Loni Parker
Outgoing Area B director for the CSRD
This will be my last report from the region. I have had the privilege and pleasure to represent you as Area B Director for 25 consecutive years and the time has come for me to spend more time with my family.
I was born and raised here and have seen many changes (the most dramatic being the flooding of our beautiful valley) and have tried to make a positive difference as we move forward as a community.
As your representative I did my best to represent your interests in an honest, fair and balanced fashion. Over the course of my time with the CSRD we have grown substantially and along with that growth we have adopted bylaws and policies to guide us as we continue our path forward.
Initially, when I was elected, there was not much of a workload, just the regular CSRD business, and in Area B, there was only the occasional rezoning and variance permit, plus the provincial referrals. That all changed when the sale of the ski hill became a possibility and public process and discourse on how our community should grow took place.
The signing of the Master Development Agreement for RMR triggered two major events in Area B. The first was a process for the CSRD and the city to move forward on a boundary expansion to include the resort lands into the City of Revelstoke.
Residents on the Thomas Brooke water supply had concerns about the quantity and quality of their water as the resort developed and I ensured there was a clause in the agreement to deal with that issue. Unfortunately, after several water related incidents the only recourse was for those affected residents to join the city to access city water. I was able to give a grant to offset some of those costs however the brunt of the costs was borne by those residents and they now have higher taxes and more regulations.
The other main event was to develop a new Official Community Plan for Area B. I was pleased that the folks in Galena Bay, Beaton and Trout Lake wanted to be included in the process as prior to that time they had no zoning at all and developers were starting to go ahead with projects without their neighbours’ input.
It was a lengthy process but in the end we have a well-balanced plan with accompanying zoning bylaws. As is always the case with OCP’s they need updating over time and it will soon be time to begin the process again.
Over the years I have tried to keep taxation growth to a minimum. I negotiated a new Parks and Recreation Agreement that reduced the Area B requisition. Most recently we negotiated a new Fire Services agreement that has seen an increase for rural residents. This increase was minor compared to what the city was requesting but we are now assured that the service will be in place for 10 years. Rural residents were afforded an opportunity to give their input throughout the negotiation process and the input from our public meeting reaffirmed the direction we took for the negotiation. We were able to apply grant money for the fire truck and we were successful in securing a new $50,000 vehicle from BC Hydro for fire suppression in the drawdown zone, thus saving residents from more taxation. Without the Fire Protection Services we would have seen a major increase in our home insurance costs that would be greater than having the agreement in place.
From a health and safety perspective fire protection is imperative.
When we updated our OCP to deal with expected growth due to resort development there was discussion about re-instating building inspection. Our OCP clearly stated that we would re-implement the service if necessary. Several years have passed since then without the service but dialogue has taken place in the community and at the CSRD Board about the consequences of the lack of and high cost of enforcement of CSRD bylaws due to the lack of that service. Due to those cost as well as the health and safety factor we have taken steps to implement Building Inspection across the CSRD.
Currently we now have the service in Area E (Rural Sicamous-Malakwa), Area B and Area F (North Shore of the Shuswap). Next year Area C (Sorrento-Blind Bay) will be included and Area F (Falkland-Deep Creek) should be implemented in 2020. It is important to state that all Directors of the CSRD board voted to include the service and it will take a majority vote to rescind it, which is highly improbable.
Also, I should note that the Building Inspection Service was one of the City of Revelstoke’s requests in order to consider providing Fire Protection Services to rural residents.
Boundary expansion became an issue starting when the city stated that there was a joint city/CSRD process to include Greeley into the municipality after the Greeley Adventure Park requested tenure over Crown Land. That was not correct and the CSRD took steps to rectify that erroneous information.
Since then there have been requests made by developers to have their lands included into the city in the hopes that their designation in the Agriculture Land Reserve [ALR] would be automatically removed. The Agriculture Land Commission decides if lands should be removed from the ALR and there is no difference in their decision if they are in a rural area or a municipality.
I am pleased that both municipal and rural residents were opposed to the amalgamation requests and before any further requests for amalgamation into the city are accepted there needs to be a full blown boundary expansion process which would include input from both municipal and rural residents.
Recently I have seen an increase in Crown Land Referrals for recreation and other land use tenures. There has also been controversial harvesting of timber in recreation areas close to Revelstoke and it is time for a new comprehensive Land Use Planning process.
I was involved in the past processes including the Kootenay-Boundary Land Use Plan, the Minister’s Advisory Committee and the Begbie Falls Integrated Use Plan. They are difficult discussions but very necessary to provide guidance to industry and community interests.
This past summer the mayor and I had an opportunity to discuss this issue with the premier and subsequently we had a meeting at UBCM in September with Minister Doug Donaldson to try to implement a process for our community. I felt it was a positive meeting and I am hopeful that we can move forward on that soon.
The role of the regional director is a very busy one and as your representative I have had the pleasure of sitting on various boards and committees. These include the Columbia Basin Trust, Southern Interior Development Initiative Trust, North Okanagan Columbia Shuswap Regional Hospital District, Local Government Treaty Committee, Columbia Basin Regional Advisory Committee, CSRD Economic Development Commission and the Revelstoke Airport Management Committee, to name only a few.
A regional director has many responsibilities and I have had the pleasure to have helped many people with their issues and to serve the community that I love.
Thanks to my alternate Doug Stuart who has provided support over the years and who has very capably represented your interests in my occasional absence.
I would also like to thank my current and past CSRD Advisory Planning Commission members:
Mike Cummings, Brian Gadbois, Janis Hooge, Denny Kaulback, Jim Maitre, Andy Parkin, Debby Robinson, Elmer Rorstad, Chris Selvig, John Wall, and Kip Wiley
Many of you spent years volunteering your expertise to ensure we made well balanced planning decisions so many thanks again!
Finally I would like to thank you for your support over the past 25 years and I encourage you to continue to participate in decision making in Area B in the future.