Dear Editor,
I have had to bite my tongue for four years during my almost daily walk through the Imperial Landing site from our house by Britannia Shipyards. The hour-long walk around Garry Point gives me time to postulate on the fate of this development.
In the past two weeks, discussion about zoning for a daycare facility at the site has shown me that my thoughts were right, and this is personal. Councillor Harold Steves is running roughshod over council and is clearly too biased to make a reasoned decision.
His grandstanding has gone on for too long for me, as he blames others for his decisions (pilings at Garry Point) and has a hate-on for these particular developers. He has made “Onni” a new four letter word.
Hey, I played rugby against some of the owners of Onni. They were hard and tough and stretched the rules. I didn’t like playing them either, but I would still have a beer with them. Sometimes, you need to get on with it.
So, what about the Imperial Landing site? Initially, there was a sign on the zoning application that clearly showed a proposed “Child Care Facility” on the second floor of the building that was designed to house a Grocery store.
I remember, because my first thought was, why would you put a daycare on the top floor with those big decks and low rails?
But now, miraculously, we have an “amendment” to the zoning. Not that I oppose it; we need daycare. The article in the News quoted someone saying the site was zoned for light industrial, and that we could have a welding shop there...What? I know we are losing the Trites Road industrial area, but a welding shop on a site like this, on the river and ocean? Why?
What we need are jobs in Steveston, not dreams of yesterday.
During the Canada Day/Ships to Shore weekend, all of the facilities were used by the people of Richmond to be by the water and enjoy some of the best views in Vancouver. People gather and watch the boats go by and the eagles on Shady Island. It would be a great site for some restaurants or whatever. But yet we have nothing.
So, the fact Harold Steves was so adamantly against the idea of a daycare last week but supports it this week, makes one wonder what his true intentions are. I recall Harold vowing “Their will never be a Walmart in Richmond.” Well, that monstrosity is almost done. How about the famous, “You don’t think we have a plan?” when, after two years, they tore up the bus lane down the middle of No. 3 Road that cost millions of dollars before the Canada Line was announced.
No, Harold, I don’t think you have a plan.
TerryThorsteinson
Steveston
(Editor’s note: Coun. Steves voted against the Walmart development)
