The Editor,
Re. "No road through Bert Flinn Park" (The Tri-City News, Jan. 30).
I attended the public hearing in Port Moody Jan. 28 regarding the OCP amendment regarding the Ioco lands and the subsequent council meeting.
I had no intention of speaking at the public hearing. I’d already said everything I felt I could say previously but, as I continued to see the agenda on the screen and listened to all the people who spoke, I felt I had to speak up again.
The Ioco lands amendment will remove the special study area and lock in the potential of a maximum of 253 single-family homes, with some suites and laneway housing. Yes, 253 single-family homes (for the most part) in 2020. How is that even sensible? Tied in with that is to remove all references to the David Avenue connector also known as Bert Flinn Park right-of-way.
What I witnessed Tuesday, and spoke about, was an obituary on the death of Ioco townsite — of all those homes, of the school, of the Groceteria, of a history of Port Moody.
There is now no value to any landowner to revitalize the town site, to collect up the homes and use them to help build a vibrant community, to invest.
People spoke passionately in a last-ditch attempt to make council realize the real impacts to their lives if the right-of-way is removed and all reasonable options to ease and manage the traffic on Ioco Road are off the table. Councillors Meghan Lahti, Zoe Royer and Diana Dilworth tried to make the rest of council see the momentous ramifications of the action. They argued, unsuccessfully, that this action is of such significance that it should be decided by referendum. The right-of-way was created by a referendum, why can it be removed by a simple line of text?
Nothing made any difference. The mayor said, essentially, "I’m doing it" — and he did. What he also did was insult, with an amazing lack of tact, the mayor of Anmore, who was sitting in the audience.
I find myself apologizing, again, to people because of the actions of our elected officials.
Laura Dick, Port Moody
