Editor:
Once upon I time, I was a supporter of the Burnaby Citizens Association (BCA). I was a left-leaning student, and it was important to me to have elected officials with a social conscience and a party concerned with issues like protecting the environment and housing affordability.
The BCA of today is not the party it once was.
Who is this party that is greenlighting towers 60 floors high? They argue that it will help housing affordability. Really, can low- or middle-income families afford a $650,000 one-bedroom condo on the 38th floor?
Who is this party that approves building plans for towers whereby the "affordable" or "rental" units don't have windows in the bedrooms? The pathetic justification of approving this plans is that it "meets" or "exceeds" building codes. I don't know what councillors are talking about. Homeowners can't create bedrooms without windows. How is it possible that developers can?
Do you know where bedrooms don't have windows? Prisons. What message do the BCA think they are sending to low- and middle-income families when they say they can put their children to sleep in a windowless room?
I think it's saying that the BCA values profit and adding to Burnaby's coffers above anything else.
Then, this last idea to turn a fragile ecosystem into a manufacturing facility (*editor's note: the proposed organic waste recycling facility at Fraser River Foreshore Park) is just the final straw. This party doesn't stand for anything anymore. Its councillors, some of whom have served six terms in office, are so comfortable they feel they don't need to be accountable to anyone.
It's time for term limits for municipal officials. They need to go.
Violeta Colombara
