Open letter to Richmond city council,
I humbly ask that you consider taking serious steps to save mature trees in Richmond from being chopped down to make way for mega homes.
It starts with trees but it goes so much farther. In the past five years, thousands of trees have been removed.
Just this week, a beautiful and strong four-storey tree with a base diameter of three feet was chopped down as it was only just inches outside the protected zone from the property front.
Trees give us oxygen, shade, privacy, buffer/block noise and remove toxins from the air.
Kids climb on trees, people sit under them and animals live in them. However, they are currently expendable to make way for unaffordable homes to even the above-average-earning Richmondite.
In a world of finite resources and higher pollution levels, why on Earth is our society okay with wasting solid 2,800-square foot homes and the surrounding trees, for multimillion dollar mega homes for international buyers?
It is turning into workers living farther from work, parents spending more time commuting than with their kids and major waste.
It’s bad enough thousands of coffee cups are disposed of daily but now houses and trees are disposable?
I’m sorry, but replacing mature trees with small ornamental and low maintenance trees doesn’t cut it.
Bernard Soong
Richmond
