The Editor:
Come election time in October, the Village of Anmore will need the wizardry of Harry Potter to deal with the potential of Anmore South going "Urban," a proposal which is under the direction of the Icona group.
This group has summoned a wizard from Denmark, the notable Landscape Architect Rasmus Astrup, to make pronouncements on the 150 acre site, currently zoned as Rural but considered a "special study area."
Evoking a kind of trinity, Astrup claims that, since the first growth is gone, existing second growth must cede to a third and final stage: urban development.
Thus redesigning a natural landscape is sanctified by icona itself, which is in the business of money-making.
The real estate lords at Icona seem to think a kind of Whistler-type village (or a second Newport) is appropriate to the assumed calibre of Anmore — and that somehow it will be affordable.
Yes, most — if not all — of Canada has a housing affordability problem (even Harry Potter once lived under a set of stairs) but do we solve anything by remaking the entire village when there is no infrastructure?
It is literally a pipe dream, where Icona appears to have promoted the idea of sewer options with our very own Ministry of Magic for what is regarded, still by some, as a semi-rural community, the aesthetic brainchild of former Mayor Hal Weinberg, possibly Anmore’s Dumbledore. When Port Moody removed the David Avenue portal through Bert Flinn Park, Icona should have recalibrated — and scaled down — its plans.
Given that it has not is suggestive of a level of disingenuousness, and not enough study at Hogwarts School.
Why does Icona still wave the same wand before the Anmore public? The answer lies in the profit motive, not some social concern for the struggling muggles of this world.
I am not against densification. But densification has to have infrastructure as well as good access to transit corridors.
Anmore South has neither.
Plus, the area falls outside Metro Vancouver’s urban containment boundary [and] imagine if people would ever deign to get off their broomsticks, the frequent shuttles for passengers along a congested Ioco Road, which cannot be widened.
Icona seems to think such problems will disappear with supernatural ease.
That’s why Anmore needs a Harry Potter. Our future could look dark without him.
- Joerge Dyrkton, Anmore
