Pick your metaphor: the bell has been rung. The genie has left the bottle. The horses have bolted.
The Squamish Business Park is well on its way from its original purpose as an industrial park to essentially another retail centre along Hwy. 99, and there's nothing council can do to bring it back.
The bell was rung nearly eight years ago when the council of the day allowed a furniture store in what was supposed to be an industrial park, followed up by a hotel. Add to the mix this council's contributions - the soon-to-arrive Wal-Mart, factory outlets and restaurants - and you have the least "industrial" industrial park around.
So why, after all that, is council suddenly getting set to defend the integrity of its Business Park when a bank comes calling with a drive-thru outlet along Hwy. 99 with a coffee shop on the side?
That's what they did late Tuesday night, emerging from a closed-door session at nearly 11 p.m. to declare in open council (is it still "open and transparent government" if everyone's gone home to bed when you re-open the meeting?) that it reaffirms its opposition to land in the Business Park being used for "personal services" like banks.
By purest coincidence, the nite-owl motion came just before a public information meeting by the developers proposing a bank.
After opening the door to the Business Park becoming the busiest retail area in town, why has council suddenly rediscovered its principles?
We agree with the principles of permitted uses in the Business Park: we don't want downtown to migrate en masse to the highway. Professional offices should be concentrated in the town core.
But this type of service isn't designed for a town centre. It doesn't take away from the town centre, and it wouldn't come to the town centre if it wasn't permitted on the highway.
In short, it's exactly like every other development that wasn't supposed to be there, but got approved anyway.
What makes this any different?
Michael Rosen, a consultant for the developers, hit it right on the head when he pointed out that another bank in the town centre is not going to save downtown Squamish - getting more people to live there will.
That's where council should focus its energies - not on trying to unring the bell in the Business Park.
