Classitieds 986-6222

Band member says housing more
important than driving ranges

PLANS TO open two golf driving ranges on Squamish
Band iand are teing criticized by a Squamish Band
member who says housing needs should take priority over

golf.

“The people (band members)
that I've talked to don’t support
this, but they are too afraid to
come forward. I'm probably crazy
to come forward myself,’ said
32-year-old Squamish Band
member Evelyn Lamont.

Last week, Squamish Chief
Philip Joc and Nick Yoshio Wada
of West Georgia Enterprises Corp.
jointly announced an agreement in
principle to open two golf driving
ranges on the North Shore.

Financially backed by
Naniwa-Ya IJnvestments’ Akio
Higashio, the band expects to
open golf driving ranges this fall
on the band's Capilano and
Seymour reserves. The cost of the
developments ts estimated at be-
tween $1.5 million and $2 million.

One of the ranges will be
located near the Second Narrows
Bridge on-ramp and a second is
planned for the site formerly
operated at the Capilano Reserve
as the Lions Gate Golf Centre.

The golf driving range closed
Jast month after about nine years
of operation. At the time, band
spokesman Sam George said the
band chose not to renew its lease
with the driving range operator
because the land was needed for
housing.

The reopened Capilano golf
range will be smaller, reduced
from a 65-stall tee line to 50 stalls.
The reduction is needed to ac-
commodate new housing on the
reserve.

Before it closed, the golf driving
range at Capilano was among the
busiest in Canada with an
estimated 175,000 to 200,000 visits
annually.

But reserve population has
grown from 1,600 in 1987 to 2,400
today.

And at least 400 band members
are signed to waiting lists for
reserve housing.

When housing becomes avail-
able, council members draw
names from fists separated into
categories covering married fami-
lies, widowers and elders, com-
mon-law couples, single parents,
and singles.

But said Lamont, who iives in
North Vancouver and whose name
has been on Squamish Band hous-
ing lists for nine years, ‘It (land
set aside for golf) should go to the
people — housing. My main con-

By Michae! Becker
News Reporter

cern is bow they (band council)
make decisions like this without
consulting band) membership —
they're supposed to.

“They make the people out here
believe that they are being severely
oppressed by this (federal) gov-
ernment. That’s not true, they are
oppressing their people because
they are a dictatorship to their
people.’

Meanwhile Lamont claims that
some band members have been
sitting on reserve housing lists for
as long as 20 years.

Said Lamont, **You can work
your way to the (op on the singles
list, get married and go to the
bottom of the married families
list. If somebody is married and
their partner dies, then they go to
the bottom of the widower’s list.

“For instance I was a single
parent and | was on the list for
about seven years and then |
recently remarried. They took my
hame just when J was getting up
there and put it at the bottom of
the married list."*

But according to Squamish
Band Housing and public works
administrator, Gibby Jacob, the
lease for the Capilano reserve golf
driving range is short-term.

**The whole area is planned for
housing — this year probably
eight to 10 (single-family) homes
in the area. Ulhimately we're
building to one design. Definitely
within the decade we'll be [00%
housing in the area. The golf
range is interim.”’

He said available resources
define the pace of the band’s new
housing program in the face of
conslant pressure to accommodate
people requesting to move onto
the reserve,

In addition to the houses plan-
ned for the Capilano reserve
Jacob said development is under
way for seven additional lots on
the Seymour reserve and the con-
struction of 10 multi-family units
on the Brackendale reserve.

But charged Lamont, ‘*All these
council members have brand new
homes — free. Yet you go down
there and see some people living
in shacks.

Si.

Do

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NEWS photo Cindy Goodman

JIM DONNELLY paints an ‘‘ambulance only'’ marker outside the entrance to the Lions Gate
Hospital emergency ward. Primarily a painter in the maintenance department at LGH, Donnelly
is currently redoing signs around the hospital.

a0 Oey

ON THE NORTH SHORE SINCE 1969