The Editor,
A letter to Mayor Richard Stewart and Coquitlam council:
As I type this letter, developers are building another monster house in our neighbourhood, two lots away.
We have seen more than 20 such houses go up over our neighbourhood and it seems the city of Coquitlam has given the builders an almost unlimited pass to build as they please regardless of the neighbours and or our communal environment.
Please visit Willow Way and Harbour Drive to see what the city has allowed then ask the "normal" housing residents what they think about them.
The size of the houses, all the driveways and sidewalks, cement walls, block fences and all the excesses that are taxing our natural resources, such as over-lighting, is criminal.
I have written to you on this matter before and I called these development crimes against the ecology. And these crimes continue to even further extremes.
I call on your government to reduce the size of houses on lots, reduce the amount of resources that go into them, set low use goals for energy use and reasonable square footage for people. And increase green space per lot for flora.
These issues can only be resolved if your city staff step up to the job and forget about cookie-cutter solutions or keep letting builders build their "dream" houses, which are nightmares for others and our planet.
I hope our local governments and media can focus on this matter in March and quit passing excuses onto the provincial government for its inadequacies.
Steve Mancinelli, Coquitlam
