* Y

NEWS photo Cindy Goodman

Friday, March 27, 1992 — North Shore News - 3

Cates Park seawalk proposal panned

Residents pack town hall meeting to air development concerns

A PROPOSED seawalk for
Cates Park was unani-
mously rejected by almost
200 east Seymour residents
who packed a ‘‘town hall
meeting’? at Dorothy Lynas
Elementary School on
Wednesday evening.

By Martin Millerchip
Contributing Writer

The meeting was organized by
North Vancouver District Council
and staff as part of a continuing
Program promised during the 1990
municipal election campaign to
improve access to council.

While the opportunity to meet
face to face with planning staff
and police, fire and environmental
representatives was welcomed by
the large crowd, most audience
members attended the meeting to
voice concerns over local devel-
opment.

And while there were several
planning issues that were used as
sticks and stones to lob at Mayor

NORTH VANCOUVER
DISTRICT COUNCIL

Water commuters in Indian
Arm said they have waited 2%
years for the district to provide a
solution to their moorage prob-
lems and that all they have
achieved is a commitment from
the new owners of the Seycove
Marina to provide moorage for
another six months.

“You say you’ve got no money.
Yes you do. You just cancelled
the seawalk,"’ said one Indian
Arm resident to applause.

Jeremy Drake deplored the loss
of single-family zoning.

Said Drake, ‘lt appears to me
that whenever a multi-family zon-
ing comes up this council pushes it
through.*’ :

Marnie Hodgins

asked why

44 We don’t want
Coney Island.

NVD MAYOR Murray Dykeman greeted nearly 200 east Seymour area residents at
a town hall meeting at Dorothy Lynas School on Wednesday night. Many came to
condemn plans for a seawalk connecting Cates Park to Deep Cove. Further town
hail meetings are scheduled for the north Lonsdale area on June 17 and the west

Murray Dykeman and his
aldermen none created as much
unanimous disapproval as the
conceptual plan for a seawalk

Maybe we need the

Seymour area on Sept. 16.

District residents face 14%
tax hike in municipal budget

$130 increase for average home in draft budget

WHAT'S THE damage?

’ By Martin Millerchip
Contributing Writer

That was the basic question
Tuesday night from a small
group of North Vancouver
District residents who sat
through three hours of pres-
entations and questions about
the district’s 1992 draft
municipal budget.

- The answer?

Property taxes will increase
$130 on an ‘‘average’’ single-
family residence assessed at
$210,000 in 1990.

But council and senior staff,
who almost equalled the size of
their audience, pointed out that
nothing in the budget had been
finalized yet.

The meeting allowed
district voters some input into
the budget process: District
director of finance Michael
Hoskin said that input will also
be sought next year as a result
of recommendations from a4
corporate review of district
operations.

The district’s 1992 draft
budget shows the municipality
considering a $52.4 million
operating budget, which
Hoskin said was an increase of
7.5% over 1991,

The 7.5% figure includes a
5.2% increase to continue
“basic”? services and a 2.3%
increase for proposed addi-
tional services.

Hoskin explained, however,
that because the district is pro-
jecting a decline in revenues
from its own reserves and
earned interest, actual expen-
ditures could increase by as
much as 10.7% to maintain
present levels of service and
climb another 3.3% to cover
additional services.

That total percentage in-

aarp er oa pte etapa
NORTH VANCOUVER

DISTRICT COUNCIL

crease in expenditures will be
financed mostly by municipal
property tax hikes to raise the
tequired $4.5 million.

Hoskin offered a rough rule
of thumb for residential tax in-
creases: every 1% change in the
tax level produces a $10 change
in property taxes.

Some areas of increase in the

draft budget are:
@ a 13% increase in the police
budget to pay for a new con-
tract and six additional of-
ficers;

*@ the operation of the Karen

Magnussen wave pool;

@ additional staff, including
recycling and waste manage-
ment positions and _ social
planning positions;

@ a commitment to increased
youth services.

Several speakers at the
meeting urged council to direct
staff departments io submit
budgets at 1990 levels or
budgets no greater than the
rate of inflation.

They also questioned the
need to maintain the same level
of services in the district.

John Bremner, district direc-
tor of engineering services,
pointed out that such costs as
those of the police contract and
Greater Vancouver Water
District water rates were
beyond the municipality’s con-
trol.

