Dear Editor,
For the second time in about a month Senior Counsel Rex McKay has penned a letter to local newspapers complaining about the violation of zoning by-laws and the speed with which businesses and industry are taking over residential areas in the city.
I therefore drop this line to throw in my open support for the cause of Mr McKay and to indicate that I would be a willing and interested party to any action taken in any court or related body to correct the situation and prevent further decay.
For example, residents in Laluni Street in the block between New Garden and Peter Rose Streets, are bombarded on a daily basis, Sundays, holidays including Good Friday, by a wood and furniture factory owned by a prominent businessman with a property interest in the very area where his factory annoys residents.
Additionally, shipping containers are used to store wood and other materials for the factory. These attract termites. Many of the wooden homes in the area are now termite infested despite urgings to the businessman to take action to eliminate the termites. The noise from electrical chainsaws is overbearing. The containers make for an ugly assault on the aesthetics of Queenstown. I therefore throw my support behind Mr McKay and urge others residents to begin the rebellion against creeping industrialization of a zoned residential area.
And as I scribble this note at half ten on a Sunday morning, the noise from electrical saws forces residents like me to pump up our television volumes just to be able to follow Olympic coverage on Sports Max and NBC. For how long will this continue? I know City Clerk Royston King and the Engineer’s Department are aware of the situation. Hope they will act soonest as I quote the by-law as published by Mr McKay that “no building to be used… for any manufacturing, trade or business shall be erected or built on any lot” (east of Oronoque Street). Secondly, “no such building shall be used for any such purpose aforesaid.”
Yours faithfully,
Bert Wilkinson
