Editor:
Count me as one of the Burnaby residents who oppose the city’s push to allow laneway houses.
These things will ruin neighbourhoods and not really do much to help the affordability crisis. Laneway houses will mean cramming too many people into single-family neighbourhoods, putting pressure on parking that is already scarce.
I think this idea is meant as a cash grab to benefit a few homeowners with the money to build them and who have a lot big enough to fit one.
All it would take is a few of them to ruin a neighbourhood.
This feels like one of those big picture ideas aimed as a solution to a problem, but one that doesn’t really deliver many benefits. The city should ban this idea, not pursue it.
Instead, the city needs to push forward on building more condo towers that include below-market rentals. Put these in the city centres and along SkyTrain routes where they belong.
We have an election in October. If council continues to pursue this, I know where my vote won’t be going.
V. Johnson, Burnaby
