Dear Editor:
I've lived in the City of North Vancouver all my life. I bought a home here to raise my family. This is my city.
Over a few short years, North Vancouverites have had Port Metro impose increased coal and potash storage, grain elevator expansion and a massive renovation of the Low Level Road. Provincial funding shortfalls have resulted in school closures, property sales and rezoning. We have suffered with snarled traffic. We have stood by while city council discussed bicycle tow cables, street cars and even a ferris wheel. Really! Now, under pressure from GVRD transit to "densify" near bus routes, the city proposes sweeping amendments to the Official Community Plan. Third and Ridgeway neighbours have been approached by developers to sell their lots. Plans are afoot to build apartments up to six storeys tall. Treasured neighbourhoods and water views will be destroyed. All single-family lots in the city will be able to triple their density with both a basement suite and a coach house. Imagine the gridlock from all those extra cars. Oh, wait - we're supposed to take the bus. Or bike. Or walk a paved trail. Right! The city invites us to fill out a "City Shaping" feedback form. You know what's really scary? You can remain anonymous. Anyone can fill out a form. You don't even have to live here. You could be a developer. You could be a friend of a developer. Put your name on the form and you could win an iPod Touch. It's like a contest, with prizes, except developers are the only ones who stand to win anything at all. As a final insult, the OCP amendments will be decided, without our say-so, prior to this fall's election.
Neighbours: it's time to tell city council that we deserve to set the tone and pace of development in our community - not city staffers, developers, the ports or a transit board.
Visit the city's website. Look at the shocking proposed OCP amendments. Send in a feedback form. Better yet, go to one of their "feedback sessions" - talk to someone directly. Let them know that changes to the character and density of our city should be voted on by a well-informed public - it's called a referendum. That's called democracy.
The future of our community matters to us all, because, at the end of the day whose city is it anyway?
Holly Wawzonek
North Vancouver
