7/30/2019 Smith Letter to Council

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From: Smith, Andrew Sent: January-08-13 9:23 PMTo: 'IAN PATTULLO';Rob Martin; Carol Hamilton; Judith Cullington; Cynthia Day; TeresaHarvey; Gordie Logan; Shari Lukens; Duane Chapman; BOB GALBRAITH;Barry Janzen; 'David Barber'Subject: Rezoning Application for 467 RoyalBay - Thank You 

I am writing this email to add myself to this growing list of concerned

Royal Bay residents, to thank my neighbors, the mayor, and the city

council for the attention they are paying to this matter, and to share

some of my own personal thoughts…. 

1st and foremost…. many thanks to all of you. Thanks Ian for bringing

this to our attention at this critical stage and coordinating all our

efforts. Duane… thanks for the many hours of research youconducted to get us all much better informed, and Barry and Kim for

articulating your concerns so well (all of which we share). I would also

like to thank the mayor and the city council members for agreeing to

meet with us on Friday. It’s very encouraging to see our city

leadership so responsive and willing to listen. Unfortunately I and my

family will be out of town and will not be able to make the meeting

but know our interests will be well represented.

I don’t think I can add any more than what has already been said with

respect to the many concerns we all have on the proposed rezoning

but would like to reiterate one of the key points that others have

stated. We chose to live in Royal Bay above any other area in Victoria

because of its plan for the future and we believe that is being

threatened here… 

Previous to moving to Victoria in 2005 my family lived in

Frisco, Texas for 11 years. What attracted my family and so

many others to Frisco in its early years of development was

the city’s plan. It was all very well thought out with a vision

(and eventual reality) of a community lifestyle not common in

other Dallas upper middle class suburbs and bedroom

communities. This included one of the 1st high density urban

7/30/2019 Smith Letter to Council

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like town centres of its kind (also being envisioned as part of 

the Royal Bay Community). Frisco was the fastest growing

city in the United States from 2000 to 2009. I firmly believe

that the city had a great plan, stuck with it, and then did a

great job of executing it, making it the one of the mostdesirable places to move to in the Dallas area and the United

States.

When moving here we quickly decided to live in one of two

areas, Broadmead or Royal Bay. No other reasonably

affordable areas in Victoria gave us so many of the same

community lifestyle advantages that we wanted and had come

to know in Frisco. The Broadmead development met many of our needs but in the end we chose Royal Bay for its

vision… and to date it’s been the best decision we’ve

made. Like so many others in the Royal Bay Community we

love the neighborhood and are so very proud to tell people

about it.

Royal Bay is our new Frisco… and like Frisco we are banking on a solid,

well thought out and executed plan to help fuel its growth for when

the economy turns around. So we are most interested in working with

others in our community and city government in the most productive

way possible to help insure we protect our future and the future of 

Royal Bay and Colwood.

I hope you have a very productive meeting on Friday and look forward

to working with you all in the future.

Thank you again for your consideration.

Andy Smith