Dear Editor:
Further to the article West Vancouver on the Eve of Change (North Shore News June 22) and having attended the meeting I do not believe at this stage that there is overwhelming community support. I think councillors Lamber, Soprovich and Cassidy are right to be sceptical. The rubber will hit the road here when local area plans are developed and when residents understand what increased density means to them. I do believe residents will support lane houses, coach houses, duplexes etc where they are designed to be sensitive to the existing neighbourhood character, however, given council’s failure to protect neighbourhood character in the past there is a lack of confidence they will do so going forward.
Council approved the Grosvenor development at Ambleside and recently 752 Marine Drive, despite overwhelming community opposition. If they are listening, there is no appetite at all for further high rise development. The plan assumes that by creating density in West Vancouver we will create affordable housing and encourage residents to walk, cycle and take transit. The OCP ignores the fact that any new developments ( unless on municipal lands ) will remain unaffordable to most of the population and to most employees of business and government that work in West Vancouver.
Most of the traffic gridlock on the North Shore results from growing traffic from construction workers and through traffic to the ferries, Squamish, Whistler and traffic to Cypress Park and Grouse Mountain. Those travellers are very unlikely to use transit. In fact transit really only works for commuters between West Vancouver and downtown and efficient transit to other municipalities is limited or non existent. For over 50 years there has been no increase in bridge capacity to get to and from the North Shore and our mayors, councillors and MLAs need to be more aggressive in pushing for this with the provincial government and B.C. transit.
In conclusion if we are to have more density, let’s be sure we are building it for residents of Canada who want to live here and not offshore investors and absentee landlords ( nearly 10 per cent of houses in West Vancouver are empty most of the year) and let’s be sure the density is sensitive to the character of existing neighbourhoods. Let’s not fool ourselves that density will solve our traffic gridlock - it will only make it worse without improved bridge access and transit.
Graham McIsaac
West Vancouver
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