Dear Editor,
Re: “Kids not part of growth plan,” News, Sept. 15.
Firstly, great article on Sept. 14 about kids not being part of the growth plan in Richmond. As a long time Richmond resident (since 1978), I have witnessed a systematic dismantling of our community. These effects are being felt at the schools and community sport associations. Unfortunately, the people entrusted to shepherd the growth, vision and management of our city are part of the problem.
I volunteer my time with both my children’s school PAC and Richmond Youth Soccer among other places. In both cases, our enrollment has steadily decreased. In terms of the school system, a large number of schools were on the school closure list last year due to under enrollment. This project was shelved as the provincial election was coming. But, undoubtedly, it will return to the forefront in the near future as declining enrollment continues. Even with the return to 2002 class size limits, the majority of schools will have severe under-enrollment issues in the future.
According to school district information used during the school closure project, the expected Richmond footprint in terms of students will be 80 per cent coming from the City Centre portion of our city within the next 20 years. That would leave 20 per cent of students coming from all other areas. Unfortunately, our schools are primarily located outside of the City Centre. The 16 on the potential school closure list were all located outside of the City Centre. Yet this issue is not being dealt with or even discussed between the district and city.
Unlike many cities in the midst of densification, Richmond has not forced schools to be built into the densification projects. Many other cities require new construction to have daycares, schools or community centres in the building plans.
With the continued escalating costs in Richmond, how will schools be funded in the City Centre after it has been built up? This plan should have been in place years ago. With the growth that has already occurred in the City Centre, we should have multiple new schools located in these development complexes to service our population. The incremental cost would be accepted by the developers as a cost of doing business in our highly desirable city.
Richmond city council is well aware of the issues plaguing our city. Yet they seem content to collect property tax from an ever increasing tax base while providing lower service standards. In fact, our mayor is on record as opposing the foreign buyers tax and empty home tax. Both initiatives would potentially have restored some semblance of balance to our communities. The city’s arterial road policy project did not go far enough in coming close to addressing unaffordability.
Growing up in Richmond, the schools were the centres of our neighbourhoods. Kids were quite often seen playing at the schools and their respective streets. Unfortunately, we have decided to trade that in as long as we continue to record high revenue through property taxes. So, rather than a vibrant community, we can continue to enjoy empty homes with overrun and unmaintained yards with the only noise being that of the coffers at city hall filling up.
Bob Mann
Richmond
