Dear Editor:
Reading letters to the editor in the local press over the last month, one might think all of New Westminster was up in arms over city council's support for the Elizabeth Fry Society's expansion plans. Last week, Gerald Sommers in one particular letter argued that "this council, with the exception of Betty McIntosh, does not care about local neighbourhoods."
Mr. Sommers has, in my opinion, simultaneously hit on the point and missed it. Let me explain.
For its part, the McBride-Sapperton Resident's Association has opposed EFry's expansion from the very beginning. In the first round, the association objected to the non-residential appearance of the single-woman housing units on Kelly Street. In the second round, after EFry had modified the housing plans to obtain a more residential feel, the association complained about the increased traffic and the parking issues that would be created primarily by the proposed daycare centre. In the third round, when EFry had removed the daycare centre from the proposal, the association argued that the development was being stripped of the only neigh-borhood benefit it possessed. As an outsider living in another part of the city, I can only conclude that EFry will only satisfy the resident's association by abandoning the expansion plan completely.
And part of me understands. People everywhere would probably like to preserve the tidier qualities of the neighborhoods they live in if they could pass pass the messier ones onto others. I am sure the association members would agree that women in need require housing and that EFry needs proper administrative space to carry out its public mandate; they just wish that the society would fix these problems somewhere else. But our council belongs to the city - not to any one neighborhood or even to the sum of all neighborhoods. Its business is that of the city, and the reason it supports the EFry proposal is that it believes that low-income housing and proper space for a valued institution is in the city's interest.
So it's not that council members have not listened to the residents association.
It's rather that they have listened but, along with many citizens from every neighborhood in New Westminster, simply disagreed. They understand that EFry's important work can best be carried out around its current location in Sapperton, just as Douglas College's work can best be carried out in my neighborhood.
If that work has to grow, it's going to grow most effectively around its current headquarters on land it already owns or can acquire at reasonable cost.
And it's not going to grow very much. Alongside projects such as the triple condominium towers downtown, the new middle school on Eighth Street and the Onni Developments on lower McBride, the EFry Society's proposal is a small development offering a progressive adjustment on their own dime to the requirements of women in need - a true gift to New Westminster. So, it is small wonder that our city council thinks it worthy of support. Thus in a way Mr. Sommers is right. In the eyes of council, the good of the city - all of our neighborhoods considered together as a community - has this time trumped the interests of the one neighbor-hood in which he lives. It happens to all of us - and it must.
Daniel Vickers, New Westminster
