2017 Public Hearing Speech re: 2017 Brookswood/Fernridge OCP

Good Evening Mayor, Council, Staff and Brookswood/Fernridge Residents - neighbours :)

My name is Michelle Connerty and I live with my husband and three children in Phase 1 of the 1987 Official Community Plan, the current OCP. This area is called Cedar Ridge, it's a part of Brookswood and was the first of the 7,000 sq ft lots to be developed under that OCP.

We moved to this area six years ago from New Westminster. We loved the neighbourhoods, the trees, the parks, the lakes - who knew Langley had lakes?!? It's safe for our kids to ride their bikes to the corner store for a Screamer at Ed's Market, to roam free for hours during the day exploring and we can walk to our skating rink. We have horses, deer and bunny rabbits running around within a block of our house - we moved to heaven.

Let me be clear - I am not against development - I understand that this is a very desirable area to live, play and work in - I am against unsustainable development that will damage our delicate water system (the aquifer), trees that will not be replaced with similar trees, wild life corridors that will not be created and protected. I am also against development without infrastructure in place to support it, prior to the building - hospital, schools, recreation centres and senior centres need to be created to name a few. Our schools are almost at maximum capacity already and our hospital is maxed out with 8-10 hour waits not uncommon in the Emergency Room.

This 2017 Revision - that applies only to the Brookswood/Fernridge undeveloped areas was

voted down by this very Council in July of this year. The Mayor in fact, was dumbstruck and

speechless at that result - he expected a very different result. The next day the Mayor

overturned that vote and called for another Public Hearing and here we are. This action allowed him time to work in the back ground to further his cause to get this thing through - in my opinion - to sway votes.

This revision is not good enough for me - 5,000 sq ft lots are not acceptable, high density

development next the lake which contains a huge a huge amount of wild life, at 32nd and 204th is not acceptable, a tree inventory of this area and indeed the entire TOL needs to be completed by an independent entity and significant trees need to be replaced by similar trees, not shrubs and inconsequential bushes, phased development needs to discussed and figured out so that our Community is not a mess for the next 20 years - think Willoughby. As I said in July, you can’t put lipstick on a pig and tell me it’s not a pig... this revision is still a really ugly pig and I don’t want it.

I believe that this Mayor and Council does not have the confidence of the people to bring a great OCP into place for Brookswood/Fernridge. That despite spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and literally thousands of hours collectively on the part of Modus (the Consulting Firm), TOL Staff and Residents - they were unwilling and unable to take the time needed to have the discussions and work through the amendments required to achieve a “legacy document” that is wanted and in fact is deserved by the residents of Brookswood/Fernridge, to move forward.

This Mayor and Council should, in my opinion, set aside this issue and move forward with protecting trees with new bylaws, protecting modular home parts with new bylaws, etc. and leave this issue for the next elected Mayor and Council in November 2018.

Thank you.

~ Michelle Connerty