Dear Editor,
When we moved to Richmond in 1972, the community was seen to be a bedroom community of Vancouver. Despite that, light, heavy industry and commercial businesses thrived and jobs outnumbered the citizens that lived here. However, things rapidly changed in the past several years with most Richmond city councillors often tripping over each other to satisfy the developers' demands for endless rezoning of land from industrial, commercial and agricultural into housing and an endless sea of condominiums and townhouses.
Unfortunately, the Canada Line is now doing much to accelerate excessive condominium development. We have adult children who are professional workers but cannot afford to live in Richmond. Despite our endless building, disingenuous experts say we have to build ever more to cater to affordability and the housing shortage.
As we build more and more homes, the less affordable they become and the number of homes that remain empty is unacceptable. It's time all levels of government not stumble over each other to address the affordable housing issue with their litany of excuses and yet more housing plans, and relate to the real problem. We simply have a non-sustainable human population growth rate and that will perpetuate the housing crisis and result in a lower quality of life as we fall behind in transportation challenges and lose agricultural and green spaces in our urban regions. Why are we now making Richmond into what is truly a bedroom community?
After we have put highrises all over Richmond Centre, Landsdowne and other areas, do we then make yet another raid on our agricultural land for another mall or commercial space to replace what we are losing? Why are we paving over the road from here to hell in a constant stream of rezoning applications?
Why are we over-developing Richmond when we know that it's only a matter of time before a city built in the Fraser River's floodplain will have to deal with sea level rise and eventually a catastrophic earthquake? Otto Langer
Richmond
