City should protect green spaces
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Editor: A large number of people in our community are opposed to the erection of a highrise on the Apex school site, now for sale by Langley City. I strongly believe it is our City council’s duty to protect our green spaces instead of allowing our City to be turned into a concrete jungle.
There should be legislation introduced forcing local authorities to protect our green spaces as well as a moratorium on the sale of green spaces for the purpose of building high-rises, malls or offices, which leads to opening up new roads, more traffic and more pollution, which in turn leads to higher taxes.
Furthermore, communities should be allowed the same input in City planning as developers are. It is indeed very sad that the system seems biased in favor of developers.
Local communities cherish these few green spaces; they are informal places for children to play, people to walk their dogs and to congregate on a nice sunny day, have a picnic, run or enjoy a number of outdoor activities. Their destruction is inexcusable and irresponsible and spells greed. The loss of these green spaces forever alters the quality and texture of a community.
The local government process is such that it wears us down. By the time you read about something in the newspaper, it is usually too late to stop it. We feel our municipal government had no intentions of opening up lines of communication with the residents, and chose to brush aside the community’s concerns by ignoring telephone calls, letters and requests that have been sent over the course of the last year pertaining to that subject.
We are not attempting to save the Amazon rain forest, the endangered species of the world or the Arctic Circle; we are just trying to protect a small four-acre park to provide the community and future generations with a green space for outdoor recreation. Do we need to stage a protest led by Paul Watson and his cohorts, or chain 50 people to the trees bordering the site in question to save the park?
That idea is becoming more and more appealing and would surely generate attention if nothing else will.
We would like to know, from Mayor Peter Fassbender and the council members, what their intentions are and we will not settle for vague and hesitant answers to appease us, in the hope that we may disappear and not protest the destruction of this green space.
Louise Joubert,
Langley City
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