Dear editor,
This is my reply to the news article regarding the food bank (Record, Sep 21)
Ms. Gina Mackay states the issue is a zoning problem of commercial as opposed to industrial.
The food bank was previously located at 1126F Piercy Ave. in Courtenay for 21 years, from July 1985 to the end of October 2007.
It was then and still is zoned I2, so her argument is not valid.
Zoning is not the issue.
Our real estate agent has been in conversation with Gina also. He told me the reason the City doesn’t want the food bank there is because of complaints from the neighbouring businesses and that the City would come down hard on him and his associates, if he proceeded to lease to us.
We have no bread trucks delivering to us. We pick up daily with our van from all the stores.
We get one milk order a week via freight truck and one delivery a week from a company using a five-ton truck.
Our clients create a parking problem usually the first two Thursdays each month for maybe two to two and a half hours in the morning.
One of the considerations from the City is that we resolve this issue. However, go down to that address any weekday afternoon and see the street congestion from other businesses currently there.
Ms. Mackay emphatically told us it was a problem mainly about complaints from the other businesses that ultimately decided we couldn’t relocate there.
Jeff Hampton,
Courtenay
Editor's note: Jeff Hampton is the president of the Comox Valley Food Bank.