Check out
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/southeast/ for more info on the "official" plan for the whole area. Looks pretty - on paper - eh?
It would sure be nice to have a "proper" paddler-centric community centre in the Creek, now wouldn't it?
The FCRCC does the best it can with what GI & the FCCC give them, but sometimes ... arrgghhhh ...
Not that anyone who can not now afford to buy or rent in the Creek will ever be able to afford to live in that SEFC area (after 2010)! Let's see - developers pay $193 mill for the land ... gee, I wonder how much profit they expect to make on their investment(s)? Divide that 193 + building costs + profit by the number of units for sale (and leave out the so-called "low income" housing they supposedly have to build).
Hmmm ... how many million $$ per square metre was that again?? Oh!!
I live in Ditchmond, and I saw this week that the site prep for the new UBC Rowing Centre has just started. It's to the North of the Densmore Bridge (i.e., where the Richmond regatta has been held the last 2 seasons). So there **will** be such a padder centre out here by this Summer (
http://www.ubcgoldforlife.ca). Yes, they plan to support paddlers as well as rowers.
But it's much less interesting on the Middle Arm of the Fraser than in the Creek - even if you're only snurfing around at a DB parctice.
Too, I doubt it will be very easy for the longer-distance boats (OC-1, OC-6, etc.) to get out into open water from the UBC Centre. The Middle Arm is closed to navigation South of the No. 2 Road Bridge, becuase it's the YVR Seaplane area (not that a sillly thing like Official Nav Rules stops the occasional idiot in his - or her! - gin palace from trying); although maybe ... I heard that UBC has been trying to get an exemption for the scullers, maybe a narrow lane right next to the Lulu Island shore-side, out past Terra Nova & on into the Strait. The only other way out is the North Arm - and no open-boat paddler in their right mind would want to try that ... dangerous as h**l (strong & tricky currents, mucho logs & debris, plus a ton of tugs & barges & log booms), if for no other reason.
No, we won't (again!) bring up the problems with running real, fair races at the Densmore UBC site!!
There's also the Deas Island DB/OC thing in Delta, Deep Cove, & other paddling centres around town, of course.
But a new Paddlers' CC in the Creek would still be grrrrrrr--eate (even if I still have to "navigate" Granville Street to get there), IMHO.
I sure hope the post-2010 owners in the SEFC area will allow the poor &/or outsiders - like me! - to use that CC.
Dan
