Primrose: Quality of life should be priority
By Letter to the Editor on November 22, 2018.
The city has made a ridiculous proposal to change the park/greenspace on the east side of Primrose and College Drive to medium density housing (i.e. more row houses or a condo development). At the Municipal Planning Commission meeting, Nov. 14, some ‘deaf ears’ prevailed and area citizens were told that we just need to take the emotion out of our objection. The focus should be revenue. So perhaps an understanding of where we are ‘coming from’ could be achieved by this fictitious equally absurd scenario about their environment. City Hall has also greened up their open spaces with large beautiful plants. Someone has a wonderful sense of liveability and quality of life. However, money could be made if they stripped all sense of humanity (the valuing of other living things besides ourselves) and filled those open spaces with vending machines and billboards. The residents of College Drive, 12th Avenue, and the senior residence, and all citizens driving along College Drive have a lovely park view. City Hall has a wonderful view of the river and all the greenery along its banks. However big money could be made if they filled all the windows with outward facing advertising. After all, they sell the names of our city buildings to advertisers. Never mind the money it cost to put in the windows and pay the architects for their amazing design. That would be “unfortunate” (just like they said about the $700,000 spent on the Primrose green area recently). Then they could get the staff together and explain it’s just excess under-utilized space and the changes will have no impact on the actual work environment. Focus on the revenue and not your emotions. At issue is that removing green spaces means loss of the character and of the inherent beauty of an area, and both contribute to a healthy, vibrant, and liveable community. Part of a city’s vitality is the positive psychological effect of one’s surroundings. As the city says in its website’s ‘About Us’ blurb, quality of life is a priority. Barb Taylor Medicine Hat 10-9
