Message
To All Wreck Beach Supporters
Urgent
Appeal For Letters
Dear Park
and Beach Supporter,
We need your help to preserve the
environment and protect the parklands
next to UBC. The latest is that UBC
plans to build two more 18 storey towers
next to Pacific Spirit Park and Wreck
Beach. These Phase Two Towers, if built,
will be much more visible from the beach
at low and high tide than the existing
Phase One tower, despite a plea from the
Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD)
that they not be.
The Phase Two design is NOT yet
finalized or approved, and we need your
help to save Pacific Spirit Park and
Wreck Beach by sending a letter by
October 30.
To make this really easy for you, we
have provided you with a letter template
below. Add any other thoughts you wish
to include. Or compose your own letter
if you like, and make sure to send to
Paulette Vetleson and Judy Williams at
the email addresses provided below.
Judy Williams,
Chair, WBPS
|
WBPS sketch prior to
building completion...
|
Actual building that now
looms over trees as
viewed from Wreck Beach |
Letter Template
If
you have any problems with these
links please see
www.wreckbeach.org for direct
links to letters/petitions...
-
Click on one of these templates:
-
Add your Return Address (Street,
City, and Country)
-
Add the Date
-
Add your reasons the towers must
not show from the beach. You can
use your own reasons and/or any
combination of the reasons in
the backgrounder below. Or you
can simply say that you agree
with the position of the Wreck
Beach Preservation Society (WBPS),
which is the backgrounder below.
-
Add your full name and either
your phone number or e-mail
address.
-
E-mail or fax your letter to
Judy Williams and Paulette
Vetleson:
-
In the letter itself, please
keep all the names listed in the
salutation.
Background
Visitors come from around the world
and the greater Vancouver area to
enjoy
the view from the foreshore of Point
Grey at Pacific Spirit
Park and Wreck Beach. They look back
across the tidal flats and admire
the natural setting, even though
we’re in
a city.
Because of the efforts of 45,000+
petition signatures and letters to
the GVRD (the local government body
responsible for development that
affects Pacific Spirit Park and
Wreck Beach) we were able to help
persuade the GVRD to protect park
values, including viewscapes. As a
result, UBC lowered the first of
several planned towers in their
Marine Residence Towers project from
20 to 18 storeys. That was Phase
One.
Now we are at Phase Two. On July 29,
2005, the GVRD passed a resolution
that prohibits future towers from
being more visible at Wreck Beach.
However, on October 5, UBC unveiled
its plans for Phase Two which would
visually impact Wreck Beach more
severely than Phase One.
We now
desperately need your letter
specifically about
Phase
Two!
Creating And Sending Your Letter
You can use your own words, or you
can adapt the letter template we
have provided
with your own reasons for
wanting the views protected and no
more high rise towers overlooking
the park and Wreck Beach. You may
want to talk about the importance of
the park and beach and its drawing
power for tourists from around the
world. You may want to tell them
that it is one of the most unique
and precious places in the region,
being so close to the city. You may
want to talk about the healing
powers of the beach and the benefits
of not having to look back at urban
concrete, glass and steel.
Other issues you may want to
raise (please pick and choose):
-
Visibility from the park and
beach cannot really be
understood unless blimps are
raised in the footprints of the
two proposed 18-storey towers.
-
Hardship (UBC's
justification to build the
high-rise towers) cannot always
be measured in months, money,
and storeys because of the
importance of our sacred places
to our health and wellness. An
example would be that it would
be ludicrous to try to put a
price tag on that which is
irreplaceable.
-
Ecological considerations of the
flora, fauna, and birds. Their
lives hang in the balance of
buildings that intrude into
their spaces, particularly from
night lighting.
-
The Canadian Wildlife Service
needs to study the impact, not
only of tall towers on migratory
birds, but also of night
lighting, especially for
buildings that will be located
in migratory routes.
-
Grad students living in the
now-completed Phase One Tower
need an unbiased survey to
determine if the tower fulfills
their needs. The Graduate
Student Services have asked for
such a survey but UBC claims
graduate students residing there
are happy.
-
Paved surfaces could increase
water run-off that could further
erode the fragile and unstable
park cliffs above the beach.
-
Increased visibility of towers
from the park and beach,
especially along gully sight
lines.
-
Impacts on screech and barn owls
living in that area are
undocumented, particularly from
increased foot traffic around
their hunting and nesting areas,
and from lights at night. In
August 2005, a family of screech
owls were documented in the
Trail 6 area.
