The latest Southlands proposal presented by the Century Group was impressive. Who wouldn't want to live in such a beautifully planned community catering, as was claimed, to every aesthetic and environmental ideal while giving over tracts of farmland to the municipality to maintain and presumably farm.
It's part of the slippery slope. Are we all mad?
Who, with an eye to the future, cannot calculate the effects of the steady encroachment onto arable lands by mega malls, Tsawwassen Springs, the horror that is the South Fraser Perimeter Road, the ever-hungry Port Metro Vancouver and, of course, the new bridge that will up the pressure on what is now "safe" farmland for new housing developments.
We witness almost daily the alarming effects of climate change, and yet we ignore those warnings and allow the promise of a bespoke community to wipe out reason. We need farmland. We need to make sure we still have control of our food production. Not to do so is madness.
There has elsewhere been comment that growth is inevitable. I agree and the community should plan accordingly: not with more
sprawl, and yes, Southlands is expensive sprawl, but with increased density in the town core and along corridors close to transit.
If we in the community are truly concerned about accommodating an increase in population and affordability for seniors and young families alike, we must take a leap out of the 1950s and look the future square in the eye.
Cilla Bachop
