The committee steering the Official community Plan (OCP) update has put out a number of background papers.
Paper #1 asks why we’re doing an update instead of a full review. It’s kind of funny.
A Brief History of Bowen Island – In the spirit of brevity I will start in the 1970’s. At that time the local Highways Department foreman approved subdivisions and you could purchase your Gulf Island summer get-away lot at a booth at the PNE. Then the provincial NDP party replaced the Social Credit party and [...]
Also tagged Eco Alliance, Improvement Association, Island Life, Islands TrustThe committee that’s working on updating our Official Community Plan (OCP) asked all of the various groups on the island to submit ideas for a forum that they held a couple of weeks ago. More than twenty submissions have been posted on the bowenocpupdate website. Taken as a whole, they provide an excellent insight into [...]
Also tagged Municipal PoliticsAs we move along with the updating of our Official Community Plan (OCP) it is probably worthwhile to look back on how well the plan has served us to date and what we might to do to make it more usable in the future. The first thing that we have to acknowledge is that there [...]
Also tagged Housing, Municipal Politics, Snug CoveOur Official Community Plan (OCP) update process is officially off and running. Looking over the existing plan, I realize that the world has changed a lot in the last 15 years but I wonder how many of the old assumptions that framed so much of the very earliest community plans will be accepted again without [...]
Also tagged CO2 EmissionsMost communities fall into one of two camps. Either – we’re being overrun and need to enact policies that will curb undesirable development or – this town is dying, we need to attract some business. Bowen doesn’t really fit into either group. We’re considered in the wider world to be a suburb of metro Vancouver. [...]
Also taggedOur Official Community Plan (OCP) update process is about to start. So I’ve been chatting with people who were involved in the process the last time around in 1992. Apparently things started off very well.
Also taggedThe Cape Roger Curtis development was almost the biggest thing to ever hit our island. However, at their April 20 meeting our council rescinded the bylaw that would have made the Neighbourhood Plan (NP) possible. The developers will now choose whether to apply for a rezoning that fits within our Official Community Plan with up [...]
Also tagged Cape Roger CurtisIn the world of municipal politics we are now entering the Silly Season. It is only a few months before the next municipal elections. This is the time when our local councillors look back over the last two and a half years and ahead to the next election in November. They think back to the commitments [...]
Also tagged Cape Roger Curtis, Municipal Politics, Surplus LandsThe more things change, the more they stay the same. I remember telling an old-timer 25 years ago that Bowen was about to explode. We had been discovered and, no matter how much effort went into slowing down progress a major population boom was just around the corner. He told me people had been telling [...]
Also tagged Cape Roger Curtis, Housing, Municipal Politics, Snug Cove