Editor:
Like most people who were raised on the Sunshine Coast, I escaped to Vancouver the second I finished high school. It’s funny how your perspective changes when you have a bit more life experience and can appreciate your home’s natural beauty.
My sanctuary, to this day, along with an abundance of wildlife and other locals, are the trails behind Halfmoon Bay Elementary.
I go to these trails as an escape, a refuge, for a hug from the trees I have known my whole life. When I heard of the Bayview Hills development located in and around Coopers Green that may possibly reach those trails, I broke down in tears. It is difficult for me to believe that these monstrous developments are in the best interest of the community that already exists here.
This is my second year living here as an adult, and it has changed more in these past two years than I could have ever imagined. Driving to visit my mother in Halfmoon Bay is now a completely different experience. The amount of, in my opinion, short-sighted developments and destruction of natural habitat is shocking. In the midst of a climate crisis, housing crisis, mass flooding risks and annual forest fires, it is clear what is truly valued by our local government and landowners - the sale.
The last thing our struggling community needs is another expensive gated community advertising as a community-focused, necessary, and environmentally responsible development. I do not believe these non-local developers have any idea or interest in what our community values, nor do I believe our representatives are carrying out their duties with integrity. It breaks my heart to see proposals like Bayview Hills, Cove Beach, and Havies be pushed through with haste. This isn’t the Coast I’m used to calling home.
Hadeler Lund, Madeira Park
