Editor:
Re: More options for site eyed as truck park, Sept. 30
It is curious why any developer would spend millions of dollars to purchase agriculturally zoned land to build a controversial industrial truck park in the middle of the environmentally sensitive Hazelmere Campbell Valley.
Media accounts suggest that Surrey Coun. Tom Gill took an active role in motivating this truck park application forward. Aside from sheer political audacity, Mayor Linda Hepner’s Surrey First continues to demonstrate questionable judgment in all matters of development and planning for the future of Surrey.
Our tree canopy is diminishing, our children have inadequate schools, our roads and hospitals are in serious peril. The siren song of lowest taxes is quickly becoming the best of the worst, as we keep pace with soaring tax hikes across Metro Vancouver.
It will get worse. Surrey has not kept up with infrastructure improvements, nor do we have the funds for new investment that will be desperately needed in the coming years.
As for a truck park in this area, there is no evidence this application would solve any problems related to illegal parking or the transportation industry. It would cause increased air pollution, risk contamination of the Little Campbell salmon river and quite possibly forever poison the Brookswood Aquifer, the primary drinking water supply for thousands of taxpayers in Langley, Surrey, Abbotsford and Washington State.
Mike Proskow, Surrey
(Editor’s note: Peace Arch News reported the following week that the proponents have withdrawn the rezoning application, Riverside truck park off table for now, Oct. 7).