Skip to content

Letters: Community needs amenities

Amenities contributions needed for good of Sooke community

Developers want to pay less for amenities or do they want to do less for amenities when they develop or both?

The District of Sooke asks for amenities such as sidewalks, lighting, parks,community gardens, etc.

If certain amenity requests are not needed for this area, there could be a charge for monies needed for other amenity, like perhaps a town centre square or a round- about. Monies would be set aside from the amenity payments to build these needs of the community.

The developments put more pressure on the need to keep our community developing as per our Offical Community Plan. Staff has done the analysis of what would happen if we dropped the amenity charges to half, which the writer, Cownden, proposed. The anylsis showed that the district would receive no benefit at all. If development  doesn’t pay, then we the taxpayer will.

The question is, is there a need for higher density when the majority of buyers are looking for single family dwellings? The lack of sales of the higher density development at Mariner’s Village should show us that.

Perhaps we are not ready for a high density or a  high-rise village.

Do we build for developers or for the community?

Wild by Nature or not?

Ellen Lewers

Sooke