Dear Editor,

From a municipal perspective, the Official Community Plan and Whistler2020 are our foundation, the touchstone of everything we do as a community. The vision incorporated into these documents should form the litmus test for every big decision we make – does this action help achieve our vision? Here’s a reminder of Whistler’s oft-quoted vision: “To be the premier mountain resort community – as we move toward sustainability.”

Do you believe that locating a toxic asphalt plant permanently beside a residential neighbourhood, less than 400 metres from the nearest doorsteps, helps us achieve this vision? I don’t.

Do you believe that doubling the size of a rock quarry, also located right beside this same neighbourhood, and without any solid rationale, helps us achieve this vision? Do you believe that increasing a quarry to 60 acres, without even knowing the remaining lifespan of the current quarry, and destroying old-growth forests and other sensitive ecosystems designated for conservation/preservation under the RMOW Protected Areas Network in the process, helps us achieve this vision? I don’t.

Incredibly, these are the proposed actions that members of our council (except Zeidler and Forsyth) are currently supporting.

To top it all off, these decisions that consider major contraventions to Whistler’s current Official Community Plan – significant decisions about land use planning and zoning designations in a contentious area beside Whistler’s newest, greenest and densest neighbourhood – are being made just as the community-wide process kicks off for a formal and comprehensive revision of our OCP. Don’t you think it would be prudent to demonstrate due and sincere respect for this process and allow the OCP update to evolve and solidify our land use vision for the future, and then decide what to do about the asphalt plant, instead of making hasty decisions that will negatively impact our community? I sure do.
T. Symko

Whistler