Dear Editor:
An open letter to Mayor Wayne Wright and city councillors:
It is clear that the livability situation in Queensborough, and particularly Port Royal, has reached an unbelievable stage, whereby an onslaught of trucks and containers on our streets is having the effect of making residents prisoners in our own neighbourhoods.
It is getting more difficult each day to transit through Queensborough without encountering a steady stream of trucks which are now backing up on neighbourhood streets as they cannot access their container drop-offs due to the high volume.
It is very distressing to suspect that the council was “asleep” and did not see this situation coming when Port Metro Vancouver indicated interest in the former Interfor mill site on Duncan Avenue.
This site was zoned as industrial, but a number of residential developers were apparently interested in this site as well. I believe Coun. Bill Harper, who is a known advocate of industrial development, stymied any move to open up this area for residential possibilities with his belief that industry would save the day. Well, guess what? Industry as he knows it has “left the building” with no chance of ever returning.
This left the door wide open for the port to acquire these lands, with the only requirement to provide the City of New Westminster with a land grant periodically instead of paying taxes. It seems to me a large, taxpaying residential neighbourhood would have been far more beneficial to the city.
Now we are left with unsightly containers blighting the skyline and very visible to the approaches to Queensborough. They are downright ugly, check the view from 20th Street someday.
It goes without saying that our real estate values will be taking a big hit as well.
Ask the real estate segment what kind of buyer resistance is being encountered these days in our neighbourhood?
So the question remains not only “What have you done to us?” but “What are you going to do about it now ?”
John Macleod,
New Westminster
