Local Community Advertising
Brent Warne is asking the City of Kelowna to slow down. The fast-changing Pandosy Village has him concerned.
The spokesperson for the KLO Neighbourhood Association said that our love affair with tall buildings is taking away more affordable housing and increasing our tax burden while making traffic and parking problems worse.
With high rise developments springing up all over the City of Kelowna, there are voices in one neighbourhood arguing that it's too much, too fast.
"What we're really asking city council to do is just take the foot off the accelerator", said Warne. "Let's do a plan."
Warne is avoiding pointing the finger at any one particular development, but builders are asking for variances for several developments around the neighbourhood to allow developers to build much higher than their current zoning allows.
"What the KLO Neighbourhood Association is worried about is the overall pace of development," he said.
Housing affordability is one issue.
"A lower mainland developer has bought out Central Trailer Park, ripping out all of those affordable housing units, and putting in God knows how many units."
Warne said he spoke to one man in the nearby Hiawatha Mobile Home Park who is left with no plan once he is out. "He couldn't find a place to live," said Warne.
"He thinks he might be living in his car this winter."
Increased traffic congestion is another concern.
"For the poor people in the upper and lower mission that have to come through here. You know, you come through and you hit this big blob of another 4 thousand units 5 thousand cars, their commute times are going to be horrible," he said.
Warne also said that current development cost charges don't cover the infrastructure costs, so it ends up costing everyone.
Warne said a better solution to increase housing is in existing residential neighbourhoods. He calls it 'distributed densification'.
It would allow for 4 or 6 storey buildings, rowhouses, townhouses and secondary suites. He said we could achieve the same amount of densification at much-reduced densification costs.
A website has been created with more information about the concerns Warne raises and the alternatives he's suggesting. You can find it here.
Local Community Advertising