Oe 600 JAM PUBLIC MEETING Way ow TPs Pato B tow on wp HOH Ge & fa BoD push for twin tower topp: Ing A VOLATILE crowd of about 600 West Vancouverites managed Monday night to convince at least three West Vancouver aldermen that they represented a population overwhelmingly opposed to the proposed twin tower development for 320 Taylor Way. The hearing had been moved to West Vancouver Senior Secondary School’s auditorium to provide more room for residents, but even that location was overflowing with people who openly harassed West Vancouver District Council, staff members and project architect Ron Howard. At the end of the wild hearing, Ald. Mark Sager urged council to make a motion of intent on their future decision on the project. “We do not have any division in this community and there is nothing to weigh,” Sager said. “There is adamant opposition to this proposal.’’ Sager was supported by Ald. Rod Day and Ald. Gordon Rowntree, but the rest of council, three aldermen and Mayor Don Lanskail, were reluctant to make a snap decision. They called for a staff report, and promised to an- nounce their decision at the Oct. 3 council meeting. “T ty to do the right thing,” Lanskail said.‘‘And it is the cor- rect thing not to be pressured into making a decision."’ Added Ald. Alex Brokenshire: “Yo make a decision on the spur of the moment ...we would be guilty again of being too hasty.”’ Ald. Pat Boname said she wanted the extra two wecks to go over what had been suid at the hearing. “It's time to cool down and look at things rationally,’’ she said. But IWA boss and West Van- couver resident Jack Munro was disappointed that council had not made a decision on the future of the proposal Monday night. “It doesn’t make any sense,”’ said Munro, who had earlier engaged in a_ spirited personal debate with Ald. Dave Finlay after Finlay called Munro a ‘‘liar’? for attributing a statement made at a previous hearing to him. “How many submissions have we already had?’’ protested Capilano Public Lands Committee member Elaine Fonseca, referring to the mass of correspondence the proposal has already elicited, in- cluding the CPLC’s submission and the Taylor Way Task Force's report. The crowd barely permitted Howard, the project’s architect, to make his presentation on the pro- posal. He managed to show the twin towers with their vertical walls of Business .,.. Classified Ads.... Comics... Or. Ruth... Lifestyles........ Mailbox ........ Sports .............04. TV Listings............32 What's Going On........20 CURTIS Contributing Writer glass and green peaked roofs amid landscaping that included a foun- tain in the northwest corner, a stream through the front of the site and an enhanced Capilano River Park. The eigh: to 10 percent of the site covered by building, with the rest as park, Howard called ‘‘un- precedented in the development industry.’* He said the developer, Newcorp Properties Lid., was trying to sup- ply accommodation for the rapidly aging West Vancouver population, “in a galeway setting.”’ “Let the people tell you what we want as a. gateway,’ boomed Munro. The hearing, collapsing into a free-for-all of hurled abuse, was brought back to order by Lanskail, who reminded everyone of their reputation as civilized West Van- couverites. The site's location between Park Royal and the Lions Gate Bridge was identified as the main reason why people didn’t see it as a good place for more apartment buildings. Residents said any development at the site would be unthinkable without # solution to current area traffic congestion. Others argued that allowing a highrise at that corner would give a pro-development message to In- dian lands developers. There were fewer speakers at Monday night’s hearing than there have been at previous public hear- ings. “It would be a courageous act applauded by most of the citizens of West Vancouver if you voted against this proposal,’’ said Capilano Public Lands Committee (CPLC) chairman Dr. Marion Crowhurst. She denied that her group was opposed to development and prog- ress. “We are opposed to. this development because we don’t think it is progress,’’ she said. Crowhurst said West Van- couverites will always rise in anger against projects that will ‘‘change the character of West Vancouver.”’ CPLC member Rolf Johanson called on council to ‘‘please leave something for the future — this could be the last piece of flat land in West Vancouver.”’ Wednesday and Thursday, mainly sunny. Highs near 16°C. Second Class Registration Number 3885 ie Remembering ferry THE NORTH Shore's dian Cancer Society. bf : ue s eighth gnoual Terry Fox Run starts as 292 runners set off from Park Royal Mall on Sunday. The evert was in memory of one-legged hero Terry Fox who attempted to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. The North Shore five or 10-km run raised more than $4,700 for the Cana- 3 - Wednesday, September 21, 1988 - North Shore News et a NEWS photo Neil Lucente Honeymooning couple survive killer hurricane A NORTH Vancouver cou- ple returned to the temperate calm of Canada after surviving a stormy Jamaican honeymoon courtesy of Hurricane Gilbert, the destructive trop- ical storm that ripped through the Caribbean country Sept. 12. By MICHAEL BECKER News Reporter Heather Doucet, 23, and hus- band Andre, 24, jetted off Sept. 4 for what was to be carefree so- journ in paradise after tying the knot Sept. 3 at Lonsdale United Church. But the newlyweds’ holiday in the sun turned ugly when they awoke to dark skies and wind- driven rain lashing the beach near the Wyndham Rosehall Hotel, the Montego Bay hotel the couple were staying in along with an estimated 100 other honeymooning Cana- dians. “The hurricane hit us at about 3 p.m.,”’ Heather Doucet said. “They (the Jamaican government) had given two-days’ notice that a hurricane was possibly en route to Jamaica. But it was treated as a joke by everybody.’’ The Doucets were sharing a room facing the beach on the hotel’s top floor, seven storeys up. They were in their room when the battering began. “The windows had shattered in the corner room next to ours and glass and water started coming in to our suite,”"" Heather Doucet said. ‘‘We barricaded our windows and crawled around the roam in case the windows blew.’’ The storm demolished the room next to theirs, collapsing the roof. Hotel security evacuated the cou- ple to a fourth floor room. - The Doucets eventually joined hundreds of other cowering tourists huddled in the hotel's discotheque where they shook to the horrific sounds of howling winds, pounding rain, shattering glass, and thumping walls. ‘‘The whole lobby was destroyed,’’ she said. ‘‘One part of the lobby wall had separated from the rest of the building. There was broken glass everywhere. It was a 200 in the discotheque.’” NEWS photo Mike Wakefield NORTH VANCOUVER newlyweds Heather and Andre Doucet caught on film some of the devastation they saw around them at Montego Bay in the wake of Hurricane Gilbert’s destructive path. The Doucets were on their honeymoon in Jamaica when the storm struck. Doucet said the brunt of the vio- lent storm, whose maximum winds reached 280 km/h, was over by 10 p.m. Two days of rain followed. By Friday the couple managed to board an Air Jamaica flight from Montego Bay to Toronto. The trip to the airport revealed the full extent of the devastation around thera. “The shanty shacks on both sides of the hotel were destroyed. Trees were everywhere. A lot of people were trying to repair what they could. We saw what looked like canoes swooped in across the streets from the water,’’ Doucet said, While the two were not injured during the storm, Doucet said some of the hotel guests were in- jured by flying glass. Said her father Tom Cox, who got word last week from a ham radio operator in Ottawa that the couple had survived the storm, “‘We were quite concerned — my wife in particular, We were over- joyed when we learned that they were OK.” Doucet vows never to return to Jamaica.