6 - Wednesday, Murch 9, 1988 - North Shore News lackenzie King’s |. Van! says it all for DEVELOPMENT IS NOT THE PROBLEM facing West Van Council. If last week’s public debate on the community plan update proved anything, it proved that the gut problem is communication. Most communication problems come from inability to explain — or to listen. In this case, it seems, from both. The draft revised plan was critized as ‘‘hard to understand’ and ‘‘non-specific’’. It does, in fact, read as a fence-silting docu- ment aimed at pleasing everyone — a goal which invariably self- destructs. ‘‘Development if neces- sary but not necessarily develop- ment”’, is how Mackenzie King might have put it. On the other hand, many of last week's audience — like Roy Bar- thofomew of Giencagles Ratepayers — apparently failed to grasp that development (if any) confined to 4,000 sq.ft. single- family homes on half-acre lots is the last thing a fast-aging com- munity needs, Nor was much understanding shown of the need to attract a steady influx of young families to mayor Derrick Humphreys — ‘‘as sweet as it is’’. But change is Nature's law and all history shows that those who resist it wind up as its victims instead of its beneficiaries. Given sensitively controlled growth, | prefer to be among the latter. | don't want West Van itself to die one day. aee HITHER AND YON: Still in in- tensive care after his Feb.28 heart transplant at University Hospital in Edmonton, Ambleside Inn host Willi Bruecke} was reported at press time to be ‘‘making prog- ress’’. Certain complications dur- ing the critical first week were ap- parently due, in part, to an earlier bout of pneumonia from which Willi was still convalescing at the time of the successful heart opera- tion ... Mayor Marilyn Baker and 4 os +8, help foot the bills for (he paradise the seniors want to conserve but will be less and less able to pay for on their own, Young families, moving up the income scale, are a Jong-term addition (o the home- owner tax buse and, as peak con- sumers, a major source of growth for the commercial sector. Despite its apparent fuzziness, the updated community plan does address these key issues by leaving council SOME discretion — always subject to full public input — about future development needs, We shouldn’t sneer too quickly at Mackenzie King's famous logic! This particular senior, a West Van resident for 30 years, yields to nobody in his wish to keep the place — in the words of former Plan for change O WEST Vancouverites fear change? From the sentiments expressed by West Yan residents at last week’s Official Community Plan public meeting, cne would think so. With the exception of West Vancouver’s Chamber of Commerce, school board and local real estate board, most of those atten- ding the meeting at West Vancouver Secondary Schoo! showed great resistance to change. The public slammed development above the Upper Levels, replacement of smaller homes with larger ones, transfer of density deals and road upgrading. The administrators of West Vancouver must be do- ing something right to keep the populace content about the municipality’s current state. But. resistance to change could, ironically, change the face of the - municipality beyond recognition. If development is to be frozen above the Upper Levels and on existing built-on property, population density in the currently built-up areas will increase. Without a controlied plan for urban growth, West Van residents will likely see ‘more towers built on land already zoned for that pur- pose, more illegal suites rented, more attempts at spot-zoning monster houses and soaring commercial and retail rental rates. Already high real estate values will climb even fur- ther, making West Vancouver too rich for young fami- fies and other segments of the population to afford. Much of the community’s vitality may be lost. The West Vancouver success story is the result of residents who had vision. They didn’t sky away from the future — they shaped it. Current writers of the community plan should do the same. INSIGHTS logic her council are firmly opposed to professional ‘destination’ gambl- ing in North Van District but see no reason to impose their views on other areas, such as Whistler, Last week Her Worship's tolerant stand led North Van Chamber of Com- merce directors (of which she's one) to defeat a motion which would have urged the banning of Las Vegas-type casinos province- wide ... A federal pension reform expert, listed by the Toronto Star as one of Canada’s ‘'10 finest MPs", addresses an everyone- welcome breakfast meeting this Saturday sponsored by North Van-Burnaby MP Chuck Cook. Tickets ($20) to hear and quiz York-Scarborough MP Paul Mc- Crossan over 8:30 a.m. bacon and hash browns at Cheers Restaurant are available at Chuck's office, 117 East 15th, North Van ... Latest Cap College ‘‘Dean's List’, which honors all full-time students with a grade point average of 3.5 (A-) or better. contains 182 names from all parts of the Lower Mainland and as far afield as Nanaimo, Williams Lake and Dawson Creck — but the locals dominate handsomely: $31 of the outstanding students during the fall 1987 term came From North and West Van, Lions Bay and Bowen Island ... Newly ap- pointed administrator of Bur- naby's 290-resident Seton Villa, widely rated as the Lower Miainland's prime cetirement cen- uc, is Donna Kerr of North Van, a former assistant director of nurs: ing in the provincial government health service ... And happy 64st anniversary today to Paul and Agnes Zabototny, North Van resi- dents for the past 47 years. eee WRIGHT OR WRONG: Nobody needs @ vacation quite as much as the person who's just back from one. @ Publisher NEWS photo Mitka Wakatleld OLYMPICS LESSON...seven-year-old Nicholas Koo and his Fromme Elementary classmates show off the model of the Calgary Otympics site built by the school's students. Peter Speck Managing Editor... . Barrett Fisher Associate Editor Noel Wright § Advertising Director .l.inda Stewart & North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualitied under Sclheaule 141, Paragraph If of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid. and distributed to every door on the North Shore, Second Class Mail Registation Number 3885. Subscriptions North and West Vancouver, $25 per year. Marting sales available on requesi. Submissions are sun 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. 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