Editor:
It is becoming clear that the reason house prices have risen 12 times over the past 30 years is because of the towers-and-SkyTrain urbanism in our OCPs (official community plans) and regional plans.
With 16 mayors out of office, and only four re-elected, the Metro Mayors’ Council will look radically different. However, we have yet to see how they will react to the rhetoric of the tower boosters.
Certainly, former mayor Wayne Baldwin characterizing – to the Vancouver Sun last week – White Rock’s new mayor and council and their supporters as “those that want no growth and no change” is bending the truth to suit his vision.
We don’t have to build towers to build high density. ‘Human Scale Urbanism’ can provide all the density necessary to make uptown a thrilling district of livable, walkable and affordable ‘good’ urbanism.
Lessons learned there might then migrate to the beach front.
The towers in White Rock and throughout the GVRD – except in the Downtown Vancouver peninsula – represent a knee-jerk cash grab by short-sighted governments looking to be flushed with cash in the near term, then triggering a housing crisis and road congestion as the real outcome.
Lewis Villegas, Vancouver