Regarding the proposed rental apartment buildings at Metchosin and Painter roads, thanks to the Gazette for covering the story and high praise to the residents who took action so quickly.
Like them, I voted for some of the current council members and don’t recall any campaign promises about cramming Colwood full of extra bodies as quickly as the concrete can set.
Apartment buildings belong on Goldstream Avenue, not Metchosin Road. As an established single-family community, South Colwood still has grace, space and trees, except on Wishart and Latoria roads, where they are being replaced by blasted rock moonscapes.
It is highly inappropriate for a municipal council to blindside existing residents by changing zoning drastically, as they have been doing.
The zoning bylaw/map is by definition a solemn statement of municipal intent, so property owners have some security about neighbouring properties when making a valuable investment, which is held vulnerable ever after by its fixed location. We need to be able to trust our elected officials, and random rezoning of churchyards and rural hillsides to high density makes it impossible.
I pray our council remembers that their first loyalty must be to the residents who elected them: to listen to our concerns, to uphold our property values and respect our chosen lifestyle.
It is lovely that council wants to increase tax revenue, but in this case it would backfire. All our single-family properties in the area will be cheapened if multi-story rental apartments are placed in such a prominent position at Metchosin and Painter.
Though dropping assessments are not nearly as bad as dropping rock, they are both part of a disturbing pattern of high-density development, even where the topography or the neighbourhood cannot support it.
Lois Gardner
Colwood