Seymour residents decry B.C. Parks for tree loss

A group of Seymour residents are dismayed to see life imitating some famous Joni Mitchell lyrics outside their backyards.

“They’re tearing down paradise and putting up a parking lot,” said Nicholas Nagy, a Jubilee Court resident who found B.C. Parks cut down a swath of trees outside his home.

The trees surrounded a small gravel parking lot off Mount Seymour Road between Hamber Place and Indian River Drive that spends much of the year chained off. Occasionally, parks staff open it up as overflow parking for Mount Seymour during the ski season or for use by film crews.

Two weeks ago, a park ranger went door-to-door on Jubilee and Hamber courts, which both back onto the lot, letting residents know they may hear some noise and that staff would be “clearing some brush,” neighbours said.

“It certainly is far more extensive than anyone would have anticipated. They cleared a bunch of healthy trees, almost right to Mount Seymour Road, apparently to expand the parking lot,” Nagy said. “You look out the windows and you now see the parking lot or you see the road so there’s a great loss of privacy. There’s far more road noise and you see all the cars driving by.”

Neighbour Phil Bradshaw said area residents could have worked with B.C. Parks to suggest alternatives, like expanding the parking lot at the old ranger house to the north, or at least replanting to mitigate the impact the residents would feel.

“I’m just really disappointed. There was no consultation. No consideration for how these changes would look on the landscape,” he said.

District of North Vancouver staff and council were also caught unaware and should have been included, Nagy said. At the very least, that should be the standard going forward, he added.

“There should be some consultation or some regulations so the district is involved so there’s something for the future, so this doesn’t happen at the decision of someone at B.C. Parks and away you go, cutting down trees,” he said.

In a letter to North Vancouver-Seymour MLA Jane Thornthwaite, Forests Minister Doug Donaldson and Environment Minister George Heyman, Hamber Court resident Doug Fisher called B.C. Parks’ actions “incredibly callous and unbelievable.”

The lot was already being used for après-ski tailgating, he added.

“Now the party will be right behind the fence. The rest of the year the lot is sporadically rented out by the Province to movie production. Again all day and night, generators and engine noise that will now have no filter by the greenbelt,” he wrote.

B.C. Parks did not provide an interview or comment

by deadline.

B.C. Parks has been looking for solutions to cope with heavy demand for the road up Mount Seymour and the parking lot at the top.

Last winter, parks staff surveyed visitors, asking them for their thoughts on increasing shuttle service, creating a reservation system, charging for vehicle access, building more parking lots, building a gondola to the base, and setting up a ride-share program.