Wildwood Ratepayers have advocated for a neighbourhood resident to continue raising rabbits at a mobile park, even though city bylaws don’t permit it.
At the City of Powell River committee of the whole meeting on November 29, councillors received correspondence from Wildwood Ratepayers’ president Bill Bird indicating there are problems raising rabbits in Wildwood.
He said most of Wildwood is under RA1 residential agricultural zoning designation, but the Tides Mobile Park is R4, and according to city bylaws, only house pets are allowed.
“The Wildwood Ratepayers would like to make a change to the R4 mobile park zone in Wildwood so residents of the mobile park can raise rabbits,” stated Bird.
He stated that a resident has been living at the mobile home park for five years and has had purebred rabbits on her property since she moved to that location. He added that neighbours are in favour of her keeping her rabbits. Bird included five letters of support.
Rabbit owner Barb MacLeod wrote a letter indicating that a bylaw officer had attended at her residence on September 16 after having received a complaint about the rabbits on the non-agriculturally zoned property. She stated that the rabbits are located in the back corner of her yard with forest on two sides, quite a distance from other trailers.
Her rabbits are a rare breed and all are purebred and pedigreed, she added.
She stated that she has travelled across North America showing them and the rabbits have won numerous honours.
MacLeod added that she is wrapping up her hobby and will be selling most of her stock to other rabbit fanciers, keeping only a few for pets.
Councillor George Doubt made a motion to refer the letter to staff for inclusion and discussion about changes to the animal control bylaw.
Interim chief administrative officer Chris Jackson said the animal control bylaw review has been initiated and what staff is awaiting is for council’s strategic planning process to complete so staff knows where to spend their time on any bylaw review.
“We’ll likely be several months,” said Jackson. “However, in terms of enforcement of this particular matter, while the file is open, it’s not an active file. We are waiting for other complainants to come forward, and if we don’t receive any, we’ll close the file.”
Mayor Ron Woznow asked if that meant that if there were no additional complaints, the issue would go away.
“We would not be proceeding with any enforcement if no other complaints come forward,” said Jackson.
The motion carried.
