City may be plotting new legislation to get around possible court defeat
Editor: The issue of the proposed Tourism Kelowna visitor centre just not seem to die.
A number of citizens continue to write and call the mayor and council challenging the legality of official community plan and land-use zoning amendments.
Letters to the editors of local media outlets persist and the topic remains hot on the internet forums and chat pages.
Advocacy groups have been staging organizing meetings, gaining more and more traction — evident through the growth in the size of the meetings.
Despite the protests, the city continues marching forward and, as a result, it is looking increasingly as though this will end up in the courts sooner rather than later.
Should the courts determine that the citizens are correct that the city acted illegally in rezoning land without approval of the electors, the city has an option available to them to void any court ruling.
This option is to make application to the province for a new law to be passed under the Municipal Enabling and Validating Act.
What this would do would be to invalidate any court judgment against the city.
The tactic has been employed previously by the Resort Municipality of Whistler after losing a rezoning court case.
In Lambert v. Resort Municipality of Whistler, et. al., 2004 BCSC 342, after losing, the municipality concluded negotiations with the province for enactment of the new legislation, thereby voiding the challenge victory.
There was some evidence to suggest that Whistler was actually negotiating the implementation of that law even before the conclusion of the original court battle.
Learning from that case, it is possible the City of Kelowna is in negotiations with the province at this point to have a similar law passed if a challenge to the proposed zoning is successful.
With a provincial election imminent, it is unlikely the province will pass this new law now, especially where it is in the premier’s home riding.
However, after the election, all bets are off unless enough citizens write or call Premier Christy Clark at 250-768-8426 or premier@gov.bc.ca asking for her election promise to not entertain the passing of a new law under the Municipal Enabling and Validating Act. Jim McMullan, Kelowna