Beginning ponderings

I'm doing this blog for a class that I'm taking taking at Royal Roads University on Southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The course is called "Sustainable Development and Community Relations", and in it, we are asked to create a blog on our observations of sustainability as it affects our community.

Well...one of communities that I'm a part of now is the Prior Street community,as we bought an old house in this Victoria neighbourhood just six months ago. Being that I am completely caught up in a ridiculous work load with this school program for a 12 month period, I haven't had much time to develop a strong relationship with the community for which we live in. There is one very strong community tie between myself and my neighbours by reason of geography, however, and that is Summit Park, which is located at the NE corner of (what I identify as ) our "hood": the cluster of houses that lie between the borders of Finlayson st., Cook st. Quadra st. and Hillside ave.

Summit Park is a protected Garry Oak meadow, which has played many roles in the community over the years. It is the site of a water reservoir, that at one time supplied drinking water to the area, as well a huge communication tower that was installed by BC Tel back in the 60's or 70's (I'm not sure about the date). It has a series of trails, a few benches, and some very cool bedrock cliffs that provide a great view of the city. The water reservoir has been out of use (as a source of Victoria drinking water) for some time, and is now used primarily as a refuge for ducks and seagulls. I see buffle heads and mallards on my daily dog walks in the area, and apparently it is used as a stopover for a variety of other migrating species. There's also the "Friends of Summit Park", which is a group of locals that lobbied to get the park protected, after a proposal was put through to turn the reservoir into a private tennis club!

Currently, the park is used by a lot of people for a variety of purposes. Loads of people use it as a peaceful corridor on their walks to work/school. There's the dog walkers like myself, birders (The meadow creates habitat for sapsuckers, robins, chickadees and a whole bunch of other birds that i can't identify!), photographers, artists, homeless people (I found a tent the other day set up in a thick brush area), partying teens, picknickers and probablymany others.

So...there's my little interpretation of what the park is. The question I'm supposed to be pondering is the sustainability aspects of this park. I'm now running late for class, so this discussion is formally postponed.