Letter to the editor: Burnaby is already enough of a hub

Last week, we asked readers to respond to a question posed in this article asking if Burnaby could be a potential hub for Metro Vancouver, or if it lacked the necessary ingredients. Here’s what one reader had to say.

UGH! Over the past few years, I have watched an urban forest be decimated. My view of a horizon has all but disappeared and by the time this planned chaos has been completed, there will be no horizon at all.

Instead, it will be a wall of windows of human silos that are way too tall, mostly empty, far too expensive to live in, and riddled with crime.

The blinding reflections of sunlight and heat from these buildings are forcing me to live behind closed blinds.

I would hate to think that this is the kind of life the city had in mind for its citizens.

Yes, we want a variety of shops and restaurants but we also want and need green space. We also want and need some darkness and quiet at night. We do not need 40, 50, and 60-storey buildings! Our current infrastructure can’t possibly keep up with that.

It has been studied and the reports have been issued for years linking good health with access to green space. Our eyes require the ability to turn from our computer screens toward a distant horizon and our minds need to take in the peace and serenity that comes from looking at the horizon of trees, open sky, ocean, and fields.

Twelve years ago, that is what we had. It’s disappearing, and not to anyone’s benefit but the investment portfolio of the developers and their shareholders.

Burnaby is already enough of a hub. I don’t see the crowds of people flocking here at the projected rate; who can afford to? Not enough rental housing is being built, most of it is condos that are undersized and overpriced. Rents are skyrocketing because they can—in my 50-year-old building a recently vacated unit identical to mine now has a price tag $1,000 above what I’m currently paying. What single individual can afford more than $2,000 for a one-bedroom apartment?

I would sincerely like to see the current projects completed and no new ones started. No new groundbreakings, nothing until these buildings have achieved 100% occupancy for even a single month. Then the need for more can be said to exist.

Lea Harth, Metrotown resident

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