BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is from a Barrie resident in response to a story titled 'Neighbours find proposed waterfront development's height 'troublesome'' published on Nov. 20.
*************************
Anyone living beside a major edifice like a 20- to 40-storey condominium or apartment building would have reason to fear the end result. In addition to overshadowing homes and smaller properties, the people living in the edifice may not be well-behaved leading to harassment and other unacceptable behaviour.
I have known people living beside apartment buildings who hated every minute of it because the ill-disposed individuals living in the edifice wouldn’t stop harassing them or violating their privacy. Better we keep these structures isolated away from homeowners living nearby to avoid this very problem.
Then there is the issue of overcrowding the waterfront and 42-storey structures: Why does a smaller city need a building so high? Overcrowding the skyline in a smaller community spoils its desirability as does piling condos beside the waterfront.
Burlington has a no-build zone for 1.5 kilometres beside Lake Ontario and even Oakville spoiled its majestic view of Lake Ontario by allowing the estates to pile up alongside it like clutter.
Christopher Mansour
Barrie
*************************
