Project is bad land-use planning

Re: “Young-old divide seen in Fairfield apartment bid,” Feb. 27; “Change is in the air,” editorial, March 2.

I attended the recent public hearing for a proposed four-storey rental project on Burdett Avenue and, like your editorial observer, came away with the impression that most of the people favouring the project were young, most opposing it older.

Lost in your reporting and viewpoints, though, are two significant facts.

First, project opponents (some of whom live in adjacent multi-family buildings) expressed pointed concern about the in-your-face nature of a proposal asking for not one or two, but seven variances.

Second, I never heard “Do nothing! Change nothing!” but “Too large, too intrusive!” That’s a very different message from the NIMBY message implied in your viewpoint piece and, to be candid, at odds with the mayor’s exasperated response.

I understand that, on their own, some neighbours have troubled themselves to design a land-use response that would still give the developer much of what he wants (and a viable development) in a less intrusive and more architecturally compatible form and density.

Does that sound like change fatigue? Does that sound like “Nothing in my back yard?”

You note, inarguably, that “change is unavoidable,” but the Burdett stakeholders weren’t making the sign of the cross in the face of change but, rather, bad land-use planning.

You might want to detail a reporter to study the development proposal, not from the perspective of ideology, but analytics, in an effort to profile opportunism and risk management at everyone’s expense except the risk-taker’s.

Gene Miller Victoria