Don’t sacrifice today for tomorrow’s promises

Re: “Don’t let oak tree stand in way of housing,” letter, Sept. 10. The letter-writer’s willingness to cut down the iconic Oak Bay oak tree opens a dangerous path of sacrificing the past and present for the sake of promise of the better future. Many people had to run away from political regimes founded on those promises.

Those who are suffering because of the housing shortage will not buy an expensive condo in Oak Bay or Rockland.

The excessive building of expensive condos has not added significantly to the ever-shrinking stock of affordable properties, rental or not, either in Toronto, in Vancouver or in Victoria.

The argument of the “shortage of available housing” is successfully used by developers to squeeze the most profit out of each development. In the process, trees and the character of neighbourhoods are sacrificed. The life of longtime and future residents is negatively affected.

If we want to resolve the shortage of housing, then we have to develop the areas where it is needed and possible, to build the new housing affordable for everyone now, without promising uncertain “availability” dividends in the remote future.

To quote Alice in Through the Looking Glass: “Jam tomorrow!”

History’s lessons are clear: Find a way to build our future without sacrificing the present.

We should not let those people with a vested financial interest in real estate be the only voices heard in the planning of our future.

Anna Cal Victoria