Isabell Hadford
Approving Officer
Bowen Island Municipality

Re: Cape Roger Curtis Subdivision Proposal

Dear Isabell:

We are writing to add our voices to the overwhelming majority of Bowen Islanders who oppose the current proposal to subdivide the Cape Roger Curtis property into 58 ten acre residential lots. This proposal is contrary to the public interest. It was clear to any prospective purchasers at the time of sale that there was a substantial local interest in retaining a significant portion of the property for conservation purposes; the discounted price that the current owners paid for the property reflected this reality — any purchaser was be expected to try to meet the interests of the community through a thoughtful and creative process of rezoning.

What the current owners are proposing is nothing short of a slap in the face to the people of Bowen Island: no attempt to rezone, but a hasty attempt to subdivide — to make a substantial and relatively immediate return on their investment, without any regard for what the people of Bowen Island actually want. We urge you to reject this proposal, and we hope that the owners will decide either to proceed with sale of the property, or, finally, to make a sincere commitment to engage in the process of rezoning.

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Late last year we learned that Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein pocketed $53.4 million as his 2006 bonus. This extraordinary windfall prompted even the Republican CNN journalist Tucker Carlson to suggest that such an income grab might be bad for the country — Blankfein’s fat wallet could foment revolutionary tendencies amongst the not at all paid, or even the less well paid.

In Canada, as in the United States, the gap between rich and poor has grown dramatically during the past 20 years, with the top 20 per cent of income earners increasing their percentage share of total Canadian income, and the bottom 20 per cent losing ground.

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When we travel for pleasure, we typically land in a warm climate for one or two weeks at a time; this task is typically undertaken between the months of November and February, when the southwest coast of British Columbia becomes, for the most part, unfit for human habitation. On these excursions to the south we take a selection of contemporary non-fiction, books that we seldom have the time to read when at home. On our latest trip to the sun, escaping from a particularly bleak and unrelenting winter season, we brought along Tim Flannery’s “The Weather Makers”, Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point”, and Levitt and Dubner’s “Freakonomics”.

They were all interesting, but the highlight was The Tipping Point. Some of the categorizations — connectors, mavens, salesmen and stickiness — were a little precious, but the line of argument was compelling. Small movements can create significant social changes. The author’s discussion of fare evaders in the New York subway system even had me rethinking the logic of the “broken windows” theory of crime control.

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