I moved to Chilliwack about 14 years ago to raise my children out of the city. I wanted a more natural and rural lifestyle for them. They are now young women and they got that lifestyle. I am not convinced that it would be the case if I was making that decision today.
I have watched with a heavy and confused heart as Chilliwack has matured along with my children. I traveled to other countries to work for many years before I had my children and all over the world, people knew of the Fraser Valley and spoke of it with awe for the reputation it had as an incredible farming area and it’s natural beauty. It made me feel thankful that Canada was so blessed to have such a gift as I watched sheep in Australia being euthanised because of drought and a crashing wool market. Thousands and thousands of carcasses were bulldozed into pits. It was a heartbreaking time. Other places such as Africa have certainly suffered from not only natural disasters, but man made ones as well.
Chilliwack is a place of natural beauty and abundance, yet I watch as that is rapidly being eradicated by concrete buildings and yet more housing developments that are there seemingly overnight. I watched as the Port Moody/Coquitlam area developed over the years and it is hideous in many aspects. Some of it is lovely but the traffic and congestion is not, the site of one house after another over every last bit of what was once had the natural beauty of this area is not.
I feel a sense of doom as I read about the Chilliwack Mountain Issues and all the proposals and what developers have in mind for our lovely little mountain. I am happy Sharon Gaetz is standing up and saying that it is not going to fly. Will it last though?
I fully support re-development of the downtown and although the casino does not thrill me, at least it is not taking another chunk of the natural beauty and habitats of creatures that have been part of the ecosystem here long before the developers hit town. The Paramount could of been awesome, but the truth is that in the end, no one has come up with a good enough plan. Replace it with something that will make sense, but for God’s sake and all the rest of us here in Chilliwack and surrounding areas, stop the destruction before you can’t. The line may already have been crossed.
SandraWright