Warned Bremner, ‘‘All of
the municipalities in the GVRD
(Greater Vancouver Regional
District) are in for some hor-
rendous increases over the next
few years.”’

Ald. Joan Gadsby said that
it should be possible to provide
fer increased services by in-
creasing efficiency.

“*T will not support anything

that excedes inflation,’’ said
Gadsby.

Ald. Ernie Crist questioned
the use of funds from land
sales to pay for road construc-
tion and maintenance, which
he has argued should be paid
for out of operating costs
rather than the capital costs
portion of the budget.

‘“Do you believe that land, a
diminishing resource, should be
sold for road patching?’’ he
asked the gallery.

Ald. Janice Harris also sug-
gested that the district should
improve its categorization of
capital and operating costs.

She then said the decision to
proceed with the Northlands
golf course should be put to a
public referendum.

Harris also pointed to the
idea of a heritage seawalk link-
ing all of the district’s water-
front and said that it would
cost millions of dollars over the
years.

“The community has to start
talking about where the reve-
nue of land sales should go,’’
said Harris.

Ald. Paul Turner reminded
the gallery that, ‘‘We speak
with forked tongues some-
times.

“You applaud for tax cuts
but also ask for your pet
neighborhood project. You can
have anything you want, but
you cannot have everything
you want.””

Ald. Buchols said an
Operating budget increase of
5% to 712% was too high.

Mayor Murray Dykeman
said it was difficult to protect
and maintain ‘‘the asset of our
community.’”

He pointed tc unsafe school
playing fields in the district
that have not been maintained
for economic reasons: ‘We
have $% million of dirt with
no practical program that we
can put on it.’’

linking Cates Park to Deep Cove.

Harvey Burt said imitating West
Vancouver's seawalk would cost
millions in land expropriation or
result in the environmentally ques-
tionable choice of locating it down
on the foreshore.

“Ives an ill-conceived recom-
mendation to begin with. It’s in-
conceivable to me that in this day
and age any planner could con-
sider putting a 10-, 15- or 20-foot
asphalt walk on the beach,"’ said
Burt.

‘*People move here for the nat-
ural beauty. Why not leave it as it
is? If you have this kind of money
to spend, there are schools, youth
projects, libraries and emergency
services to spend it on,"’ he con-
cluded.

Dykeman said the idea was only
conceptual and arose from the
district’s parks and_ recreation
masier plan.

But resident
said that that
“bull.”

Anderson said that he had sat
on three different advisory design
panels over 20 years where the
same idea had been rejected,

“This has been turned down
three times and you are still
throwing it in our face,’’ said
Anderson.

**We don’t want Coney Island.
Maybe we need the municipality
of Deep Cove. You people say
you’ve been listening, but I want
to know who you’ve been listening
to,"’ said another resident.

Finally, one speaker asked if
anyone at the meeting was in
favor of the walk.

Nobody raised a hand.

Other development issues that
sparked questions included: .
@ access tO commuter moorage in
Deep Cove for Indian Arm resi-
dents;

@ multi-family development;

@ the stalled townhouse project
at Ostler Court;

@ the proposed development on
the Burrard Indian Band lands.

Bruce Anderson
was so much

municipality of
Deep Cove. ¥9

- Deep Cove resident

there were no maps illustrating the
siting of a 66-unit townhouse de-
velopment located at the end of
Ostler Court overlooking Deep.
Cove Road.

Council has given Mountain
Province Investment Consultants
four extensions of its permit to
build the stalled project, . which
was to have had its foundations
poured in October 1989.

In the meantime the surroun-
ding neighborhood has been com-
pleted on schedule by individual
owners, and residents resent the
exceptions made for Mountain
Province and fear the disruption
that could be caused by heavy
equipment travelling to the site
through narrow neighborhood
streets.

Dykeman promised a
neighborhood meeting with the
developer in the next few weeks to
resolve the issue of access.

The mayor also told the meeting
of Burrard Band plans to develop
a golf driving range at the foot of
Apex Avenue.

Dykeman said the band would
Operate as good neighbors and
noted a planned buffer strip,
east/west alignment and lighting
that would point away from ex-
isting houses.

He also promised an opportuni-
ty for concerned residents to
comment on housing development
planned for band land at the bot-
tom of Indian River Drive.

Other scheduled district town
hail meetings are set for:

@ June 17, for the north Lons-
dale area;
@ Sept. 16,

for the western
Seymour area. :

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