Peachtree hearing not exactly fair

Editor:

On Jan. 30 approximately 350 Peachland citizens attended one of the largest meetings ever held in their community.

Based on a show of hands, an overwhelming majority of those in attendance were against the attempt of the mayor and council to drastically amend the official community plan (OCP).

The current OCP calls for a maximum of three storeys on Beach Avenue. If the mayor and council force upon the community their preconceived scheme, the maximum storeys will go to five or even more. This will be an arbitrary and discriminatory attempt to negate the wishes of the community.

Furthermore, it was seen as a lastditch attempt to thwart the court petition undertaken by a citizens group, the Friends of Beach Avenue.

The meeting set up by the mayor and council was a denial of natural justice for the following reasons:

• The mayor chaired the meeting even though she is on record of being in favour of the developer’s 5-storey scheme.

• The mayor gave to the developer an unfettered opportunity to sell again his five-storey plan.

• The Friends of Beach Avenue, an established society under the Societies Act, was not given any time on the agenda to reply to the developer’s selfserving bid.

• The mayor cut off individual speakers in favour of the established OCP after only three minutes of speaking time. There were almost 70 speakers who went to the microphone and spoke against the five-storey development

• The mayor allowed the developer’s wife, who is in fact also the developer, to double up their time in favour of their five-storey scheme. There were only about a half dozen such speakers in favour of the development. Many of these speakers had a real, apparent or potential conflict of interest.

The mayor announced that the Feb. 13 council meeting will decide the fate of the current OCP and that such meeting will be limited to only 47 public attendees. This limit is to be enforced by contracted security personnel. Here’s hoping that the mayor and council will listen to its citizens.

Lloyd Stinson Sotas, Peachland