The current city council does not care that people are being more than inconvenienced by the destruction and construction in our neighbourhoods. If they did care, then they would provide some dentures for the toothless laws that understaffed bylaw and parking enforcement staff are left to uphold, knowing they will not be backed up by the city.
Owners and builders of over-sized houses would not be permitted to build houses that are indeed over-sized, owners and builders would not be permitted to continue to build and add extra suites despite a stop-work order, and when people park illegally then the procedure wouldn’t be to leave a message on an answering machine that gets checked twice a day.
I suggested to the mayor’s office that a decrease of taxes of $1,000 a year would cover my expenses of having to water the piece of my lawn that was dug up so the city workers could work on the water pipes to accommodate the oversized house that was being constructed across the street. This would also cover my stress and inconvenience of having the workers from the oversized house from across the street park directly in front of my driveway, and then swear and threaten me in front of my kids because a woman dared tell him to move his van.
The $1,000 off my taxes would help ease the inconvenience of being woken up at midnight and 3 a.m. by inconsiderate drivers delivering heavy equipment, when I had to wake up at 4 a.m. to go to work.
There are many other examples, but when informed about them, the mayor’s office not only offered zero sympathy, they also did less about changing things. They don’t want to make it more difficult for these owners/developers to destroy perfectly good homes and alter the single-family neighbourhoods into apartment blocks.
Perhaps if all of the law-abiding citizens demanded the same discount off our taxes, the mayor’s office would get tired of printing out dismissive letters and may actually back their own bylaws and bylaw officers?
Corinna Cooke
