Editor:
This spring the Town of Gibsons invited residents to offer feedback on how to improve our official community plan (OCP). In July a summary of that public input was clear — preserving the form and character of the harbour area in Gibsons so as to maintain a seaside village ambience was of the highest importance.
This was not a new revelation. For 20 years the citizens of Gibsons have echoed time and time again that protecting the seaside village scale and character of Gibsons was paramount. Previous Town planners, administrators and the majority of elected officials understood this.
They had been entrusted to honour and support a social contract and vision that had been nurtured over the years by a legion of thoughtful citizens and their largely volunteer efforts.
Despite this, some of our current council have supported a large-scale development proposal that flies in the face of this vision.
Gibsons is at a crossroads. Consider two fundamentally different development paradigms as we look to elect new governance for our town. The first believes that the only thing that can save Gibsons is something called the George — an oversized development that is a betrayal of what makes Gibsons unique as a seaside community.
The other is one we call the Charlotte, named after Charlotte Gibsons. Charlotte symbolizes a development concept for the harbour area that features a lower profile, smaller scale, less invasive, bottom-up approach to economic revitalization. The Charlotte vision fits its surroundings, protects view corridors and enhances the village character of our coastal community as our OCP has always envisioned.
On Nov. 15, the municipal election will provide us all the opportunity to vote for the vision that best represents the town we want to live in.
Wendy Miller and Tim Turner, Gibsons
