Dear Editor,
Re: “Who are we building these homes for?” News, May 3.
I know exactly how my friend Kerry Starchuck feels, as I look around the city, and feel a stranger in my own land.
There is development everywhere you look, townhouses almost instantly replace single-family homes, and highrises replace larger buildings in the downtown core. It’s no wonder the airport is screaming about the amount of development around their runways.
Local governments can smell and see the commercial and residential tax dollars that they can retrieve from those properties and so allow the permits to become reality.
I feel sorry for the city in one development, as they will lose their beautiful view of the North Shore mountains when the highrises arise from the demolition of the old Sears parkade and store.
Another downtown core development has financially stalled, leaving a huge black hole in the downtown landscape. Welcome to the darkside.
I live in Steveston, and have campaigned against development, as I feel it would severely damage the quintessential atmosphere that the community has had since its founding. My little corner of the world is still somewhat intact, and we can still enjoy our hood the way as Richmond used to be.
My old family homes, built on the same street, in 1945 and 1959, are now long gone, replaced by monster homes, and the “Veterans’ Land Act subdivision,” that they were a part of, is now a memory to only those who lived there.
Today’s Richmond remains a shadow of its former self, but the word “Rich” continues to stand out in regard to the profits being made from its extreme densification and foreign investment. The city now even has a cubical hotel, called the “Panda Pod,” and I hope that this idea does not spread to other forms of development.
Perhaps we should be not known as “Island city by nature,” but rather, “Island city by developers,” and change the crane.
Gordon Kibble
RICHMOND
