Mission’s Sylvia van Gerven loves her home. She bought the house on Nottman Street 11 years ago and loved to tend her garden in the backyard.
But now she says the yard is closing in on her.
Her fence line, her garden and her rhododendrons are being invaded by blackberries, ferns and other vegetation from the adjacent property around her home.
She says the property is not being maintained by the District of Mission.
Van Gerven says she has been debating the matter with district staff for the past four years and so far little has been accomplished.
She said five years ago her large rhododendrons were “totally alone.”
“I still had my strip of garden. How the heck do I get all of that out of there that’s blackberries?”
In previous years, van Gerven said she worked tirelessly to keep her garden clear, but she recently had some serious health problems and can no longer do the work needed.
And she can’t afford to hire somebody to clean it for her.
But her primary questions is why should she have to clean up a mess being created by vegetation coming from district property?
“If they had attended to this four years ago like I asked them to, that whole bush wouldn’t be growing in my garden. That’s the issue I have.”
The district has removed several trees that posed a possible danger to her property, but have not cut back the vegetation.
And while van Gerven knew the property was surrounded by vegetation when she purchased it, she did not expect it to be allowed to encroach on her land.
“If it was kept, if they had come in every year and kept it back 10 metres, I wouldn’t have disaster.”
Maureen Sinclair, the district’s director of parks, recreation and culture. said there are hundreds of homeowners in a similar situation where they back onto these environmental areas.
“I think the challenge with this particular piece of land is the zoning is environmental. So what the municipality does, what the parks department do, is we go in and deal with safety-related issues,” Sinclair said.
She explained that if a tree is going to come down on a house or poses a safety risk, the district will have it removed.
“But, because it is an environmental area, we don’t have carte blanche to go in and take down random vegetation, and we don’t. So people can control it at the fence line, but we can’t just go in and start clearing large areas.”
Sinclair said van Gerven has been told she can go on the environmental side and clear about a metre around her property if she wants to. But it isn’t something that district staff will be constantly maintaining.
“It will continue to move as we know vegetation will. It does not see borders and boundaries and property lines.”