St. Norbert neighbours upset over sight of patch of wild grassland on city property
City says it's allowing area the size of a football field to return to its natural state
Condo residents in St. Norbert complain the city isn't properly maintaining a patch of wild grassland on its land, even as it cracks down on homeowners who don't mow their lawns. What these residents view as an eyesore, the city calls a necessary natural feature to ensure proper water drainage.
Stretching from a pumping station on Pembina Highway down to the Red River between the Renaissance condo building and the St. Norbert Community Centre, the knee-high grass grows close to the sidewalk, covering an area about the size of a football field.
"I walk my dog here all the time and even compared to around the community club, they keep that whole back meadow cut, and we keep ours cut and groomed. And then this just looks like a mess in between it," said Madge Biddell, who lives in the Renaissance condo building on Pembina Highway.
Ever since the city launched a pilot program this year to enforce the neighbourhood liveability bylaw forcing property owners to keep their grass under six inches long, St. Norbert city Coun. Markus Chambers said he has been inundated with complaints from residents living near the pump station.
"To me it's a, 'Do as I say, not as I do,'" said Chambers.
Under the pilot program, bylaw officers can visit a property and issue a warning, giving the property owner seven to 10 days to cut the grass or face a $250 fine.
Around the pumping station, the line between the natural environment and city infrastructure and has become "blurred" due to lack of maintenance, said Chambers.
"It's overrun with thistles and the general upkeep of the area has not been to the standards that the city should be observing," he said. "We need to have a proper plan in place to ensure that it's not overrun with thistles and that there is some general upkeep to the area."
"The whole coulee is washing away. We're losing trees," she said. "The whole thing was not not done we think the way it should have been.
"I know that our [condo] boards have been talking to all three levels of government about it, but it's just beyond our control. It's not our property, except it borders on it."
The City of Winnipeg's department of parks and open space is responsible for maintaining the area. Chambers emailed the department to express the residents' concerns, but he said the department told him the area is undergoing a process of "renaturalization."
The City of Winnipeg has been allowing the area to "passively naturalize" as part of Beaujolais Coulee, which drains retention ponds and the land in Waverley West, South Pointe and parts of St. Norbert, a city spokesperson said in an email statement.
While trying to balance weed management with the goal of allowing the area to return to its natural state, the city will increase the mowing next to the sidewalk from two metres to four metres.
The city has followed this process of passive naturalization in several other areas of the city over the past 20 years, which the city says has a number of benefits.
"These types of areas are passive park features and managed for their ecosystem values and associated passive recreational values such as birdwatching or butterfly/pollinator habitat," the city statement said. "While passive naturalization is not appropriate for a residential yard or boulevard, it can be appropriate within parks and other wide areas that are environmentally beneficial."
Chambers acknowledged the importance of allowing natural plant life to return to the area and said he wants to see the land properly managed so it looks cared for. This is important, he said, because St. Norbert is the first area of the city visitors to Winnipeg see when driving in from the south.
"This is the first impression that they're gonna get," he said.
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