The Editor,
Re: "Keep lands accessible," Letters, July 5. I appreciated Floyd Murphy's thoughtful discourse on the Garden City Lands. I agree with Mr. Murphy.
While everyone was talking about what we should do with the Garden City Lands, and even council was holding an open house to invite ideas on what to do with the lands, my opinion has always been to "do nothing."
When we see a piece of green, open, land, why do we feel that we must do something to it? Have we stopped to consider that maybe the current state is already an excellent state?
Our family nicknamed the Garden City Lands the "Lungs of Richmond."
It is the vast open living green field in which Richmond breathes to rejuvenate from the lifeless concrete, cement, vinyl and asphalt we have slapped all over Richmond.
We enjoy watching the ground cover plants slowly grow in the spring, become taller and taller in the summer, then mowed in late fall. That is when the lands get its annual haircut. This cycle takes place year after year.
The Garden City Lands is a green field smack in the centre of Richmond where your eyes can relax its muscles and your view stretches undisturbed all the way from Westminster to Alderbridge, from Garden City to No. 4 Road.
Why is there a desperate need to disrupt this expanse? Not many cities have the luxury of having a piece of vast, green, open land right in its centre.
Richmond is so fortunate to have it. How about leaving this precious green space alone? In the case of the Garden City Lands, I say "hands off " rather than "hands on."
Maria Kwong Richmond
