Dear Editor,
[RE: Maple Ridge council chooses a plan for Yennadon Lands, Dec. 8, The News]
I was deeply disappointed watching city council’s discussion of the Yennadnon Land project on Dec 8.
Council completely ignored the fact that more than half of respondents to their own survey said they did not support the project, and [they] decided to press on ahead with it anyway.
It was also disappointing to see them so easily dismiss well-founded concerns with the negative impact this development will have on these sensitive, swampy, watershed lands, and the downstream impacts for neighbouring property owners – as if the minor setbacks from the sensitive, salmon-bearing creek will address the severe increase in flooding that will be the result of this development.
Council members easily waved away these concerns as being “managed,” despite the fact the development plan doesn’t address any of them with anything other than cosmetic “solutions.”
The Yennadon Lands are home to two creeks, including one that originates there, and are a swampy mess most days of the year, which helps regulate flow into Coho creek and its tributaries.
Coho Creek doubles in size/volume as it passes through these lands.
RELATED LETTER: Council reconsider your plan for Yennadon
By developing and paving over these marshlands, waterflow into Coho Creek will increase dramatically during high rainfall events.
The creek already overflows its banks at several points downstream from the Yennadon Lands on a regular basis, in some places coming dangerously close to invading nearby housing properties.
This development will mean even higher creek levels and flooding, and damage a salmon-bearing stream ecosystem.
Salmon can be found in Coho Creek on the Yennadon Lands. Council needs to actually visit the site some time and see for themselves.
RELATED LETTER: Yennadon is too ecologically valuable to destroy
It’s shameful that the council has taken zero interest in their own community’s wishes or the well founded environmental concerns here.
Council does not represent the people, they represent developers who don’t care about this community.
There are many other areas far more suitable to this type of industrial development than sensitive marshlands like this one.
David Brown, Maple Ridge
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