Re: 鈥淓xtra tenants burden on neighbourhoods,鈥� letter, Feb. 12.
The letter-writer frets that increasing the number of unrelated persons permitted to live in a home would place intolerable demands on the infrastructure of the neighbourhood. In particular, the writer suggests having more than four impoverished students in a single home would result in their bringing their cars with them, thus increasing problems of traffic, parking and noise.
That so many vehicles might cause these problems is undeniable. However, the real problem is not the number of people in the house, but the number of vehicles.
The problem can be addressed by limiting the number not of occupants, but of cars and trucks. In fact, it would be wise for a municipality to limit the number of vehicles associated with a home regardless of how many people live there, or how they are or are not related.
At a stroke, such a measure would greatly reduce the problems the writer fears, and would moreover likely obviate the need for the 鈥渞esidents only鈥� parking signs by which municipalities help homeowners assert property rights over the public streets of their neighbourhood. As well, the wider environmental benefit of limiting the number of vehicles is manifest.
Murray Stone
Saanich
