Amongst the priorities of the CRD’s Regional Growth Strategy are: protecting green space; sustainable use of natural resources and environments; and making sure that settlements are compact and foster complete communities.
Planning to tear out popular forest lands along the Juan de Fuca trail, Vancouver-based developer Ender Ilkay’s company Marine Trail Holdings will contravene all of these priorities. They will destroy habitats, encroach upon and damage an extremely popular provincial park, and build suburban-style dwellings way outside the urban containment boundary.
Far removed from municipal services like water supplies and waste disposal, these developments will have long-term negative impacts upon their surrounding environments; meanwhile, their remoteness from healthcare services and fire stations means that healthcare emergencies and forest fires would be unmanageable for these utterly incomplete communities.
For all these reasons and many more, the proposed developments along the Juan de Fuca trail fly in the face of the CRD’s mandated strategy. If the CRD wishes to maintain its legitimacy, it must stop Ilkay’s plans dead in their tracks. And if the CRD fails to enforce its own plans to protect the long term livability in the region, it will be up to the people to pick up the slack.
Brendan Harry
Victoria