The May 7 story on Page A1, “84-acre development proposed at quarry,” reported about the development coming to the east Vancouver-Camas divide, featuring a hotel, retail and office space, and more than 300 apartment and condominium units that will, undoubtedly, have a great economic impact. It is expected that the views of many who already live there will be blocked by the construction.
Too bad that dollar signs cloud the views of local developers; our neighbors to the north were smarter in developing their Vancouver. The site of the 130-acre Queen Elizabeth Park was scarred at the turn of the 20th century when it was quarried for rock that served to build that city’s roadways. In 1930, the Vancouver, B.C., Tulip Association suggested the notion of transforming the quarries into sunken gardens. At the end of that decade, it was dedicated as a park by King George VI and his consort, Queen Elizabeth (mother of Queen Elizabeth II). Millions of visitors and happy locals frequent QE Park every day, as others do in the world-renowned Butchart Gardens, an exhausted limestone quarry by 1909, just north of Victoria, B.C.
We can only imagine the breath-taking views that such a park-gardens complex overlooking the already scenic Columbia River would offer, and the millions of dollars that visitors to our Vancouver might spend in the years ahead.
