Public should be included in development plan

Editior: On Monday, Kelowna council authorized city staff to pursue planning to develop the lakeshore between Mission Creek and Rotary Beach.

Council intends to plan the foreshore and riparian areas along this section of the lake much like it planned the Tourist Centre project in Kerry Park and the reduction of parkland at Gyro Beach — without meaningful public consultation and input from public interest groups and federal agencies.

The only stakeholders participating in this plan are developers, land owners, provincial officials and city staff, all of whom have special interests in seeing the area develop with higher density, increased land values, an increased tax base and, with more tourists, marinas and power boats in the area.

Most importantly, they also want public money to pay for the project and they want to ignore the impacts the plan has on the aquatic ecosystem, fish and public foreshore uses along this stretch of beach.

If council wanted to plan this correctly, they would have advocated for the inclusion of local taxpayers and neighbourhood, environmental, kite boarding, boating, beach users and foreshore access advocacy groups from the planning process.

Unlike private developers and landowners, these public groups have a vested interests to ensure shoreline development meets long-term goals for public uses.

Council needs to revisit its decision and to include meaningful public consultation with public user groups to ensure this shoreline plan includes multiple public uses without impacting taxpayers. Richard Drinnan, Kelowna