Editor:
Re: Beyond the construction, April 18 letters.
I take issue with a recent letter writer’s opinion that White Rock will be “revitalized” once the dust from the endless construction of highrises has settled.
Currently, there are 11 approved plans to build, with a couple dozen more in the pipeline that council will inevitably push through, regardless of many White Rock and Surrey citizens’ wishes and concerns.
The city centre may have become “tired” and needed a facelift, but if anyone thinks that introducing, into a geographically small area, many thousand new residents living in soaring glass and metal towers is the answer, they need to give their head a shake.
Critics should be griping about the endless construction, seeing how council has obviously decided to line the city’s coffers instead of looking at the bigger picture. The charming seaside-town feel will quickly dissolve into a loss of community feel, endless traffic, even longer hospital and clinic waits, worsening conditions at schools that are already bursting at the seams, and so on.
We can all soon look forward to enjoying Sunday strolls along the Promenade inching through the throngs, trying not to step on anyone, and making reservations at our favorite restaurants a week-plus ahead to get a table. Yup, sounds heavenly.
I’m not against progress and growth, but there needs to be realistic planning and basic common sense to project how it will all look in the future.
Let’s not kid ourselves, the only ones who really benefit are the developers and foreign speculators, the rest will be folks wondering 10 years down the line whatever happened to their lovely community of White Rock.
C. Slade, Surrey
