April 2025 news
April is renewal month🌷🐣, that time when we celebrate the waking trees that grace our mountains on Earth Day and every day. Go🌲climb a tree or maybe sit under one. You’ll feel what we mean. Duncan, Martyn, Greg and Heather.
Ch'ích'iyúy Elx̱wíḵn, The Sisters Photo: Ghislaine Courcelles
“Those who dwell among the beauties and
mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.”
- Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
The North Shore, as with all of Earth, is a living system. When we incorporate nature into urban communities and infrastructure, we increase biodiversity, making neighbourhoods greener, healthier, and safer in the face of extreme weather events such as heat domes and atmospheric rivers. Let’s all take part in the restoration of nature within our cities.
Rewilded front lawn in the District of North Vancouver
Photo: Michelle Sheardown
Over the coming weeks, Michelle and Heather will share more stories, information, and insights about the amazing biodiversity within the North Shore's living ecosystems. If you aren’t already, we hope you fall in love with the trees, birds, bees, and all living things right in our backyards. If you would like to contribute to this series by writing or sharing stories, please contact us at hello@betternorthshore.ca.
More stories from betternorthshore.ca
Earth day celebrations, workshops, films and tours
Old growth on Cypress Mountain, Photo: Ghislaine Courcelles
April 16: Old Growth Forests and Groves of the North Shore, a presentation by biologist David Cook. Registration
April 19: Ambleside beach cleanup for Earth Day
April 22: Earth Day film: "2040" 1:30 PM Lynn Valley Library Check out the trailer HERE. It's a perfect way to spend Earth Day afternoon!
April 26: City of North Vancouver Earth Day celebrations
Visit old growth on Earth Day
Take a half-hour, self-guided tour of the old-growth forest up on Cypress. The Old Growth Conservancy contains a mosaic of different-aged forest stands, including significant old-growth with some western redcedars up to 900 years old. Get the tour using the STQRY app, then search for the ‘Old Growth Conservancy Self-Guided Tour.’
Better Drinks 🍻
We're holding our first in-person event! Better Drinks is a chance to get together and meet in real life. Want to meet other like-minded people here on the North Shore?
When: Thursday, April 24th from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm
Where: Grand Boulevard, at the Chess Board. (Between 13th & 15th)
Rain or shine - we’ll have some tents if it’s raining. You’re not made of sugar!
Big chess set in the park
BYOC and BYOD = Bring your own chair and drinks - alcohol is legal in this part of the park = amazing! Non-alcoholic drinks taste great, too. Let us know if you think you’re coming with this quick sign-up sheet. It’s not required, but it will help us get a sense of how many are coming and if something big changes, we’ll let you know.
The future of housing on the Shore
You can still build a single-family home, but single-family zoning is no longer permitted. So what should we zone instead, and where? Photo: Heather Drugge
Each municipality on the shore is working to revise their zoning in response to the provincial requirement to ensure zoning will accommodate their 20-year total housing needs. The question now for each municipality is what kind of housing we should create and where we should put it. Two councils are asking us to make our views known right now.
District of West Vancouver
To accommodate an estimated 10,742 new homes by 2041, the district is refreshing the official community plan. Take the survey here to have a say.
District of North Vancouver
The district is updating the official community plan to accommodate 22,369 new homes by 2041. There are some public in-person workshops and surveys coming up. Learn more about how to participate here.
City of North Vancouver
The city’s housing needs report says we need to create 21,301 new homes by 2041. The city is modernizing its zoning bylaw to make it easier for mere mortals to understand. In tandem, it will look at the official community plan to make sure the zoning will allow for that growth over the next fifteen years. There are no open public input requests, though there was a 15-minute City Assessment in January and February meant to feed into the official community plan amendment process.
Poo plant progress
Watch a video update on what’s happening today at the Waste Water Treatment Plan. This video is from an April 10th West Vancouver special council meeting. The presentation part is 18 minutes long. Then there’s a question and answer period that gets more interesting. Photo: from the video. The steel here is manufactured in Ontario.
Where on the shore?
The first person to send us an email with the location of this spring scene will win a Better North Shore T-shirt. (Past winners are ineligible) hello@betternorthshore.ca
Photo: Ghislaine Courcelles
Better North Shore - chat server
Want to get more involved with Better North Shore? We’re growing and making an impact, and we’ve created a private chat server—a safe space to organize, exchange ideas, and work on making the North Shore better. If you’d like to get more involved, please join our Discord Server—it’s like Slack or MS Teams, but better. Join using this invite link.
If this newsletter and our stories resonate with you and your values, please forward this to a few friends, and suggest they join our email list. We're building a group of like-minded people who want to see the North Shore positively embrace and manage the many changes we face. Thanks, we really appreciate it, Heather, Duncan, Greg and Martyn.
