Re: Fines issued in illegal 2015 Oak Bay tree cutting, Oak Bay News, Wednesday, Oct. 26.
It is encouraging that mayor Nils Jensen is quoted as saying, “We have all kinds of challenges with our infrastructure, we know that.”
Recognizing this, we hope that his commitment to infrastructure is such that its maintenance, improvement and replacement will take precedence over Oak Bay’s infill initiative.
Clearly, residents have spoken. Infrastructure is the No. 1 priority of Oak Bay taxpayers.
As the Official Community Plan indicates, it is “in its latter years of service,” therefore the many infill development impacts on our infrastructure require much more research and analysis before the infill development design and implementation stage is instigated.
Currently, council appears to be heading towards action before planning.
The community is entitled to hear some specifics on how the mayor intends to deal with these “all kinds of challenges” before any infill implementation is considered.
Surely we have learned that shooting first and then finding out what you’ve hit is not good policy.
Other communities wished they had not used this method as they are plagued with unforeseen and unwanted outcomes resulting in negative changes that cannot be undone.
Rachel McDonnell
Oak Bay
