Editor:
Do new highrises help your taxes go down?
Apparently not. The majority of city costs go up proportional with the number of people we have. So, adding people does not help with taxes.
If you compare taxes with population densities across the province, you will see that there is no correlation between population, or population density to lower taxes. The major factor for cities is whether their councils spend responsibly.
The major expenses for White Rock are police, fire fighting, water and roads. The more people you have, the more of each you need.
White Rock council has overspent by over $30 million in the last year, putting us in significant debt for the first time.
Our council is using our tax dollars to subsidize towers. We are not benefiting from them. The Oceana PARC retirement tower paid $500,000 in development fees to the city, but Johnston Road is being dug up to supply additional water and sewage lines. This road construction is costing us $3 million per block, while also killing all local businesses as their customers cannot park nearby and the sidewalks are impossible for many seniors to navigate.
We do not even know if we have sufficient infrastructure to service all these additional residents.
A recent study by the Vancouver School of Economics looked at survey responses on life satisfaction across hundreds of urban and rural communities and found that, on average, Canadians in smaller neighbourhoods are happier. The authors write that the common element no matter how large or small they were was whether residents felt a sense of belonging.
I attended most of the meetings asking for our input for an update to the Official Community Plan. It was my impression that the majority of White Rock residents attending did not want to lose the small-town ambiance of White Rock.What a shock when I saw the unveiling of the new OCP – a developer’s dream, and the Coalition in control of our council can’t even abide by that e.g. spot zoning.
We must vote wisely in October before more damage is done to our lovely little town.
Patricia Kealy, White Rock
