| Council takes meeting on the road
ALISO VIEJO Council members took their meeting on the road Wednesday night, climbing into two large vans and taking a tour of a stretch of the San Joaquin Hills (73) Toll Road within city limits. During the half-hour tour, City Engineer John Whitman pointed out slopes and land along the corridor, noted current landscaping conditions and pointed out possible locations where the city could construct monuments that signal to drivers when they are entering Aliso Viejo. After the driving tour, the council returned to the council chambers to discuss the city's SR 73 Corridor Enhancement Plan, a project that delineates landscaping plans and thematic city signs along the toll road and its ramps. The stretch in question includes the toll road from the El Toro Road to south of La Paz Road, as well as interchanges on El Toro Road, Glenwood Drive, Aliso Creek Road, Alicia Parkway and La Paz Road.
The Earth Laughs in Flowers
Azevedos logo, The Earth Laughs in Flowers is an Emerson quote hes always been fond of. The name of his company came from artist friends who visited him from the south of France. I like to create art out of a landscape, and wanted the company trademark to be a piece of art itself. So the hands holding a bouquet of flowers is the image I wanted to brand my company with, he explained.
Azevedo, born in 1962 in the south of Brazil, lived on the boarder of Argentina where the winters are similar to those in Tuscany, sub-tropical at 40 degrees with Hydrangeas and perennials growing wild in the woods. Azevedo became interested in gardening as a child. I was always obsessed with gardens and plants, he remembered.
At 5 years old I had a vegetable garden at my parents house.
County tightening landscaping rules
Noting that developers don't always follow through in planting the trees and shrubs needed to make their projects acceptable, local planners are tightening up their enforcement of landscaping requirements. A new policy outlined in a memo from Richard Copeland, director of the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development, states that developers or the landscape professionals they've hired must sign a "certification of conformance" verifying that projects include all the plantings and screenings shown in detailed plats. .
Spiritual argument wins wind farm case
Opponents of a wind farm planned for a ridgeline west of Hawke's Bay are celebrating after winning an Environment Court appeal. Hastings-based lines company Unison was granted permission by Hastings District Council to add 37 turbines to 15 for which it already had consent along the Te Waka Range skyline, around the Titiokura Saddle on the Napier-Taupo Road. But the Environment Court said the cumulative visual effects of the 37 extra turbines and another 75 turbines to be built alongside them by Hawke's Bay Windfarms would be excessive in a sensitive and distinctive landscape. The extra turbines would also go against Maori spiritual values, including the site's history, water and sacred areas. Unison said it was disappointed and would appeal. Environment Court judge Craig Thompson said "it was impossible not to absorb some of the depth of emotion expressed ...
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