Talk isn’t really cheap: The best speakers are often the products of higher education. Rather, talk is lazy: Too often busy tongues make idle hands.
It’s something a chat group tried to avoid during last weekend’s forum. One of several groups, this one focused on tools available to harmonize development from a regional perspective.
A well-attended group, the collective expressed considerable unease on corridor development, which, according to some, is sometimes representative of sprawl-based strategy. The Garibaldi at Squamish (G@S) development, poster boy to some for unsustainable development, leapt to the fore.
Thing is, it’s only a poster boy to some people, like Squamish Environmental Conservation Society president Catherine Jackson and Save Garibaldi Group member Sarah Greenwood. For Greenwood, who is new to the community, acquiring information on G@S was difficult. Ditto Dorte Forslev, who said she only became aware of the development proposal because of a protest banner hung at the Cat Lake turn-off on Highway 99. And so action on this particular issue was proposed in the form of an online information hub.
And it’s hard to talk about regional development without talking about the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District. Further, it’s hard to talk about the SLRD without discussing the body’s Regional Growth Strategy (RGS), which is a work in progress. But, as with information on G@S, many people positioned themselves as outside the know on the RGS. So emerged a second action, which, simply, was to read the document.
“I think we need to take action on a local and regional perspective,” Greenwood said.
Sometimes, it seems, talk leads to research, which inevitably leads to more talk. But, as with the RGS, which will eventually move to a public consultation phase, talk can be the first step towards action.
