Dear Editor:
My wife and I are retired grandparents who have lived and raised our family here for the past 39 years. When we moved to Lynn Valley in 1974, there were no stoplights anywhere, no Karen Magnussen recreation facility. There was just a small library behind the Esso station off Mountain Highway, a modest shopping centre with limited services, and a 7-Eleven store that attracted mischief in the evenings.I think the various district councils over these past four decades have done a very good job of planning balanced growth with excellent public consultation. If we want to attract younger families to Lynn Valley and the North Shore, we need to add some higher density housing such as row housing and multi-story, multi-bedroom apartment buildings, with related family-oriented facilities and services located nearby. The recent questionnaire inviting "priorities and options preference" feedback is the result of several years of public consulting and workshops which we attended, and we think the current options being presented clearly communicate the feedback from all these events.
There are three reasons why my wife and I support the plan that includes residential buildings up to 12 stories high: it will offer more housing alternatives for the next generation of young families so they can enjoy the same benefits everyone here is already enjoying; it will offer more housing alternatives for seniors like us who want to eventually downsize and remain in Lynn Valley. it will expand the property tax base to help fund the ongoing cost of mandatory infrastructure maintenance and community services. The alternative is probably a major increase in all our property taxes over the next 20 years.
Additional families in Lynn Valley will also attract more businesses here, along with accompanying local jobs. We cannot and should not shut the door to other families who want to live in and enjoy Lynn Valley like we do .A sprawling collection of low rise units eating up our green space is a terrible alternative.
David & Nancy Hunter
North Vancouver
