Municipal
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What is a Living Forest Community?Where will it work best?
Why is it important for a Municipality to consider this in its Planning?
Triple Bottom Line Benefits
How do we implement this approach?
Preservation vs. Conservation
Media
Who are we?
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How do we implement this approach?
Working with the municipal or regional district staff, we anticipate using the new land use zone called the Community Land Stewardship Zone (CLS Zone), pioneered by the Trust for Sustainable Forestry and the Comox-Strathcona Regional District for Cortes Island, DL 1127. The CLS Zone is an umbrella type of legal mechanism that encompasses the typical land use criteria such as density, permitted uses and minimum lot sizes. It also includes the Design Guidelines and site-specific requirements. The zone prescribes the limits of mixed-use areas for residential, retail and tourism facilities, and light industrial uses normally associated with the sustainable harvesting of timber. It provides a degree of flexibility to adapt uses to market variations over time, while providing the municipality with the certainty that the built form will be as promised.An ancillary Master Development Agreement may also be appended to the CLS Zone that ties the dedication of additional municipal parklands or amenities to density bonuses.
Living Forest Communities will incorporate "best practices" into the forests by building narrow, contour hugging roads that do not require extensive blasting followed by large volume cut and fills. Wherever possible, we will limit the size and impacts of roads or bridges and utilize natural systems thinking in the provision of infrastructure and the management of storm runoff. By regenerating wetlands and streams, we can provide a valuable means for slowing down runoff and permitting rainfall to recharge underground aquifers. In many locations, we can also improve the percolation of the soil, and enhance the many natural functions of the site by situating houses on small foundation pads or pilings rather than large concrete basements.
