A consequence of the city’s plan to remove the Dunsmuir and Georgia Viaducts is a plan to divert traffic from Prior Street to a widened Malkin Avenue – the “Malkin Connector” – which will be extended west to Main Street and east to Clark Drive via an overpass across the railroad tracks.
Malkin Avenue is the right-of-way for the downtown freeway that was never built. This right-of-way is 12 lanes wide and parts of Cottonwood Garden, Strathcona Garden and Strathcona Park have all been developed on this unused right-of-way. Cottonwood Community Garden will be most affected if the plan to widen Malkin goes ahead.
If you feel like we do, that Cottonwood Community Garden must not be sacrificed to facilitate traffic to the downtown core, please let Mayor Robertson and City Council know! You can write to them at City of Vancouver, 453 W. 12th Ave, Vancouver. BC V5Y 1V4 or e-mail them at mayorandcouncil@vancouver.ca. You can reach them by phone by calling 3-1-1. You may want to remind the Councillors of their commitment to make Vancouver the Greenest City in the world — see their ”GreenestCity 2020 Action Plan.” If you would send us a copy of your letter, that would cheer us up immensely: cottonwoodgarden@gmail.com.
Please sign our online petition. Go to our website, cottonwoodgarden.com and
click on the “sign petition” button at the bottom right.
Please forward our petition and/or download the PDF and print out a hard copy to pass around for signing
We urgently need to get the word out about what Cottonwood is up against. Pass on our leaflet to friends and family. Join us on Facebook at “Save Cottonwood Community Garden“ and “like” and share that page widely. We feel sure that the more people know about what a unique ecological green space Cottonwood Garden is, the more they will want to join us in protecting it.
We’re doing free tours of Cottonwood Garden every Saturday morning at 10 a.m. to show the great variety of trees, shrubs and plants planted and the rich bird, bee and insect life. And to share its over twenty-year story, how it began and how it was created by many hundreds of dedicated volunteer gardeners over the years. We meet at the east entrance on Raymur Avenue, across from the dog pound. Please join us — and do bring friends and family along. If you belong to a group and would like to arrange a group tour at another time, please call Beth at 604-253-7036.
If you’re not able to take the tour, but would like to learn more about the garden read Oliver Kellhammer’s article in the Vancouver Observer entitled,“Oasis in Peril” www.vancouverobserver.com/city/cottonwood-community-gardens-oasis-perilWe welcome all ideas and offers of help to make our campaign successful!
Please write to us at cottonwoodgarden@gmail.com
Grandview Woodland Food Connection 
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