Letter submitted by Cadboro Bay Resident to Saanich Council:
Dear Mayor and Council,
For the reasons contained in today’s report, I support refining the October, 2022 draft of the Cadboro Bay Local Area Plan rather than pursuing one of the new proposals. The Fall LAP draft still needs work. I hope that changes will be made to reflect the following:
- Don’t minimize the new sea rise and tsunami projections. The CRD’s November 2021 Coastal Inundation scenarios for Cadboro Bay are more dire than when the LAP process was begun. The scenario attached is much worse than the illustration shown in Saanich’s recent LAP materials. It would be irresponsible to encourage future increased density in affected areas between Cadboro Bay road and the sea. This is also a triple threat earthquake zone.
- Please restore the requirement for new developments to minimize overshadowing of adjacent homes. This wording is in the current LAP and should be kept, especially if future developments may be allowed to proceed without a public hearing.
- In the LAP land use map, please replace the term “3-4 storeys” with “2-3 storeys” for sites thus designated. There is no social license whatsoever to build 4 storeys on Hobbs street or Maynard street or narrow, busy Sinclair hill. A majority of the 874 survey respondents did not support 4 storeys anywhere in the Village. In the original community consultations only one 4 storey building was discussed and that was to replace the uphill (Thai restaurant) side of the village shops. When the sketch was presented, participants laughed because it looked so out of place. Please keep Cadboro Bay village small-scale.
- Do densify Cadboro Bay by measures other than height such as:
- Make the garden suite process less onerous and allow each home to have a basement suite as well;
- Encourage new low-rise infill and townhouses in locations supported by the community;
- Consider allowing duplex, triplex or even fourplex homes on large lots in Queenswood & Ten Mile point as long as the building envelope isn’t exceeded, parking is on site and vegetation is protected.
- Collaborate with churches who have available land to build affordable rental /co-op/ and/or seniors‘ housing, using subsidies available from senior levels of government
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Regards,
Lyn Wray
I am encouraged by letter writers Lyn Wray and Sasha Izard who explicity and clearly confront Saanich’s intentions to infill Ten Mile Point despite the plans displayed by our own Cadboro Bay committee last year. While residents may have been startled and somewhat dismayed by their projections there was a general acceptance of the need to expand the community.
What Saanich proposes is a minicity of high density, free of trees (see the butchering of Shelbourne Street foliage) and utterly unsympathitic to the notions of privacy and appreciation of nature.