Until 2006, "Salsbury Garden" was a much-loved quasi-public community space that featured a cob cottage, a few hundred-year-old trees, and affordable rental housing in two small 1907 heritage houses. For a hundred years this East Vancouver garden — on the southwest corner of Salsbury Drive and Napier Street — was a quiet nature sanctuary just off the bustling Drive.

The property, two standard city lots, was purchased in January 2005 by Richard Niebuhr, a Richmond developer, who then applied to the City of Vancouver to build two giant faux-heritage duplexes and two garages on the site. Niebuhr's development would involve demolishing the houses and cutting down all but three peripheral trees.

The community (with signatures of 1600 petitioners and dozens of letters of support) wanted the site to be preserved — to have the heritage houses saved and restored (or if removed, to have them replaced on the same footprint) and to have the sanctuary of the garden saved.

Since Salsbury Garden is located in the second most park-deficient neighbourhood in the city, many wanted the site to be purchased by the City of Vancouver to become an official "pocket park."

Grandview-Woodland is a mixed neighbourhood known for livability; its residents have always welcomed reasonable densification but they have also insisted that densification come with attendant greenspace. The Park Board agreed on this point and that Salsbury Garden would have made an excellent park; it made Niebuhr, the developer, a number of offers to purchase the property. But he didn't want to sell.

The site was listed as number six on Heritage Vancouver's list of Vancouver's Top Ten Endangered Heritage Sites for the year 2006. As well, the two heritage houses, BC Mills prefabs built in 1907, on the property were featured in the Nov-Dec issue of the Heritage Vancouver Newsletter. The houses were two of only eight BC Mills prefabs remaining in Vancouver — representative of an important chapter in the history of Canadian architecture and of BC's value-added wood products industry.

In August 2005, as a group of concerned citizens who loved the garden, the "Friends of Salsbury Garden" appealed Niebuhr's Development Permit to the City of Vancouver's Board of Variance.

After a four-hour hearing and many speakers supporting the appeal, the Friends won, and Niebuhr's Development Permit was quashed. "Democracy Shines on Little East End Garden" one headline read.

But Niebuhr didn't give up. He decided to appeal the Board of Variance decision to the BC Supreme Court, and for three days in 2006, one in May and two in August, the case Niebuhr v. the City of Vancouver Board of Variance was heard. Penny Street represented the Friends of Salsbury Garden as a Respondent in the case and made a statement to the court and filed an affidavit supporting the Friends' position. The president of Heritage Vancouver, Don Luxton, filed an affidavit as well. Many Friends attended the entire hearing.

BC Supreme Court Justice Goepel submitted his decision on September 21, 2006.

For the Friends of Salsbury Garden, the decision has been terrible. Niebuhr's original Development Permit was immediately reissued. He has since demolished the two BC Mills houses, cut down all but three of the trees, destroyed the cob house, and, even added insult to injury: as the Park Board continued negotiations with him to purchase Salsbury Garden, Niebuhr sold the property to another developer, Don and Liliana De Cotiis. They are now in the process of building Niebuhr's duplexes. Three of the four duplex units have already sold (for an alleged $609,000 + GST per unit) and the new owners will probably be moving in at the end of June 2007.

For Vancouver citizens concerned about our city's development, Justice Goepel's decision is devastating. In this period leading up the the 2010 Olympics, with development accellerating at a frantic pace, the Goepel decision eradicates Vancouver citizens' long-standing (over forty years!) right to appeal decisions of the Planning Department to the Board of Variance. These are known as "third-party" appeals, appeals initiated by neighbours or others who do not own a property but stand to be aggrieved by a proposed development. If Justice Goepel's decision is allowed to stand, the only parties permitted to appeal decisions of the Planning Department to the Board of Variance are owners of the property in question — that is, the developers — while the adjacent neighbours and concerned citizens in the immediate and general community have no say whatsoever.

Here is a Chronology of Significant Events in the Salsbury Saga:

The city has lost its Salsbury Garden but as responsible citizens we cannot allow Justice Goepel's decision to stand! We must have a say in how development affects our neighbourhoods. For this reason, a group of citizens (including many in the original Salsbury Garden core group) have decided to appeal the Supreme Court decision.

If you live in Vancouver — no matter where you live or what your political affiliation is — and if you care about your neighbourhood and how it evolves, this issue affects you! Please make a donation to our campaign.

The first photo below, taken in January 2007, after site demolition, shows the construction on the site of what used to be Salsbury Garden. To give you a sense of what has been lost, the next few photos are of the two BC Mills prefab houses, built in 1907 (photo taken in about 1920), of kids playing in the cob house, and of the garden's butternut tree and one of its cypresses. The BC Mills houses, the cob house, and the giant trees are all gone now.

January 2007 and the first stages of construction
of Niebuhr's two faux-heritage duplexes by the new developers.

A bit later in January 2007,
and the framing is moving along on the two duplexes.

Now gone: 1117 & 1121 Salsbury Drive —
BC Mills prefabs erected in 1907.

The community appreciated the cob house.

Butternut tree in the middle of Salsbury Garden.

The giant cypress was home to much wildlife.