To the Editor,
Re: Nanaimo’s expansion must be from within, Letters, March 20.
While the idea is generally good concerning building up rather than out, the idea of building anything in the Linley Valley West is a bad idea.
This is because we are talking about a wetland area, not a flat piece of empty lot/land, whereby it would not affect anyone or any living thing.
Wildlife lives in this valley, the area has lain vacant for years and years, it is a second-growth forest bringing with it a high biodiversity of species, more than 100 species of birds, cougar, deer, beaver, and other small animals.
Wetland areas are disappearing at an alarming rate and cities claiming to be ‘green’ like Nanaimo are tearing up wild areas that have trees and plants and animals, just to put in concrete roads, sidewalks, housing and commercial real estate.
This makes no sense. It is all about money and nothing else.
Once it is gone it is gone forever and then we will be left with a city with more malls, more houses and apartments and zero wild areas.
The north end will become just another bedroom community that can be found in other large cities.
People move to Nanaimo because of the green spaces, otherwise they would stay on the mainland, where a ferry is not needed to get back and forth.
Keep Nanaimo green. We live on beautiful Vancouver Island.
Building in West Linley Valley would be a terrible mistake, one that cannot be fixed.
If you have not walked the trails in this area, then do so before making comments about tearing it up into little pieces for more housing, and high density at that.
Joanne Jonas-McRae
Nanaimo