The long struggle over the future of Jordan River is nearer to a conclusion after a court ruling in favour of Western Forest Products, the development company masquerading as a forestry company. Gordon O’Connor, forest campaigner with the Dogwood Initiative quite rightly says,
a step backwards for this area and everyone who cares about the future of our wild coast.a step backwards for this area and everyone who cares about the future of our wild coast.
WFP is already restarting plans for 319 subdivisions in the area, with public hearings in the fall. However, all is not lost, as the CRD can still reject the developments on an individual basis, but this is going to cost a lot of money, something that Geoff Young, CRD Chairman and City of Victoria Councillor, would love for the province to help pay for.
Beyond the loss and degradation of habitat through the building of new homes and roads, any new development is going to be low-density sprawl, furthering car use and unsustainable living. The best part is that because these developments cannot pay for themselves due to low tax base, we, the residents of the core municipalities are going to be subsidizing them while watching our roads, schools and sewers crumble.
The cost of servicing these properties will be minimal, the CRD will collect more in property taxes than it will cost to service them.
1) The area is unincorporated so the roads will the responsibility of the province.
2) No policing costs, all paid for by the province.
3) No garbage pickup, no water or sewer.
I am not sure what you think will cost us local governments money?
Yeah, the sprawl will not be beneficial for the environment, but it is not going to cost us anything in $$$ terms.
The biggest long term problem will be with respect to logging, people living on acreages will not be keen to see the next rotation of harvesting in the area.
As to the cost of planning, the cost of the process should fall onto the developer of the subdivisions. If the CRD is not requiring the developer to do the work then that is a problem with the CRD.
I highly doubt that the CRD will collect more in taxes than they will collect, and even if they do, there are far more external costs than just those borne by the CRD. Highway 14 is a provincial highway and thus the costs of maintaining and, god forbid, expanding it, will come out of the pockets of all BC residents. Further, the developer will pay for planning costs for their subdivision, but good planning goes beyond that, especially with regards to services. As for those services, they may get no water or sewer, but they will be putting their garbage in Hartland, which costs a lot of money to maintain, not to mention we are rapidly closing in on the date when we need to do something else with our garbage. So I really doubt that this is going to be a net win for the CRD in terms of money and it certainly won’t be for the province as a whole.