Next Monday Century Group will appear before Delta council to expand on its story about what it wants to do with the 540 acres in Tsawwassen known as Southlands. This meeting is a preliminary to a public information meeting to be held on Oct. 25 at the South Delta Recreation Centre.
Why should you care? If you live in Tsawwassen, the decision being made about Southlands will affect you more than the Tsawwassen First Nation's 4,000 homes and 1.8 million feet of retail space, more than the second terminal at Deltaport and, until the tunnel replacement arrives, this will be the biggest impact on your/our style of life in a generation.
If you live in Ladner, this is a show that is coming to farmland near you.
The process of a public hearing is that the proposer, aka developer, is given the floor for as long as they want, can introduce any number of hired experts and can concoct a show of how wonderful the proposal will be. That's one side of the story.
Next the council allows citizens to speak - but only for five minutes apiece and with no help to understand the comments or the details of the proposal before the meeting.
Not fair, I say, in part because the detailed content is not known often until minutes before. Without the advice of independent experts, how can a citizen judge the veracity of the proposal?
Where is our planning department? Remember, we pay $4 million annually for the services of these planners. They work for us, not the developers. So where are they at these meetings and hearings? They're usually silent at meetings, and shuffled to one side at hearings to answer technical questions for council.
This meeting might be different. Delta's planning department is the host, not Century. The planning department is providing an overview of the application.
For those who got it, it is a one-page notice with a map telling you of an "Official Community Plan amendment and rezoning application." Which version of the plan is this application? Is this a rezoning application for Phase 1 of the housing (35 acres), is it for all the housing (107 acres), or for the whole 540 acres?
If Century is proposing to leave 80 per cent zoned agricultural, where is the gift in exchange for removing 107 acres for 950 houses? Will Delta do its job and explain to us the implications of what is being proposed, or simply explain how it can change the OCP to accommodate this latest version of the plan? How many more meetings and hearings will there be?
If you wish to be informed, there are many pages and reports you can read online, assuming you have the time. You can call Delta and leave a message - as I did while writing this. Otherwise if you have a life, you will need a cogent summary by people whom you trust and employ. In other words, Delta staff.
No "simple English" explanation is given so that you, the citizen, can know the implications of what is up for grabs. I say the system is either badly in need of repair or broken. Either way you are not adequately
It's time to pull the curtain back, and ask the tough question: What's really going on with this multi-phased, very complex application?
