Reader Tara Tanaka (Vimeo page here, Flickr page here) is now fighting a battle to keep her family’s reserve (i.e., her property, which has been made into a wetland wildlife sanctuary), from being overwhelmed by a subdivision that might be built across the highway. She reports on the problem, giving one of her videos of the wildlife on the sanctuary. From her post on Facebook:
There is a large church property directly across the truck route from our wildlife sanctuary, and a developer is about to meet with the county to discuss building a 108-single family subdivision on part of the property. According to the neighbor who is working to inform those affected by the proposed development, “Any development of that size would have devastating impacts on the character of our surrounding neighborhoods. The traffic impacts would further clog our roads, making traffic even worse than it already is. The light pollution coming from a site with 108 new homes would disrupt our tranquil way of life. Water runoff from the site will only worsen the flooding we see after rain events, especially to our neighbors in Riverwood Acres. And no one really knows of the impacts a new development would have on the wildlife we currently enjoy year-round.”
Some in the neighborhood are meeting with a reporter from a local TV station to make people aware of what is happening, and I was asked to provide video footage of some of the wildlife that nest, spend time in, and pass through the sanctuary, and I wanted to share it here as well.
Although Tara’s up against seemingly unstoppable property development, she’s fought back with the most powerful weapon she has now: video and public opinion. Here’s her video, and a lovely one it is, too. Keep an eye out for the ducklings!
Wonderful video! Very sorry to learn about the possibility of more development in the area. The water run-off aspect in particular can be the worst.
Thank you Mark. They will probably build another storm water retention pond and capture water that would have otherwise drained to our swamp, increasing the length of time we are in droughts. We’re in a severe drought now and at least one of our otters has been hit on the truck route as it searched for water and food.
Tara
Good luck with this conflict of interest – never heard of condos on church property… hopefully they reconsider…
Thank you Bryan. They are selling off part of the property to a developer who will buy it if he can get approval to build.
Tara
Any chance a land conservation organization could be found to purchase the property and place it under a conservation easement?
It would be wonderful Neil, but most of the property where the development is proposed is cleared, and I don’t think that that parcel would qualify for a conservation easement. We got one on our 45 acres in 2015, and we had to present a compelling case for the land trust to take it on. With taxes and other expenses in addition to the purchase price, I don’t think this parcel would be affordable for a conservation organization to purchase. Being a wetland, our parcel has no development potential, while the proposed property has high development potential. Thank you for your thoughts on this.
Tara
Such a wonderful video! I wish you much success in your challenge against development. Any chance there are endangered or rare animals/birds/plants on your property?
Thank you Ruthann. Yes, the Wood Storks are a “threatened” species. They were “endangered” until developers were able to get them downlisted so that they could build in more of their habitat.
Tara
Beautiful video! I notice that the sound doesn’t change noticeably when the scenes change. Are the audio and video synched, or are they recorded separately and put together in post?
Good catch Norman! The reporter asked for about eight 15-second clips, and many of them were videoed from inside the living room and had no audio at all, while some the others had highway or other distracting sounds. I found some audio and just used it for the whole track so that if they wanted some ambient nature sounds they could use it as is. When I sent it to them I did not put transitions between the clips so that they could cut cleanly between them. Only after I created their version did I decide to add the transitions and share it with the public. Thanks for watching and listening so closely!
Tara
Wow! A lot went into that video!
Beautiful video! Is the wetland only 45 acres? You seem to have an amazing diversity of wildlife for so small an area. Good luck in resisting the incursion of development on the nearby land!
Thank you Charles. Yes only 45 acres but there are woods around it too. The turkeys, bobcat, deer and fox were all shot from the living room, and my dog was jumping on the bamboo floor barking when I videoed them. A lot of it was too shaky to use – you can see how each of them is alert and watching the house (except for the turkeys). The stork and spoonbill together were probably also shot from the living room. We have been very fortunate to live here for 32 years.
What a beautiful video! Best luck against the developers.
Thank you Frau Katze!
Unless people can bite the bullet and try and limit the human population growth, these things are inevitable. Yet such a notion is an anathema to nearly everyone.
Any time growth slows then it is as if the sky is falling and instead of looking for other solutions, as happens with climate change, the usual response, from governments everywhere is to say breed breed breed. When China tried it everyone used that as and example of a human rights violation.
The reality is that the selfishness of the human and its desire to spawn will slowly wipe out all other life on earth, except as curiosities or parks for rich people to shoot them.
Lovely.
Hi Tara. Unfortunately, for some reason I am not able to view your video. I’ll bet it’s lovely. I tried on 2 different browsers, but no go. However, the affair with the proposed development really hits home for me and I can feel the the doom you’re surely experiencing. I didn’t live on a wildlife refuge, but I did live on a very large property that had 10 historic cottages scattered on pristine Sonoran Desert. There was an agency next door that called itself a Christian Foster Home. The executive director was in fact nothing but a property developer masquerading as a “man of faith”. He’d been clamoring to purchase the property from my landlord for 30 years, but my landlord saved it as a nest egg for his son. My landlord ultimately died of cancer and on the night of his death, his wife changed his will, got the property and sold it to the horrible man next door. That man’s agency tore down all our homes, dug out all the native landscaping and surrounded it with chain link fencing. It was devastating for all of us. This happened in 2018 and I still haven’t gotten over it. Nothing was ever built there which really doesn’t matter because anything they built would be cookie cutter, institutional style — hideous, in other words. Churches can build just about anything they want on their properties. And any evil, greedy, child molesting creep can call himself a “Christian” and his building a “church”. This agency was raided by Homeland Security and several of the men working there are now in prison for child sexual abuse and selling pornography that was being sold on the internet. I am so sorry for what’s happening so close to you. I cannot stand the business of churches being tax exempt. There is so much corruption occurring between these large religious places and government. It’s disgusting! I hope you are successful in your battle.