Crazy Clown, in a bowl of Hero soup: a perspective. Robbie Newton.
Yes it’s time for me to again focus on my Hero’s, a celebration of some of the pleasures that Denman has offered me in the times that I’ve spent here.
So let me come back to the present and two more Heroes, Sheldon and Donna of the Guest house. It was Bob O’krainec who had a house two big for his needs who first thought up the idea of a Guest House; but it’s Sheldon and Donna who’ve made it what it is now. They put in all that free ‘parking’, “don’t leave your cars untidy on the streets!”.
Donna turned part of the house into her “store” with its astonishing depths; and another part became a restaurant where her staff prepared foods for “guests”. Sheldon extended one end of that dining area to create wall space for displays of local crafts and an area where musicians could likewise display their crafts.
Outside Sheldon built benches and tables where people could enjoy other’s companies, free of unnecessary Covid restrictions. Sheldon and Donna have brought together a range of learned skills and energies to Denman, all on a property which is “non-conforming”. If they make a ‘wrong move’ as far as the Trust is concerned; they could find themselves in trouble with that Trust.
To avoid this possibility; what I would suggest to that Trust, is make them “Legally Non- conforming”. That is the status which all of us so-called Hippies, who dared to ‘share’ the lands we owned: when the Trust first took control of Denman and they were faced with the high density zoning that the Regional District had already put in place. The new Trust’s first action was to say; one lot, one house; a sensible restriction at that point. It was the one which put all of us ‘sharing hippies’ in that Legally non-conforming status. It was OK for us, it was our protection too; we were ‘legal’, which could not be taken away from us, except legally and fairly: which did occur 20 years later. However, for the Guest House it wouldn’t even be a burden, only a protection.
That “Legally Non-conforming” status might also be a convenient route that could be applied to the ‘lots’ of those who were willing to share their properties with those who can’t find other housing opportunities here. It might provide both the ‘breathing room’ to resolve many of those problems, for the near future; and create valuable learning experience for future permanent resolutions. New versions of heroes.
