Dear Sir:
Re: Comox Valley ranked among most unaffordable housing markets in B.C. (Jan. 31 2019).
This is not news to anyone who seeks a home here. I have seen signs posted on mailboxes and power poles, and notices on Craigslist from desperate people begging for a rental house, a rental suite, or vacant land or a backyard to park a trailer on (because that’s all the “house” they have right now). Several people I know have had to accommodate family members in small trailers on their rural properties. I would be the last person to voice a complaint!
So to all the people who are complaining about their neighbourhoods being “ruined” by the appearance of “small houses” or secondary suites, or who want the Valley to return to the quiet place they chose to make their home: News flash. These are your kids, your grandchildren, your elderly mother, your college student son or daughter, the burned out or the flooded out. They work here and they deserve a place to live. They are not the “homeless,” but they will be homeless until we get an attitude change.
You can’t pull up the drawbridge now that you have moved here. You can’t stop the changes in your neighbourhood. You can’t demand that all secondary suites, tiny houses, carriage houses, “trailer parks” etc. be abolished. Instead, why not work with your city, town, village or regional district to encourage sensible expansion and growth, and development of more rental housing? Or establishment of mobile home parks? If you are not part of the solution, you may be part of the problem.
J. Gould,
CVRD Area C