Bowen Bulletin

This is not the editorial I had planned for this issue. I wrote quite a nice piece about how we should all try to control ourselves because we will have to look each other in the eye after this Sunday’s public information meeting where we will discuss the Cape Roger Curtis (CRC) development proposal. Then I went and picked up my mail. There was a nicely designed flyer from the people who support the CRC Neighbourhood Plan (NP) amendment to the Official Community Plan. I thought that I knew what to expect and wondered how they would try to sell 300 acres of park to people who already had 3,000 acres of open forest. The first part was beautifully predictable. I immediately read it as “yes, this project may destroy the island but it will happen so slowly that you will hardly notice it” and “we’ll give you $7 million for lots of good stuff … over the next 30 years”. I liked the way they spun those two points. It would be good material for the speakers who get up on Sunday to point out the flaws in the plan.

Then I looked at the next page and I must admit that I uttered a few obscenities right there in front of those innocent green mailboxes. A full page was devoted to a 58-lot subdivision proposal that was never reviewed. It was a non-starter because the developer couldn’t satisfy critical elements of their previously denied application. Yet this flyer actually states as fact the assertion that if we don’t accept their grand scheme this is what we will get. They even end their incredible and totally unfounded assertion with the statement “And yes, it’s perfectly legal.”

Now that I’m out of the rain and have calmed down I realize how desperate they must be. As I read on I see their assertion that the only economic gain from this outcome will be less than 60 homes (presumably very large and very expensive homes) built over 30 years. Who thought that one up? If there were a 58-lot subdivision it would go ahead immediately. The roadwork could start as soon as the paperwork was finished and construction on the lots could start as soon as all of the conditions of the subdivision were met. Or maybe they did know what they were saying and they realize that it could take 29 years to get that application approved.

Reading on I am told that if I don’t accept their grand scheme Bowen will get “no theatre, no recreational facilities, no civic facilities, no affordable housing, no spaces for seniors. Bowen will be a much less interesting place to live – less diverse, and much less of a community.”
It’s like these people have never heard of Snug Cove or Abbeyfield or the sewer extension. How can they possibly assert that building a community centre that competes with Snug Cove is going to make Bowen more interesting or diverse? And who says that adding 1,500 more people would make us more of a community? I remember when there were only 800 of us on this rock and we had a stronger community than any city dweller could imagine.

Then I turned the page and saw the punch line “If council rejects the NP without calling for further negotiations” and the threat “the 58-lot subdivision pictured overleaf. It’s legal, and the owners can build it.” Lets break this one down. The writers of this piece are surrendering but only if they can continue to control the process. They know that the vast majority of people who live on Bowen are appalled at the very thought that a suburban subdivision could be dropped on to Bowen. The idea that it could land on Cape Roger Curtis makes it intolerable. Whoever wrote this flyer knows that their proposal is too far over the top but they’re still trying to bully us into letting them control the negotiating process. Their stick is the 58 lot subdivision but they have to convince us that this paper tiger is real so they dredge up a long dead proposal and pretend that it is alive and well.

And then I read the last paragraph where we are all invited to Sunday’s meeting to “ask for a better future”. Actually I’m just hoping that next year is as good as last year was.

At the bottom are the names of 32 dear souls whose trust in whoever wrote this terribly offensive document was so great that they let their names be attached to it. A lot of them are friends, or at least they were before I wrote this.

So, back to my original editorial, after Sunday this development proposal will just be another grand scheme that got turned down. We’re going to have to remember that passionate debate is one of the hallmarks of a vibrant community and in a year or so we’ll have another grand scheme to debate. Remember never to let things become more important than people.