-
UBC advised the public at the
October 5 Public Meeting that
space exists for future student
housing at Totem Park and on the
South Campus site. This means
that UBC could lower the
proposed towers and still meet
its student housing needs.
-
The
reasons the UBC administration
has given for not wanting to put
student housing at Totem Park
and on the South Campus are that
students need to all be located
closely together, and that
students would not want to walk
the extra distance. Many
students welcome the chance for
additional exercise. A large
university campus, such as UBC,
needs a local transportation
system for students and others.
Thank you for
passing along this information to as
many people as you possibly can.
Also, if you
have not yet signed our petition,
please go to
http://www.wreckbeach.org/towers
and add your name, address and
e-mail or phone number to the
petition. The bottom line is that
the Phase Two towers of the Marine
Residence complex across from
Pacific Spirit Park and Wreck Beach
must be lowered from 18 storeys.
For sample
letters, please go to
http://www.wreckbeach.org/towers/sample_letters_october_2005.html
Donations may
also be sent to the (WBPS) Wreck
Beach Preservation Society c/o Judy
Williams, 28616 Haverman Road,
Bradner, B.C. V4X 2P3.
Thank you for your support, and
remember the deadline is
October 30th!
October
12, 2005
The
Wreck Beach Preservation Society (WBPS)
thanks Naturists everywhere for their
generous and whole-hearted support of
our battle of the towers here at Wreck
Beach for the past 19 months.
We
thank naturists and individual
supporters (FCN, FQN, INF, TNS, NAC,
SLUGS, W-CANR, AANR) from around the
world, who wrote or sent donations or
both. Altogether, the unity of naturists
helped us raise thousands of dollars.
Those of us in the vanguard in
Vancouver, B.C., thank you all with
gratitude, but we must ask you to step
up to the plate one final time with
either pen or computer in hand. We are
launching a FINAL letter writing and
petition signing campaign in our battle
to preserve the beauty of Wreck Beach.
In just three days, earlier this month,
we got 50 letters before the October 5
public meeting. We especially thank
all the SLUGS who wrote recently and/or
who sent donations. Bless you.
Tower #1 now shows at low tide from out
along the Breakwater and UBC in its
arrogance says no one likes to go out
there anyway. The tower lights blaze at
night enticing migrating birds off
course. Visitors from around the world
come just to admire the view from near
the mouth of the Fraser River so that
they may look back across the vast tidal
flats to admire the unbroken skyline
where verdant, forested cliffs touch the
blueness of the skies, and where the
eagles train their young to hunt and
glide the thermals.
At
the October 5, 2005 Open House and
Public Hearings, UBC unveiled plans for
the last two 18-storey towers which will
be visible from low to high tide areas
in contravention of a GVRD July 29, 2005
resolution. We need new letters NOW of
support against the heights and
locations of those remaining two towers,
even if you have written before. UBC
must understand that the public will be
heard. We appreciate that the architects
dropped the height of the original
20-storey tower closest to the cliff
edge, terracing it from 5 to 7 storeys
leading eastward away from the cliff
edge toward Lower Mall Avenue.
In
the winter months when there are less
leaves on the deciduous trees, one will
see Tower #1 from many points along the
beach. And, unfortunately, the proposed
two new towers will show even more than
Tower #1 from various points along the
beach because of increased visibility at
the gully heads since they lie south of
Tower #1. Bottom line is that simply
because UBC continued building Tower #1
throughout our organized protests, that
need not become the precedent for their
forging ahead with the construction of
Towers #4 and #5!
Bioengineering has already been
suggested on the cliffs in order to
protect buildings that should never have
been built there in the first place.
Plus a consultant has already called for
interceptor ditches paralleling the
cliff edge that would kill the trees for
lack of water. And, that would lead to
opened-up views and a possible
re-interpretation of the Attorney
General toward nudity on the beach.
On
October 8, the Globe and Mail announced
that UBC would be moving forward with
Phase II of the project BEFORE all
public feedback is due by October 31,
and before the GVRD Board has had a
chance to vote on the issue. On October
6, one day after the public hearing, the
Advisory Urban Design Panel (AUDP) voted
unanimously to accept the designs
presented on October 5. Puzzling indeed.
We
thus have our work cut out for us, and
with your support through letters,
e-mails, and donations, we can continue
to stand up for our Naturist rights and
beliefs.
Thank you for passing along this
information to as many people as you
possibly can. That, of course, will be
up to you. But, bottom line is that the
Phase II towers must be lowered from 18
storeys.
Thank you for your
support!
