Town council selling out for Peachtree

Editor.

When Peachland town council passed third reading on the Peachtree Village development proposal, they abandoned their commitment to provide law, order and good government to engage in a development binge, hoping to generate desperately needed tax revenues to pay some nasty bills that continue to accumulate as they have abandoned the Official Community Plan (OCP) and common sense.

InÀll development in the downtown area must be done as defined by the Beach Avenue Neighbourhood Plan (online at: peachland.civicweb.net/filepro/documents/6977?preview=8677). It is a well thought out and researched document that will protect our precious and priceless downtown area.

The massive Ponderosa project is a huge monkey on the back of a very small administration and requires a lot of hard work to make sure that the city is in the driver’s seat of this development.

Peachland is not ready to tackle an $18-million water treatment plant at this point in time, let alone a massive $55.4 million water master plan (available online at: peachland.ca/cms/wpattachments/wpID726atID1985.pdf).

And the Monaco project with no access and no water must be put on ice for many years.

When Peachland city council voted six to one to abandon the OCP, not only were they violating some of our bylaws, they also violated the spirit and intent of the OCP as a very important development template, and deÀed the people’s democratic rights to determine how they want their city to grow and develop.

To abandon that sets a radical and unacceptable precedent.

The Peachtree Village proposal not only deÀes a number of by-laws, it defies common sense. Imagine – about eight businesses and 12 residences with virtually zero parking and a structure completely out of character with the downtown area.

And no – we will not get used to it. Andy Thomsen, Peachland