Council can blame itself
Dear editor: As a 12-year property owner in Peachland, I am truly concerned for my tax dollars. As a founding member of the Friends of Beach Avenue Association, I am truly honoured to be associated with such wonderful people as I have met living and working in Peachland.
Given that the administration and council are going ahead to give specific rights to one developer, it would appear that FOBA has touched the sore spot of the district administration and of council.
It has been said that Peachland is antidevelopment, I have heard that several times. I guess that to be true, given that it must have been the district that collapsed the Ponderosa golf course development despite Greg ‘the Shark’ Norman having his name attached to it; New Monaco, Table Top Mountain; Trepanier Manor, the bunker now south of town on the highway — the list goes on. If all of these were approved by council, well then obviously it must have been council’s fault that they have collapsed.
Peachlanders are concerned only with appropriate development. Five storeys on Beach Avenue is not appropriate. You are rushing to have this changed before the five storeys of the seniors housing is put up so that folks don’t see how big a building they are actually looking at in Peachtree.
The property owners on the fourth and fifth floors will be concerned about appropriate development too, when they realize they live in a town without a fire truck that can reach them in case of a fire. Just ask the firefighters that just made it out of the fifth floor of a burning condo in Mission. Again, that makes me concerned about my tax dollars, because we will need to buy a $1-million ladder fire truck.
The FOBA petition to the B.C. Supreme Court asks that the court set aside the rezoning on the two lots on Beach Avenue. We have the money and we have the support. An injunction is not out of the question. The smart thing for the council to do would be to think and act independently from the thought that any development is good development. Peachlanders live in a quiet town. Let’s keep it that way, shall we?
Oh, and I wonder if any of the councillors own property in the downtown core? That would be a reason to recuse oneself from the discussion and from voting. Lloyd Sotas Peachland