mean so much to us.”

Mayor Laura Cabott told the presenters, “Administration will prepare a report on what has been said and the emails received and will come back to council.”

During the Second World War, 24 large tanks were installed on the site to store gasoline, furnace oil and Arctic stove oil that had been brought by pipeline from Skagway, for use by the military.

The tank farm ceased operations in 1995, and the tanks were removed in 1997, followed by years of site decontamination and remediation work.