Editor,
In reply to Ms. Routledge and her letter entitled 'Let's plan a new White Rock,' we should never resign ourselves to the inevitability that everyone is going to lose their view, which seems to suggest that our future holds the vision of multitudes of highrise towers resembling the area that we call the West End in Vancouver. I sincerely hope not.
The growth of White Rock is, I agree, inevitable, but how and what that growth looks like is critical for our safety, our mental well-being and our environment.
I feel that for way too long we have given carte blanche to developers everywhere, to maximize their profits over our needs and build highrise towers on every inch of land that becomes available, thus changing forever the look and feel of our community whilst also creating immense pressures on our already stretched and stressed infrastructures.
It is ironic that we talk about affordable housing and maintaining green spaces as important aspects of our community, yet we continue to see the construction of excessively large box-shaped residences being built on the lots where a previously demolished older home once stood. These homes invariably are three levels with large underground basements and have eaten up almost the entirely of what was pleasant green space beforehand. These homes will never be affordable homes for anyone other than the very wealthy unless our housing markets collapse in the years to come.
A plan for White Rock should have included a nod to the need to maintain minimum areas of a lot size for green space for the benefit of nature and mitigation of heat and moisture events, a capping of highrise buildings to 12 storeys everywhere and four storeys for anything intended as a multi-unit residence approved, and a limit on square footage allowed for any new detached home on an existing residential street in our neighbourhoods, and finally heat pumps for every new home to counter the looming prospect of extreme heat conditions in many of our communities on a regular basis through much of our future summers.
What we see today in the condo markets in Toronto and Vancouver, with unsellable boxes in the sky, is what happens when you give developers what they want instead of focusing on what is needed for a buyer.
It's time we put our needs and wants first and stop building homes people do not want unless you are an investor looking to add more assets to your portfolio.
Michael John King, White Rock
