Thanks @seechelle1969 for the update. What a shame. Let me know if I can help your work on the BG Connecting Community committee (is it part of the community association?)

I have a hard time understanding how someone could build on a city-owned easement, and hold up a community amenity from everyone else? I found the homeonwners' letter to council arguing against the Washington townhouse development, where they admit knowing about the easement when they bought 12 years ago (bolding emphasis is mine):

"When we bought our house 12 years ago we bought it to be our forever house. The stress that this proposal has caused over the last year has been overwhelming to say the least. Not only will we be losing our yard to the pathway, we will also be losing our privacy and security. We will also be dealing with years of noise, and mess from the construction making the use of our back yard with 2 small children unenjoyable.

I know that it is easy to dismiss us because we did buy the house knowing of the easement. We were told that easements are common and that ours looked like an old path that would never happen. Being younger I don’t think that we really understood what that meant. A few years ago when the new burnside gorge plan was put into place we were not notified that this was happening. That seems crazy to me as it directly affects us. We only learned of this plan last year when approached by the developer. Still today we have never had the city contact us about the bike path yet the developers tell us that it will be the first thing put in. How is that even possible."

Source pp 34-35 from: https://pub-victoria.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=67745

As someone that grew up on Carroll Street in the 90's I find this conversation very interesting.

While I find the townhouses to be an excellent project and similar projects in the City supportable, you do have to have some sympathy for the Carroll Street properties that have lost a lot of their privacy as the windows of these Washington homes do stare directly down onto their backyards. Plus, who would be happy with the City building a pathway through their home - preexisting easement or not.

Anyways, as a kid that used to visit my friends on Washington street/access the Goose by hopping backyard fences, the connector will be beneficial to the neighbourhood.