Dallas Road Shoreline:
Do we really want to spoil this view and this ambience with shops and restaurants? Do we want our signature shoreline along Dallas Road to look like White Rock's waterfront -- all shops and parking meters? Our waterfront from Ogden Point to Clover Point and round the corner along Ross Bay has long been a beautiful combination of park and residential space. We are so lucky to have a marine component to our municipal parks, why spoil it by allowing business "attractions" to blight it? Neither parkland nor residential areas are improved by the insertion of commercialism.
Along the Dallas Road cliffs parents and tots, joggers, dog walkers, kite-flyers and seniors with canes all enjoy the view of the Olympics, the sea-light colours and the antics of dogs at play. They enjoy these things as they should be enjoyed -- on foot (and if they get tired, there are plenty of benches). Life is too sedentary these days, and too commercialized. Let us leave some alternatives.
It has been suggested in a recent letter to the Times Colonist that Clover Point is in need of a restaurant. Clover Point is prime urban bird-watching, seal-watching and (at low tide) tidepool exploring area. Many seniors drive down there, park their cars and get out their sandwiches while they quietly contemplate the view, as generations have done before them - can't we just leave them in peace? How would the scene be enhanced by the crush of restaurant delivery trucks, garish signage and dumpsters? How would that be for the residents living across the road on Dallas? Mixed-use commercial/residential does not appeal to most people. If commercial enterprises can go everywhere, where do we get away from them? Let our urban shoreline be one non-profiteering haven.
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