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Environmental concerns still for Christie Point redevelopment

One resident fears there are still too many unanswered questions
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I am writing you today because of my concern for the collective good of our region. Protection of our natural resources, habitat and heritage is very important. Many things implemented in the past turned out to be errors that will take decades to restore.

Our regional strategies and OCPs help us collectively attain goals that hopefully meet the needs of our region and the people without sacrificing our environment.

View Royal and Mayor Screech are looking at creating a new zone with major amendments to zoning bylaw No. 900. 2014 to allow Realstar, a large Toronto-based developer, to build eight large buildings on Christie Point.

Christie Point is inside the CRD’s migratory bird sanctuary and on fish spawning routes. Portage Inlet is an environmentally sensitive ecosystem.

Excavations will be done as close as three meters to the shores of the tidal inlet, 12 meters inside the required 15 meter protection area.

Everyone in the CRD should be worried about how this may affect them even if they do not live in View Royal.

If changing existing zoning bylaws becomes common practice, deviating from standard rules and regulation for big money developers, many people will loose out.

If allowed to proceed, this project when completed will have hundreds more people accessing the Old Island Highway via a dead end street through an additional light controlled intersection just meters from the Admirals Road intersection.

Is it responsible or reasonable to deviate from provincial, federal and local regulations and common practice to assist a developer to attain its financial goals?

There are so many unanswered questions relating to this proposed project who is protecting the public?

Shahn Torontow

View Royal