Dear Editor,
Municipal government’s prime responsibility is land use and the responsible development of their communities.
To do that, they need detailed information on the areas they are considering for development.
So, it begs the question: Why would council, any council, want less information about ground water that many people depend on, as they consider opening up a new development area?
Especially one as sensitive as Thornhill.
The Maple Ridge council has done exactly that by removing the Grant Hill Aquifer Map from our Official Community Plan – the plan that helps guide development.
RELATED LETTER: ‘No discussion on protecting Thornhill aquifer’
They’re claiming this map to be the responsibility of the provincial government. But the map has been in our OCP for many years.
It’s surprising, but it is the story of the present council’s mandate.
The provincial government has had to step in and make the responsible land use decisions time and again. Stepping in three times to build housing for the homeless. Then blocking a controversial development on the sensitive Alouette floodplain when council was not able to make a clean decision that included all stakeholders.
The provincial government has bailed them [council] out so often that now council has asked for it ahead of time.
This council’s inability to work with the provincial government has held this community back, but it has revealed this council’s core agenda and in a word its, “development.” Development at any cost.
Opening a third development area before finishing Albion and Silver Valley would be extremely irresponsible.
Staff are struggling to keep up with two areas and it would be incredibly difficult and very expensive.
Many more staff would be needed or development time would lengthen and the cost of blasting our way through Thornhill would be huge. Costs that wouldn’t be repaid for many years.
There are many conditions built into our OCP that need to be satisfied before opening the Thornhill Urban Reserve. Those conditions won’t be satisfied for years, so what’s the rush?
A reserve that shouldn’t even exist.
We don’t need to sprawl anymore than we already have, to become the community we all desire.
Council should be defending the urban boundary instead of exposing all of us to a very expensive expansion of our urban services.
I can understand dropping the map from our OCP if the Thornhill Urban Reserve is dropped at the same time. That would at least be rational.
Craig Speirs, Maple Ridge
(Spiers is a former Maple Ridge councillor who has sought
the mayor’s chair, as well as higher levels of office)
RELATED: Couns. Speirs, King say farewell
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