To Norm Letnick, Kelowna-Lake Country MLA:
As a group of condo owners living at 250 Dougall Road North, we attended the neighbourhood information Session on Jan. 29. We expected to have an informative and in-depth discussion of our concerns around the ‘proposed’ supportive housing unit slated for the corner of Asher Road and Macintosh Road. We took a list of about 17 questions/concerns, which is attached to this email. After going to the info session, we debriefed and created the attached Addendum.
As to how we feel about the information session — it was a true white wash of all of our concerns as residents of Rutland. Information providers were well entrenched in their talking points, could not provide cohesive answers if outside their poster’s bullet points, made poor reference remarks to why homeless people would use drugs, had no information on the last three posters, informed in a divide and conquer manner… etc.
Most owners believe they have no say in how our community will look going forward. Certainly, this has proven true with the new transit hub — which everyone in our local area worked to have put in a more commercial area.
However, all of us have had disturbing experiences to which we can relate when people with substance abuse issues live among us. And we can see that putting yet another housing unit into the midst of a family oriented area will not increase our safety, security, emotional and mental peace, property values, etc.
At the information session, individual condo owners spoke to other attendees — not one was in favour of this building. In fact, most were very angry about it, along with the way it was presented to area residents. That said, we encourage a proper review of this ‘proposed’ building, including a town hall meeting where each and all can have a proper exchange of information, concerns, complaints, etc.
Karen Edwarde
Part of a group of The Bench 1 condo owners
Kelowna