More on Chamber & Contractors meeting

            Some details on the meeting last weeek. The Chamber was concerned that the Area F OCP is freezing development in Scotch Creek. Some of the concern is there is no action on provision of community utilities (water & sewage). The Chamber is as well concerned that the CSRD is basing bylaws on faulty science, that there is other opinions and reports that disagree with the current DFO information which has resulted on restrictions and allowances of development along the lake.

There is a need for boat launches in the area to allow accesses for those people who do not have property along the lake. Yet the Park study on boat launches allows only for 2 sites and both inadequate in s practical sense. DFO map on Char/Sockeye spawning areas is very suspect(where they spawn in the marina area). Apparently Char spawn around 341.0 4 metres below lake level so  how does a boat launch affect them? There is no mention of management options like when they could be used. Such as; Kamloops closes boat launches during high water to prevent erosion and impact on fish, could this not also be done pn the Shuswap. Our response from the CSRD is we have no way of qualifying who is right in the fish science department. We are the small fry in this instance and must take our direction from DFO there is no ability to argue the whys.

Development Permit concerns; the Chamber recommended that the CSRD maintain a roster of qualified RAR QEP’s, Wildfire Behavior Specialists, Geotechnical Engineers qualified to do slope hazard assessments, and hydrologists. We at CSRD cannot do this because we do not want to be endorsing certain specialists (what if we did not think they were good). We would prefer that a link be given to the associations attached to those professionals.

The Chamber also recommended that the CSRD staff implement development application time tracking and publish the results.  To be fair to staff it needs to track processing time for applications that are complete.  As an example, it could look like this for development permits:

                                                                          i.      Date application submitted

                                                                        ii.      Date CSRD staff request for missing documentation (if applicable)

                                                                      iii.      Date any missing documentation supplied (if applicable)

                                                                      iv.      Date reviewed by Board (if required)

                                                                        v.      Date DP issued

The CAO thought this would be a good idea and would look into seeing if this could be done.

The Chamber feels that RAR is bad legislation; and requested that the CSRD lobby government through UBCM for more reasonable, science based rules. It is unlikely the Board would support such a recommendation and there are changes coming about to deal with  RAR.

With limited ability of Board to move applications through the system quickly because of; the lag time between APC and the board meetings. Could the Board meet more frequently to help alleviate concerns over delays?  The costs of having more Board meetings is very high and finding meeting times for staff and Board members is difficult. The CSRD are much more open to include new items to the agenda(if it fits in the 7 to 10 window before the Board meeting).