TheEditor,
Re: PoMo Turns Down Housing (Letters: Tri-City News, Jan. 28)
I was one of the residents that spoke at that public hearing on Tuesday, Jan. 25.I was disgusted how council members Karen Rockwell and Bob Elliott insulted all of the residents that made the time to speak at the hearing. The residents' multitude of concerns about therezoning in no way came near to sounding like shouts of NIMBY. Casein point: ParkLane attempted to re-zone the same site last summer with an almost identicalproposal and council praised the same residents for the same comments that were voiced at a land use committee meeting in September, 2010, and even went as far as expressing much concern and interest over some of the topics that were addressed. So why did they contradict themselves at the public hearing?
The residents in the area that spoke at the hearing had many, many other concerns besides traffic and speeding - some of which included blasting concerns, water pressure concerns, run-off/flooding issues, extreme overcrowding at the elementary school in the catchment, problems with emergency access and concerns about the zoning being bare land strata due to the elevation, and thus outside of the city's responsibility. The list goes on...
The main focus of the residents' comments was that the area to be rezoned was too large for 27 homes. A satellite view of the development site was provided to council and it showed how the size of the area that would likely be deforested equalled the size of an entire block of land east of Ioco Road and south of Ungless Way.
A much smaller development site mock-up was provided by residents to council as an example of a development size that was more reasonable and had less of an environmental impact. Does that sound like NIMBYism?
Paula Sawrenko
Port Moody
