We’re happy to console a child afraid of monsters, but we’re uncertain how to treat councillors afraid of monster homes.
On Monday night, West Vancouver council addressed housing bulk by focusing a befuddling amount of energy on fences and landscaping.
With due respect, West Vancouverites didn’t sit through marathon meetings over the past three years in the hope that district staff would someday limit artificial irrigation. Monster homes cannot be fenced in.
Both heritage and privacy have been obliterated by an increasing number of buyers who seem to measure the beauty of their home by the length of its shadow.
We congratulate the district on passing some sensible rules related to lot consolidation, but in the face of such a big problem, the response is both little and late. There have been about nine lot consolidations in the past six years. In the past three years, 150 monster homes have been built.
With the rate of teardowns spiking by 30 per cent last year, council is quickly running out of time to deal with housing bulk in a meaningful way.
Even the energy of an engaged electorate seems to be waning, as Monday’s official public hearing on the matter attracted only a single speaker. It’s not that other residents don’t care, it’s that they’ve been consulted to sleep.
Council is planning to revisit this issue in the fall with an eye to more stringent regulations. When they do, we’d prod them to speak quickly. As we saw with the tree cutting bylaw, opportunists will be ready to seize council’s delay for their own advantage.
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