Development is one of those words that can turn this municipality on its ear, but there's another one that might become even more contentious in the months and years to come: redevelopment.
Building something on a vacant piece of land comes with an inherent set of problems, but in many ways they can pale to the concerns generated by the act of replacing old with new.
Redevelopment is only beginning to emerge as a major issue in these parts, but given the finite amount of developable land, we're going to see more and more instances where a neighbourhood feels its character and livability are coming under attack.
The vast majority of Delta's housing stock was built in the years immediately after the George Massey Tunnel opened and it's predominantly single-family in nature. Up to this point, a lot of the redevelopment has been replacing an older single-family home on a big lot with a couple or three single-family homes on decidedly smaller lots.
This hasn't caused too much unrest because it's generally kept the area's character intact, but it also hasn't done much to address the lack of housing variety. Single-family homes, whether they're the older ones or the newer versions on the postage stamp lots, are out of the financial reach of most young home buyers, yet not exactly what empty nesters have in mind.
Enterprising developers and municipal planners recognize the situation, but doing something about it often times means upsetting the status quo. Delta identified the Highlands neighbourhood, just north of the town centre, as a potential site for redevelopment into higher density housing during last year's Tsawwassen Area Plan process, a notion that got civic politicians an earful at the subsequent public hearing and forced them to withdraw the idea.
People, for the most part, like the neighbourhoods they live in, so when someone comes along and says we're going to change the character of it because the community as a whole must evolve, it's a hard line to swallow.
The reaction is understandable, yet the issues of housing affordability and variety continue to persist. We can maintain the integrity of our single-family neighbourhoods, but it means the very real possibility of sending the young and old elsewhere to find appropriate housing.
Redevelopment talk won't go away, but it seems to me this discussion is no longer just limited to land use as it now clearly has a sociological component to it.
