Mr. Ilkay is willing to preserve 84 per cent of his land by donating 42 per cent to the park and leaving the other 42 per cent as green space. That means only 16 per cent of his land will be lightly developed over about 20 years. Where else are you going to get a deal like that?
Do people not realize that the only other option for him, if his resort doesn’t get approval, is to log the land to make back his investment or sell it to someone else who will log the land? That’s exactly what the current zoning of the land allows, logging and mining. So what would people rather have? 84 per cent of the land preserved or 100 per cent of the land cleared by logging an potential mining. And yes, that includes the portion of the Juan de Fuca Trail that is built on Mr. Ilkays property.
The B.C. government is not going to buy the land from him and make it all park because they have no money, the CRD is not going to buy the land and make it all park because they also have no money and Mr. Ilkay is definitely not going to just give away millions of dollars in property. If this development does not get approval absolutely no portion of Mr. Ilkay’s land will become parkland in the foreseeable future.
Good job everyone, you just destroyed the only chance you will ever have to preserve that part of the Juan de Fuca Trail. Instead we’ll have a clear cut section of land that borders the trail and maybe in 30 years it’ll be back to the way it looks now.
Is this the result you’ve been fighting for?
Dave Humphreys
Sooke