Editor:
Before the circus known as the Southlands development application starts its fall session I would like to offer some food for thought.
Apparently urban planning was originally developed to stop chaos and confusion in European cities during the Industrial Revolution. Planners then recognized that mixing various types of building was detrimental to the health and well being of the people.
They also recognized that single-family and multifamily housing had completely different needs and issues, and as a result most cities have planning bylaws to enforce these principles that have developed over the last 250 years.
Apparently not in Delta! Here the residents are forced to attend multiple meetings to defend their homes and neighbourhoods from unwanted or non-conforming development, so much so that it has become a team participation event with coloured team jerseys and cheering sections.
Each side drags out all the relevant and irrelevant information they can find to impress council and hopefully get what they want, regardless of what the bylaws or Official Community Plan contains. It's open season and everything is up for grabs.
I don't attend these sessions because, as they say on Star Trek, "resistance is futile," and because council will do exactly what it wants to do.
As a case in point, recently council approved a very dense development for the corner of 18th Avenue and 56th Street, the old Southpointe Academy site. Council passed this development even though it means a 77-foot high office building will be located on that corner, which is totally out of context with the neighbours on all sides and exceeding the maximum height bylaws by at least three storeys.
Is there a "need" for an office building that size? Is there a "reason" this developer can build to that height and others can't? Council must have its motivations.
At almost the same time another development application was posted one block away on 18th Avenue indicating that a 7,500-squarefoot monster house was to be built on 16.5 acres of land behind McDonald's and the industrial commercial complex on 56th Street. This land was zoned as school property but has grown market garden crops for the last 20 years at least.
Again, I don't care about this house or why anyone would want to build there, what I care about is how does the term urban planning apply to any of this? How is it that we have a mayor and council elected to enforce bylaws and manage the town for the taxpayers, and what we get is constant aggravation from conflicting and non-conforming development applications from developers and speculators wanting to build anything anywhere.
Don't get me wrong, I don't blame the developers or speculators. Any businessman will, if given the opportunity, maximize their investments. I also don't blame the farmers for not attending the protests against loss of farmland. If there is a chance their farm could come out of the ALR and be valued as industrial or residential land, then they would see profits many times what farming will ever bring them.
In a recent article, Coun. Ian Paton mused that speculator owners of farmland don't even plant crops. I would assess that as a speculator who bought land dirt cheap in a municipality that is known to ignore zoning and land use regulations, and if they just hang on to it then it may be worth a fortune in the future. (ie the Southlands)
Southlands) If the Optimist will indulge a second letter, I will offer a solution.
Greg Hoover Editor's note: A follow-up letter will be published next week.
