Dear Editor:
At 70 and 80 years of age, and clearly the target demographic for this project, we could not consider living in such an isolated, hilly location.
Our need to easily drive, walk, or bicycle into town is too important for our quality of life. When these privileges are no longer available to us, then electric buggy mobility demands safe sidewalks and relatively level access.
The restricted access for emergency and evacuation vehicles causes us great misgivings too.
We have seen in the media the confusion and hold ups on even generously accessed disaster incidents.
The inevitable conflict on this site between evacuation/medical/fire fighting vehicles trying to get in and on-site vehicles fleeing a serious emergency is too worrying for us to contemplate as a safe residence.
The Red Zone designation of the ground makes the major excavation of the site for three levels of underground parking (50 feet at the lowest side?) seem a likely cause of damage to the pure water aquifer supply to the fish hatchery.
There were two comments reported in the local media that gave us cause for concern.
Linda Tynan for the municipality on seeking to have procedures sequenced as quickly as possible in case new information becomes inadvertently known. We would have thought bona fide information to always be an asset in a judgement issue, to be encouraged and sought after, not deliberately prevented.
The developer stating that if disturbance caused turbidity in the hatchery supply, then construction would stop. Sorry, the financing involved in this monster construction make this assurance as difficult to swallow as the pollution would be for the fish. Would any damage caused to the hatchery really stop a multi-million dollar project?
We cannot understand why a facility so clearly needed for Summerland’s commercial welfare, is not being encouraged, or induced to be built on a safe, flat site within the town area.
Can anyone please explain this to us?
And not a word heard from Summerland’s Chamber of Commerce!
John Morgan
Louise Fournier
Summerland