I attended the Feb. 13 Sidney town council meeting because council had invited public input on a purportedly B次元官网网址渞equiredB次元官网网址� variance for the 16-unit housing project proposed for the southeast corner of Fifth Street and Malaview, where there are now two houses and one duplex.

Like a number of other attendees, I rose to oppose the granting of a setback variance along Fifth Street. There were also six written submissions to council similarly expressing concerns and opposition.

Short version: with very little discussion or debate, council unanimously approved the project and the variance.

It was clear that, in requesting citizen input, council was actually interested not in any neighbourhood response but only in B次元官网网址渢icking a boxB次元官网网址� to indicate public consultation. It was also clear that the project is so far along in the approval process that modifying it at this stage was just not in the cards B次元官网网址� which makes me reluctantly question councilB次元官网网址檚 good faith in requesting public comment.

In the past and in a different municipality, I have been part of public input opposing aspects of a particular development, and the result was that the mayor and council B次元官网网址減ushed the pause buttonB次元官网网址� and sent the proposal back to staff and the developer for revision. In that case the public was B次元官网网址渉eard.B次元官网网址� At the Feb. 13 meeting of Sidney town council, there was apparently no such inclination to B次元官网网址渉earB次元官网网址� the very input they had requested.

This was extremely disappointing.

Because there will surely be a next time B次元官网网址� another inevitable push for further densification and development B次元官网网址� I urge my Sidney neighbours to be more alert and more prepared in advance than I and others were in this case.

We need proactively to seek opportunities for engagement much earlier in the process so as to avoid a situation in which council, late in the development stage, merely goes through the motions of public consultation.

Dennis Danielson

Sidney