On the Other Hand by Mark Rushton
In a city with some of the highest unemployment rates in the province, with building permit values in rapid decline, I find it incomprehensible that Abbotsford council is delaying its decision on a 16-acre, mostly commercial development on the freeway at the McCallum interchange.
Concerns, apparently, focus on the city’s Official Community Plan calling for mostly residential development on the site, plus its pre-existing use as a residential trailer park.
Seems clear to me that if we don’t have jobs to bring people here to fill them, we don’t need an increase in housing units.
Commercial/industrial development, on the other hand, creates jobs and the prosperity provided by them creates the demand for residential development.
Additionally, at least one of the proposed tenants is an outdoor/recreational outlet that will attract customers from throughout the Lower Mainland and quite possibly the central Interior.
More than a few consumers, I would suggest, having made a lengthy trip to visit the store, can be reasonably expected to spend money at other local enterprises: restaurants, specialty stores, RV outlets, vehicle dealerships and so forth.
And money spent here translates into even more jobs and economic benefit.
That said, I have also heard concerns that the development on the north side of the freeway impacts the “U-District.”
Sounds like a lovely area highlighted by ivy-covered halls of learning surrounded by bucolic subdivisions, boutique shopping and homey apartments.
The only problem is that UFV is essentially confined and constricted on three sides by the freeway and agricultural land, the removal of which from the ALR is remote at best.
Additionally, just a few hundred metres to the west is the largest federal complex of prisons in B.C. That’s not going anywhere soon either.
With those facts, it is not surprising that much of UFV’s future expansion will occur on the Chilliwack campus on the large and relatively restriction-free former DND lands. With Garrison Crossing and other such housing/shopping areas in the vicinity, it has become the sort of U-District that Abbotsford envisions but is realistically impossible to achieve, given the existing confines for expansion of this campus.
To hold back development of prime freeway-exposed lands in an effort to achieve that unattainable dream would be folly that will be long lamented after the fact.
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Now for something different.
A meeting a few weeks ago with the management of this newspaper detailed a desire for me to alternate my columns of comment with other topics, to provide more variety.
I will be writing about “Faces, Places and Traces,” featuring people, locations and other interesting information about things in our community.
Every other week, I will return to my commentaries.
I should point out also that my contributions will be published in the Friday editions rather than on Wednesdays.
In the meantime, before my new appearances begin, I’m going to take a couple of weeks off!
markrushton@shaw.ca