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City of White Rock:  a work in progress

In the City of White Rock the Official Community (revitalization) Plan (OCP) is well underway.

What was once a sleepy little seaside town, an artsy little haven for the tired and retiring has become in the interim a noisy and unsettling place.

* * *

Last September, every morning at the crack of dawn a van-load-full of construction and city workers and their supervisors in hard hats, steel toed boots and safety vests arrived on Goggs between Finlay and Best.  After a lively discussion over a Tim Horton’s Coffee sipped from paper cups, the machine operators climbed into their cabs, turned over the engines of backhoes, diggers and compactors while a number of dump trucks and their pups lumbered helter-skelter up and down the mucky dusty road with a relentless beep-beep-beep challenging local vehicles and pedestrians to proceed if they dared.

“I live here."  I said to the flag lady as I attempted to make my way back from the village over the lumpy, bumpy terrain.  I gingerly sidesteppped the abandoned machines and small groups of men gazing into freshly dug holes onto a labrynth of multi-colored pipes.

"Oops, who did it?  Who hit the pipe this time?"

* * *

“A floor a week – that’s what they say.”

Yes, I replied to the young lady putting the finishing touches on my pedicure in a nail shop directly across from the BOSA Miramar project.

* * *

I knew very little of White Rock up until a few years ago.  It was always a great place to spend a lazy summer afternoon with the kids.  We walked along the promenade or on the beach at low tide followed by a feed of take out fish and chips eaten with relish as the sun went down over the horizon; but always, there was still the evening drive back home to wherever home was. 

Now, when I walk on the promenade or on the beach at low tide ... I am home.  White Rock is not anything like I remember it back then as a preferred destination for us day tourists.  Now White Rock is truly home, the community we live in and have a stake in.

We attended several meetings and open houses concerning the OCP including the proposals, plans and progress reports of the development between Russell and Thrift from Finlay to Best and the vision for the development of Goggs Avenue .  We have met and intereacted with local community and business people including our mayor Judy and her council.  We continue to enjoy the clean air and water, the lush climate and marine weather all within the scope of four distinct seasons and we can say we are truly blessed to have found ourselves citizens of such a dynamic and quirky big little city.

* * *

By December 15th all we wanted for Christmas on Goggs was some solid ground.  Instead, all that digging and back filling over and over again made the ground a strange spongy material that offered a whole new walking and driving experience. 

Still, Goggs residents pressed stoically on in ther gumboots and mud splattered vehicles through large puddles of slurry determined not to let anything stand in the way of where they were currently marooned and where they needed to go.

* * *

It's the beginning of March and now we have it!   We have a freshly paved street with curbs and a sidwalk.  We have a pedestrian friendly street with traffic calming devices in the middle and on both ends and hurray ... by design, vehicles will take second place on Goggs Avenue.   Ideally residents could now get busy and make room for their vehicles in their garages and driveways leaving the restricted (one spot for 2 households) parallel parking stalls alternating along the north and south side of the street for visitors.  This would also allow alternating traffic to pass one another comfortably.

What's next?  What is still to do?  New street lights perhaps, topsoil, turf and we heard through the grapevine that twenty-two trees will be planted, eleven along the boulevard on the north and eleven curbside on the south with a little park where children can play and old folks can bide awhile on their way to and from wherever they are going.

Hurray a people friendly street at last!!!

Blessings and a Joyous Spring to all!!!

Written by Minke Mazzocato