Welcome to the North Delta neighbourhood! I don’t believe we’ve ever had our own newspaper before, so I look forward to more local oriented news. I would like to see more ND residents take a stand on local issues, and perhaps your paper will encourage that involvement!
I would like to see what North Delta residents really think about Delta council’s push to densify our communities with high rises and townhouses. Personally, I feel council and Delta engineering [department] do not have the residents’ interests at heart and are only rubbing their hands gleefully with a misguided sense of growth.
As an example, look at the “72nd Avenue Revitalization” that encourages townhouses instead of single family homes. The road is two lanes with no possible way to make it four lanes since there is only one lane to merge into Highway 91 and an elementary school that requires a slower speed limit. Rush hours make this road seem like a parking lot. (I don’t take 72nd if I need to take a morning ferry since once I had to wait 15 minutes to drive one block! I turned around and drove 64th instead.)
I live near the first townhouse development proposal (72nd & 116th) which is also a high-collision location. The accidents have increased since the Corporation of Delta spent over $1 million to “realign” the intersection. (Check ICBC stats.) Now they want to put a 40-unit townhouse in the space of eight single family homes with a parking capacity of 80+ vehicles. This just isn’t a normal decision.
The residents that came to the first meeting introducing this proposal were furious with the idea. They had many valid reasons proving it would dramatically intrude on their lives. The biggest impact to 72nd Avenue would be the increase of traffic to an already congested road. Council, of course, approved this proposal, like they unanimously approved the 37-storey highrise on 80th [Avenue] after a packed meeting of local residents showed their strong objection.
I believe that if you ask North Delta residents, the majority won’t even know that Delta Council plans to build these highrises all along Scott Road and built townhouses all along 72nd. (The next townhouse development is posted for the beautifully treed area near 112th). They use the excuse that it is all according to the North Delta Area Plan. I would object that this “Plan” is flawed in that the ideas were already planned before they were presented to a limited number of residents since most were away on summer holiday. We didn’t have a local newspaper then to highlight the proposed future of North Delta to its sleepy residents.
Hopefully, the new presence of the North Delta Reporter will bring our community alive with involvement!
Lisa Lewko, via email