Editor:
It seems as though my response to Geoff White’s original letter in which he claimed that development and water were two separate unrelated issues, was badly misconstrued.
He suggested in his letter of March 31 (No laughing matter), that I am against both development and increased water supply here on the Coast. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Perhaps my writing was faulty and less than perfectly clear, so I’ll try to simplify what I was trying to say in my initial response: water and development are intrinsically linked. Water is the most important utility supplied to any housing, even more than electricity, I would argue. Mr. White’s idea of pressing ahead with development permits assuming that the water will be there when the housing is ready, I find to be quite naive, considering the history of the attempted solutions, or lack of them, so far over the past 30 or 40 years.
I agree with Mr. White that we badly need affordable housing. I don’t think that developments with over 100 single-family million-dollar homes in any way answers that need and the point I was trying to make is simply this; show me the water first, be it Dusty Road or any other possibility, but do not issue scads of building permits without the assurance that it will definitely be there. I appreciate what Stage 4 restrictions mean, in every aspect of its effect on us here on the Coast and I’m hoping the road forward will be to decrease the possibility of us getting there every year, and earlier and earlier each year, and ending up with the development here on the Coast that we need, supplied with the water required to meet the demands of any new housing. I hope this clarifies my original point.
Peter Quinn
Roberts Creek
