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Time to drop the rhetoric and start the debate

"I'd call him a sadistic, hippophilic necrophile, but that would be beating a dead horse." - Woody Allen Okay, maybe the horse wasn't dead... maybe he was just sleeping.
opinion_maxedout1

"I'd call him a sadistic, hippophilic necrophile, but that would be beating a dead horse."

- Woody Allen

Okay, maybe the horse wasn't dead... maybe he was just sleeping.

While it seemed the immediate response from the proponents of WhistlerU to council's completely unreasonable approach to their development plan — let's take nine months, go slow and actually engage the community and outside help to gestate this baby — was threatening to take their football and go home, Pegasus apparently had some life left in him, er, her, er, it. Whatever, this horse is still moving.

If the initial response could generously be termed petulant, the revised, more tempered response may reasonably be called piqued, paranoid and perplexing. While one may reasonably argue nine months is too long to thoroughly consider a proposal that, in one form or another has been rattling chains like a fabled chimera for more than half a decade, to claim, as the proponents have, that seven months is way more reasonable is to split the first, fine hair on the baby's head. Do I hear six and a half? Sixty days more or less is not, a $300 million development, going to scuttle.

Let's put this in perspective. The applicants have been, as they say, planning this development for six years. They've "... met with every group that invited us to give details of our proposal." That's not entirely true. While they may have met, they failed to give details of the proposal to Whistler council until a little over 60 days ago. This was a strategic decision on their part owing, at least in part, to the perception their plan wouldn't get a fair hearing under the previous mayor and council. Instead of submitting the proposal, in detail, and seeking rezoning, they chose to play a waiting game while they lobbied candidates in last fall's election, hoping to plant their seeds in more favourable soil.

Now they feel betrayed, miffed that "open for business" doesn't mean council is going to roll over and play dead or snap to approval on anything that comes their way. They want assurances their "re-zoning proposal (will) be handled like any other submitted by a landowner."

That's simply ridiculous. This isn't any other rezoning application. This isn't seeking a minor variance on density or setback or severing one parcel into two titles. This is taking a piece of land currently zoned for four McMansions and making it a piece of land zoned for a university serving 1,400-1,500 students and perhaps 600 faculty and staff. This is a proposal to fundamentally alter the strategic direction of the town from mountain resort to mountain resort and player in the private university business. It is, as the proponents themselves say, a proposal to pursue education as an economic development issue.

It is, in the history of Whistler, sui generis. Nothing like it has been considered since the early sixties when Alta Lake was presented with a proposal to develop London Mountain into a regional ski resort and Olympic contendah. At that time, Alta Lake didn't have nearly as much at stake as Whistler has now.

In that sense, Whistler is a partner in this proposed development. While we're not being asked to put up money as equity, we are being asked to put up the town — who we are and what we've spent the past few decades developing. That's because we won't be the same place if WhistlerU goes forward that we are now.

This would be a good time to say there's nothing wrong with that. If, after thoroughly and carefully airing and considering and debating all the ramifications of WhistlerU the town believes that's the way it wants to develop its future, then we will have made an enlightened, informed, public decision. But to say this is just like any other rezoning is simply fatuous. We've got skin in this game, lots of it.

WhistlerU wants to bring upwards of 2,000 people into a town of 10,000. We absorb 2,000 people and more — some times many, many more — nearly every day of the year. They come; they go. They take home memories, they leave money. They sleep in already built beds, eat in existing restaurants, shop in whatever's still open, use the existing infrastructure. We built it for them. It was a conscious, informed decision. It's the business we're in.

WhistlerU is a new business. It'll need new infrastructure. Some of it will be self-contained and built as part of the development; some of it — transit for example — will fall on the town to provide. What are the implications? They aren't contained in any documents I've seen or on WhistlerU's website.

What is the quantum of economic benefit this town will receive in exchange for embracing WhistlerU? How much of it is short-term — construction jobs — versus long-term? How is it likely to change the mix of services needed in town? What might be the impacts on our core business, tourism? After all, the most highly attended calendar period for WhistlerU is likely to fall during the town's most highly attended season, winter.

In addition to these questions, no further light has been shed on the questions raised in this space several weeks ago, except to dismissively suggest there was no possible way the business model for WhistlerU could fail — leaving the town with yet another Olympic-size white elephant — and the suggestion that even raising the questions were signs of timidity. It's been my experience that people who respond personally instead of providing answers often either don't have the answers, don't want the questions asked or know the answers aren't going to propel their position forward.

Which brings us to the bulk of the "information" provided in last week's response. The allegation that RMOW staff are secretive, manipulative, duplicitous and untrustworthy because they've recommended a go-slow approach is unhelpful, divisive and, at best, a smokescreen. The further suggestion that confidence had been misplaced in current council can only be true if the proponents were confident council would acquiesce to their rezoning application with a gigantic rubber stamp. Frankly, all such tactics do is place the proponents in a bad light and leave me wondering why they're not more forthcoming in their efforts to assuage council, staff and the community.

WhistlerU might be the opportunity of a lifetime. But if it is, the people who want to build it had better drop the rhetoric and start answering — and debating — the very hard and legitimate questions this community has both the right and obligation to ask. Otherwise, this horse really is dead.

Giddyup.