This is just one heartfelt perspective, to those who may not realize there will be collateral damage to their friends and family that live on Hospital Hill.
Living in the Lower Hospital Hill area, also known as “Ground Zero” of the proposed Kingswood development, is much like living vicariously in the movie Groundhog Day, we keep reliving the same old story over and over, where the proponent repeatedly attempts to alter the end result.
In our story, the attempted hooks are the euphemistically named “amenities package,” which by the way, is not free.
We live on Harbourview Place, and our backyard directly faces Scott Crescent. For the last three decades of us living here, it has been a benign, quiet and safe, tree-lined, one way road.
If Groundhog Day-style efforts to wear down our leaders ultimately succeeds, then we, and our neighbours, (according to the architects drawings) will be staring at a property-devaluing, encroaching, 35-foot retaining wall.
All this to hold back the countless hundreds of noisy, daily vehicle trips gearing up and down a dramatically widened Scott Crescent, not to mention what will be endured during the construction phase: an endless rumbling of heavy equipment a few feet from our homes. Trees and birds are gone, privacy is gone… welcome to Squamish’s’ newest goldfish bowl.
Previous councils got it right when defending, and keeping safe, this old established Squamish neighbourhood. Please let common sense and mutual respect prevail once again.
This was a bad, unsafe idea then, and remains a bad, unsafe idea now.
This may be our Groundhog Day but alas, the residents of Hospital Hill are not laughing… Time to roll the credits.
Rob Pedersen
Squamish
