One Tree Orchard Sustainable Community

Your best teacher is your last mistake.
Ralph Nader

Hi Everyone! Here’s to a wonderful new year!There has been so much to feel grateful forthis past year! The project has partnered with some truly fabulous and exciting people and organizations.  We are moving quickly forward in a very positive way! Hopefully all the difficulties that face our society we will serve as useful learnings to build a more stable way of life. It is important to look at these difficult changes as opportunities to make valuable changes rather than see only the pain of their transitions. Truly this year promises to be a very exciting and innovative time for New Brunswick and the One Tree Orchard. Lets take a look at the great things that have been accomplished in 2008: Looking back on 2008 we can see some amazing accomplishments! We have built a strong group of committed individuals and organizations to put together what will be a first of its kind in the Fredericton area and even the Maritimes!

Early last year the One Tree Orchard made its first partnership in the form of Daniel Savard (DENV). Daniel has been an inspiring and irreplaceable mentor to the OTO process. He has offered advice and countless hours of research, support and education to us. We could not have gotten this far without Daniels support. Shawn Dalton and the ESDRC have also been without question indispensable. Shawn has worked exceptionally hard for the OTO project. She and her students have provided countless hours of advice, assistance and support. From working out the logistics for the SCD training session to building relationships with other faculty and departments of UNB. Through the ESDRC we have started many UNB student colaborations. Miles Dibble, a masters student of Philosophy in Policy Studies, is creating a social policy study to determine what government policy changes will need to be addressed and what roadblocks we might encounter. He is also compiling data on what kinds of sustainability issues are most widely understood and valued in New Brunswick. Marc Girard, a student in the forestry and environmental management department, UNB, has recently joined us to undertake the creation of our stormwater management plan. He will be working in collaboration with Hydro-com Ltd. under the guidance of Hans Arisz a leader in stormwater management in Canada.
This summer, we successfully hosted a Sustainable Community Design Seminar for prospective OTO project partners. Now everyone who is currently involved in the process is trained to understand the  concept and language of sustainable community design.
This fall Vince Zelazny and Andre Levesque began a biological survey of the housing area. We are pleased to announce that they have recently completed this survey and that we are now prepared to begin the process of drawing initial plans of the housing area to be provided for discussion by the local service district.  As those of you who have attended Daniel Savard’s SCD training session may remember it is vital to map out designated conservation areas before designing the layout of a neighborhood. Andre Levesque has painstakingly created an excellent system of maps and overlays to demonstrate these conservation areas. After much field work he and Vince Zelazny have compiled a great collection of data which was recently presented as part of Andre’s course work at Moncton Community College. We now know which areas are more suitable for housing and which areas require protection. With this information we can proceed in safety knowing that our design is less likely to have a negative impact on our environment or cultural heritage. It has been a great privilege to work with both Vince Zelazny and Andre Leveque on this very important aspect of the project. In the near future, we will begin the process drawing plans for an initial concept for the neighbourhood layout. Working in parallel with this will be the Marc Girard/Hydro-com stormwater management plan creation process. The neighborhood plan and the stormwater management plan must marry perfectly. This integration is vital to a successful outcome. We are very excited to be working with both the folks at Hydro-com, who are leaders in stormwater management planning in New Brunswick and Marc Girard who has proved himself to be a very driven and innovative student.

An Invitation

If you are interested in being involved in the neighborhood design process we would love to haveyour input. The more input we can receive during this important stage the better equipped we will be to create a neighborhood that will truly meet the needs of its inhabitants. This process will begin in March.  There are many different ways that you could be involved depending on your availability and your skill set. We would very much like to open the invitation to you to involve yourself in this process as much as you are willing and able. Please forward any requests to alex(remove this spamfilter)@(remove this spamfilter)onetreeorchard.ca.

Thanks again and have a great year!!