Pirjo Raits’ “Hard Pressed” editorial in last week’s Sooke News Mirror seemed to be focused on the Dogwood Initiative’s partial funding from U.S. sources. An equally irrelevant rambling could have been centered about where Ender Ilkay’s funds come from.
A more important forum would have been to discuss what the public information meeting was all about, rezoning.
Mr. Ilkay’s group of companies is asking to have its 263 hectares of Rural Resource Lands rezoned for a resort development. The question is not who controls our lands but whether or not the CRD should grant the rezoning.
In my opinion, they should not. As was passionately and frequently pointed our by residents of Sooke, Shirley and Port Renfrew, as well as Victoria; the majority of increased traffic to the proposed resort would have to come through Sooke via a highway infrastructure that is already seriously strained.
The remote location of this proposed large resort and its total lack of emergency services, as well as its proximity to the environmentally delicate Juan de Fuca Provincial Park make, in my mind, any thoughts of rezoning out of the question.
Gary White
Sooke
