It was interesting reading the letters that residents have been writing to council and sharing amongst the community regarding the two developments on Beacon avenue in Sidney. Many members of the community decried the developments as being too boxy or lacking character without helping define what that means for a sea side town.
Most have railed against the two variances that are being requested as being too accommodating to the development community while forgetting two very important things.
First, it is the combination of raw land costs, material costs and zoning codes that are driving the design of these structures.
If you mandate that a building be expensive by enforcement of building, zoning and parking codes then it will be expensive and therefore the building will have to be a certain size to recoup those costs and make a desirable product. These are not charities that are doing the building but real people taking real financial risks.
I am not suggesting that builders build shoddy buildings but regulations do play a huge role in determining buildings cost, shape and function.
Secondly, many complained about the parking variance requests and in the same breath condemned the use of autos. These people forget that we (as a community) invented auto dependency, and we can absolutely invent our way out of it.
Eric Diller
Sidney BC