Editor:
Sechelt’s Mayor Bruce Milne is reported as stating that the news that a further $22.9 million will be required to expand the new Sechelt wastewater plant came as a “bombshell.”(Coast Reporter, April 8). If this is so then Mayor Milne has been sleeping for the past five or six years. The new plant was always controversial. At the outset it was known that there were capacity issues and also that the technology may be unsuitable for Sechelt. At the same time that the new wastewater plant was approved by Sechelt council, they were giving approval for the Sangaras’ Silver Stone Heights development in West Sechelt – ultimately, up to 2,300 homes and perhaps 5,000 to 6,000 new residents. This is simply one of many residential developments approved since 2011.
ALL services have limitations, Mr. Milne. The Coast Reporter has highlighted capacity issues within all areas of our health services (see the Views item by Sean Eckford, “Adventures in health care,” April 8), water storage, treatment and distribution, ferry capacity, care home places, affordable/social housing, special needs services and more. Many thousands of taxpayers’ dollars were spent on the Sechelt OCP and its various updates. The Sangara project was launched with comprehensive “Guiding Principles” and yet all commitments to protecting Sechelt’s rural character and preventing urban sprawl are ignored if and when they restrict growth. So, the answer to “What are the limits to growth” in Sechelt and the Sunshine Coast is? There are none as far as our councils are concerned; however, major service providers will continue to find their budgets frozen or cut as the province sinks deeper in to debt.
Paul Rhodes, Sechelt
