On Nov. 29, the Aragon held what it billed as a community meeting about its development on Cordova Bay Road. Lamentably, the company showed little, if any, interest in the concerns raised by Saanich residents.
In response, I sent the following note to Aragon: I attended the community meeting last night, and found it to be a useful, if disturbing source of information. Most troubling was your chief architect's categoric dismissal of the utility of, and need for, a public hearing on your impending rezoning application. As he acknowledged in a private conversation with me, he found his position to be fundamentally undemocratic even as he defended the notion that everyone's thinking about all projects is cast in concrete, as it were, prior to any public hearings. This position abrogates the public voice in fundamental, dangerous ways, and stands at odds with the rule of law.
The right of Saanich office-holders and planners to entertain, formally and cautiously, all points of view also would be lost were your architect's position to hold. I therefore implore you to put Aragon's money where its mouth is and submit a formal request to Saanich for a public hearing on the rezoning of your property.
This would be more than a mere gesture: it would signal to the residents who live near your site, and all residents of the province, if not the country, that you are trying to be an authentic member of the community — about which your architect spoke at great length.
As for the engineering questions flowing from the likelihood of an earthquake-induced liquidation that will occur on your property, your architect provided no firm details of how, exactly, the structures you envision would be protected. This is a complicated question, I know, and it has been made only more so by the recent discovery of the Elk Lake fault line. This, too, is a question that Aragon and Saanich are duty-bound to consider.
Paul Krause
Saanich
