The Andrew Sheret Company has made application to rezone their property on the Trans Canada Highway to permit the outside storage of plumbing equipment comprising of bathtubs/tanks/piping/drainage and associated paraphernalia that collectively presents an unsightly appearance within a barbed wire topped enclosure.
This application does not comply with the Official Community Plan, which does not permit outside storage with the exception of farm markets and nurseries.
The area planning committee reviewed this application and unanimously recommended
rejection due to its detrimental visual impact on this highly visual location.
It was also reviewed by the regional district planning department, who also recommended rejection for the same reasons to the area directors at a June 10 meeting.
The Official Community Plan is designed to prevent this type of unsightly development this requested rezoning application would permit.
The OCP was developed and formulated by the CVRD through public meetings and input by interested members of the community with one of the objectives being a blueprint for the future consistent, orderly, visually attractive development of the commercial component of Area D. This matter should have been
resolved at the June 10 meeting had the elected officials followed the recommendations
Community Plan Please thank the Rotarians, who of the planning department and the area planning committee and rejected the rezoning application.
The elected officials voted to refer the matter to a sub committee for additional input at a public meeting to be held at the Island Savings Centre, Mesachie Room, on Thursday, July 31 at 7 p.m. It would appear that in requesting additional input, some of our elected representatives are reaching for any kind of remotely plausible mitigating reason to ignore all planning department and APC recommendations and the objectives of the community plan to approve this application.
A plan developed by the community at large and adopted by the very board that now, it would appear, some of its members are considering voting against the interests of its very objectives, by voting in favor of granting this rezoning application to a large company, whose wholesale high volume unsightly outside storage requirements clearly belongs in the industrial park created for their type of business.
One would think there is a reasonable expectation by the general public that our elected representatives would vote to respect the integrity and objectives of the Official Community Plan and reject this rezoning application.
Mike Clarke Schoolhouse Square Holdings Adjoining Property Owners