In November we are going to elect Bob Turner mayor. That’s only my prediction but it isn’t a tough one to make. Bob is a great guy. He’s smart, he listens before he speaks and he’s got excellent credentials. The people who know the players are already thanking him for running and wishing him success in the job. Stacy Beamer will be running for council. He’s also very sharp and should be successful but, he will stir things up.
Boy, don’t you just hate those Ferries. When private industry can’t cope with the demand others jump in to fill the void. When a monopoly runs the show they tell you how tough life is for them and promise to try and help you out if they can. We need a big boat to carry cars. Small boats work just fine for carrying people who aren’t driving cars. If we know that there will be a good chance of passenger overloads on the 7:35 on Mondays why not run water taxies at 7:15 and 7:45. The sixty or eighty people that they would take would do the trick and the cost would be negligible. Obviously this is not a new idea but it doesn’t hurt to keep on pushing it.
An old proposal popped up again last week. The Undercurrent referred it as a “potential land development inventory.” Here’s why it’s important.
We all know that Bowen’s projected population under the Official Community Plan (OCP) is just over 7,000. Of course the OCP is ten years old and virtually meaningless. What does mean something is the Land Use Bylaw (LUB). This is the document that describes the existing zoning for every parcel of land on the island. For example, if you look at Cape Roger Curtis, you have 660 acres zoned for 10 acre lots. That means that the owner can subdivide the property into 66 lots and there’s very little to stop him other than the usual septic, water, geotechnical etc. If you look at Bluewater you see that 25 additional houses can be built without rezoning.
Apparently all that is really involved is looking at the zoning maps, looking at how many lots could potentially be created and looking at how many lots are already built on. The difference is the number of new lots that could theoretically be created under the existing bylaws. From there you can figure out how much population growth we are already legally committed to and how many people we should be planning for. Of course it’s not really that simple. For example, some areas were zoned for one acre lots fifty years ago but much of the property is the side of a cliff and considered unbuildable. Some areas can’t be built on because of restrictive covenants. But covenants get removed and rising land values turn the craziest places into building sites. So, if we knew this theoretical number, which is presumably much lower than the OCP number, we would have a more relevant baseline.
I’ve talked to some members of council and it looks like a few people who know every parcel in their area of the island will be getting together to knock this project off. When you think about it, more time has been spent on talking about this than it will take to do it.
Once completed it will be a handy tool for council. For example, Council is considering a bylaw that would permit accessory buildings as living quarters on parcels of 2.5 acres or more. It will be kind of handy to know how many parcels are actually involved. The assumption is about 150. Then they could look at how many parcels would be involved if we built out to the OCP levels. I have no idea but I do know that Cape Roger Curtis alone could double that number.
My apologies for not coming up with anything more exciting but I’m chalking this one up to “operational delays” since I can’t really blame “mechanical difficulties or “traffic delays”. Heh, it works for B.C. Ferries. Why not me?
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