Some rural residents have raised a number of concerns about Powell River Regional District’s draft Area C official community plan (OCP).
Directors passed the initial readings of the OCP bylaw at the November regional board meeting. Rural directors referred the plan to the board after discussing it at the November planning committee meeting. Laura Roddan, manager of planning, presented a draft plan at the meeting, noting a number of changes that had been made as a result of two public consultation meetings held in October.
David Moore and Rita Rasmussen, both of whom live in Area C, made individual presentations to the planning committee on December 12. Moore, who has lived in the area for over 40 years, spoke against the industrial designation of property that contains sensitive salmon habitat.
District Lot 1480, which is privately owned, includes the lower run of Lang Creek, the mouth of the river and estuary, which at one time was the site of a dry-land log sort. Moore described the estuary as a wide and shallow area of tidal water forming “a critical part of the habitat required for rearing salmon stock.”
Moore said the 81-hectare property encircles the estuary at the western end of Lang Bay and the waterfront extends eastward to Weldwood Road “where the wide sandy beach has become the most popular summer swimming beach and off-leash doggie playground south of town in recent years.”
All through the four-year review of the OCP, Moore said, this parcel has been identified as a comprehensive development area. In the most recent draft, the portion of the property below Highway 101 has been designated industrial, while the portion above the highway has been designated rural residential.
Moore requested that the planning committee reverse the changes.
Roddan explained the comprehensive development area designation was still in place on the property. “Through the consultation process, it came to light that the owners of the property had concerns about being boxed in and they wanted to retain the designations that they had in the southern region OCP,” she said.
As well, Roddan said, BC Assessment classifies the property as industrial. If and when the owners have a development proposal, they must come to the regional district to “discuss and review” the proposal and an agreement is negotiated, Roddan said. “There are absolutely no plans right now,” she said. “The owners are fine with the comprehensive development area.”
Roddan also said that the draft Area C plan has development permit areas, which are the only regulatory mechanisms available in an OCP. The property Moore was concerned about had two development permit areas, one on Lang Creek and the estuary and another along the entire waterfront.
Rasmussen raised a number of concerns with the OCP, including the designation of a property on Roberts Road, which has a sawmill on it, from rural residential to industrial. “We and our neighbours purchased our homes for the inherent rural residential values,” she said. “Now we and our neighbours will have an industrial area right in the middle of our neighbourhood. One person will profit and numerous others will suffer.”
Colin Palmer, Area C director and board chair, explained the implications of a policy in the existing OCP known as D5, which stipulates existing land uses will be recognized in any future land use regulations. “We had to obey the law, our own bylaw,” he said.
