FRIDAY July
11 2014
PULSE 13
Rich Hope LOOK 19
K-O.ME REV 36
2014 Mini Cooper S L o c a l N e w s . L o c a l M at t e r s
N S N E WS.C O M
N. Van City council divided over OCP
Density caps hotly debated as draft plan moves toward public hearing MARIA SPITALE-LEISK Contributing writer
As City of North Vancouver council painstakingly scrutinized the document that will dictate the next 30 years of planning and development for the municipality, one thing was certain: there was hardly a consensus on
what should be done. Council plodded through each neighbourhood in the draft official community plan, during the 90-minute debate Monday night, targeting mainly density. Perhaps the most contentious piece of the planning puzzle is the East Third Street area. A group of Moodyville residents joined
neighbour Trevor Gorety, who lives on the north side of the 700-block of East Third Street, to support six-storey midrises with commercial storefronts at ground level. But Coun. Guy Heywood moved a wholesale change for East Third — suggesting density only take the form of townhouses. “It’s unfortunate, but most of our OCP process seems to be taken up with the periphery of our concern,
which is really the kind of style of housing in the Third Street area — as opposed to the core, where we are accomplishing the city’s main goals for affordability, density, potential amenity,” said Heywood. He further explained, it would not be prudent for the city to allow a 350 per cent increase in density along that stretch of East Third Street, without first seeing how the area takes shape after the Low Level Road
construction is completed and traffic patterns are normalized. Coun. Don Bell brought up traffic safety concerns in the area. “My concern about having commercial on this is, where Third Street turns, it becomes a more hazardous turn in terms of traffic. And to try and provide parking for commercial at that point may be a problem,” he said. Mayor Darrell Mussatto and Coun. Linda Buchanan, however, were not on board
with lower density. “I don’t think it’s consistent with what we are proposing along that transit corridor,” Buchanan said. “It’s far too low of a density. The slope in those areas is significant enough that the kind of density on that street won’t be a problem for those below.” During an OCP presentation earlier in the evening, the city’s director See City page 9
Bearattracting brambles tangled in red tape BRENT RICHTER brichter@nsnews.com
G-T6-S1 +U-*V+^33b +02Z^2 3^J^*1 XS 1Z^ .XS)8.2 8] BXS)283 _-3V 3^2X)^S1 ;-3+-3- _ZXUUX62# Z8T^% _ZXUUX62 -S) Z^3 S^X\Z+803 Z-/^ +^^S 18U) 1Z^ 9X213X*1 8] c831Z C-S*80/^3 .8S#1 3^T8/^ 1Z^ +02Z^2 8S )X213X*1 U-S)' -S) .8S#1 U^1 S^X\Z+8032 Z-/^ 1Z^T 3^T8/^)% _iaEa MIKE WAKEFIELD
The The wait waitisisover. over.
transformation. ExperienceExperience the all newthe Park Shore BMW today.
Some Windsor Park neighbours have found themselves tangled up in blackberry bramble and red tape. A strip of districtowned right-of-way that runs between Barbara Phillips’ and Beryl Cheetham’s fences on Fairfield Road has become overgrown with blackberries, which are attracting bears. Phillips’ husband spent 50 years knocking down the nasty plant, but with his death three years ago, the bushes have grown unchecked. Since then, they’ve had annual bear visits to her See Berries page 5
Park Shore BMW
parkshorebmw.com 604.985.9344
The Ultimate Driving Experience.
TM