A lot of you need to get over the NIMBY syndrome and I am here to pull up the draw bridge mentality.
Just look at what this has done for Qualicum Beach. You can see this with the developments that have not got off the ground.
This is a very disturbing trend that is very difficult to reverse. Lots of towns have had this happen and end up with boarded up stores.
This no development council and town employees should take a look at what is happening east of French Creek and through Parksville.
It looks like they have added 100 new single family homes and must have another 100 getting ready to start. I can tell you this is the retiring baby boomers who are buying these houses and QB should be making a concerted effort to attract this kind of development to our town.
Development of this type means jobs and jobs means workers with families and children. The only way to stop the school from leaving town is to attract families with children.
No matter what your politicians are telling you it is only an increase in families with children that will stop the school from leaving.
Do you realize that we could attract lots of these retirees if we promoted our town as the best retirement community in Canada? If we could attract 500 retirees per year for the next five years, we still would not go over the 12,500 mark that council has set for our growth and attrition means we may never meet that number.
All this development will create lots of jobs and employment and if we can get barriers removed from development, we may eventually see developers who would like to build some small retirement type homes in the downtown core.
Wouldn’t it be nice if Qualicum Beach could work with some developers to do something with our water frontage which is currently very long in the tooth? It would be fantastic to see some low rise condominium development and rental properties and some cafes and restaurants that would attract tourists and maybe in my wildest dreams, a pier.
D. Sneddon, Qualicum Beach
