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Letter to Editor
ShareDateline Cowichan: 1975
By Ann Andersen | October 11, 2008For some of us, the Island Highway south of Duncan is a ghastly sprawl of roadside businesses, neon signs and billboards; for others seeing beyond the development, it’s an attractive country landscape of farms, trees and nursery gardening centres.
Back in October 1975, the Cowichan Valley regional district took steps which, they said, would limit roadside development to businesses that were of benefit to the traveling public.
A new bylaw regulating land use on property abutting and within a thousand feet of the centre line of highways number one and 18 would have a profound effect on the placement of development in the next years, said regional planner Ron Smith.
The bylaw’s basic aim was to ensure a minimum of exits onto the road to reduce traffic hazards and to preserve the natural beauty of the countryside, explained Cowichan Bay director Jev Tothill.
It would eliminate the need for repeated construction of new main traffic arteries, he said. “There’ll be a landscape of grass and trees to look at.”
To compensate for the new bylaw, there would be an effort to include designated industrial park land in electoral area community plans, said Smith.
1975: firetrucks
A brand new $40,000 fire truck was driven across country from the Thibault manufacturing plant in Quebec and became Duncan Fire Department’s fifth fire-fighting unit.
1975: theft
Police searched for a $200, 70-year-old iron whistle and a $500 miniature replica of a tractor and trailer. The items were stolen in two separate thefts from the B.C. Forest Museum.
1975: Cow Ex
Bill and Marjorie Jaggers set a record at the Cowichan Exhibition by enticing 500 entries in the field and garden division. This was accomplished by personally encouraging small gardeners and encouraging them to enter, said Jaggers.
