Dear Editor:
I couldn't help but notice the discrepancy in your June 3 edition between Mayor Darrell Mussatto's quote ". . . single family homes are just not attainable. It's not a reality for most people" and the juxtaposed letter from Jerome Irwin, N. Shore's Essence Squandered.
I would like to challenge Mayor Mussatto and readers to visit, via Google streetscape, my home town in Ontario. Start by entering Dundas and Mill Street, Waterdown, Ontario and then do a 360 degree scan. To the northwest that is the original Royal Bank building before they relocated one block west in the 1960s; to the southwest is one of two original coach houses from the 1800s, and then on the southeast is what was the original regionally famous Weeks of Waterdown, a hardware store on par with North Vancouver's original Payne's.
What you will see is a rich history of heritage, and it doesn't end there. If you travel the leafy green streets of this community, you will see original-sized lots populated with original homes, many from the turn of the century (19th, not latest). All these homes, and this community, reside within what is now designated the GTA, or Greater Toronto Area, a high density and expensive area to live in. Yet communities with inspired leadership are able to maintain the original architecture and their historical "feel."
Now compare that with how North Vancouver, both city and district, treat single-family lots and homes, and you witness endless large-lot homes being snapped up by developers who are gifted the right to split the lot into two, three or even four high-density homes. In the quarter century I have resided here, I have witnessed far more change than my home town has undergone in more than 50 years.
Letter writer Irwin makes some valid points: Maybe it's time the general populace wakes up before history is demolished before their very eyes.
Scott Hoffman, North Vancouver
