City’s OCP going to pot?
Dear Editor:
Why is West Kelowna council altering a zoning bylaw for a possible cannabis grow operation in Kyle Court?
There is no grow-op applicant at this time. That there might be is moot, though likely. But why is the council so ready to bend its bylaws for an unknown future marijuana development?
Official Community Plans exist for a purpose: to be followed. Why do communities create them, only to go around them or nullify them or ignore them, especially when these distortions of the plan are not in the public interest, but rather in the interests of special interest groups or individuals who will increase their wealth as a result? Well, for the tax revenue, of course. And because these special interest people are friends of those who can change the bylaws to give their friends a special advantage.
This is no murky water. This a flat abrogation of responsibility. This is a clear violation of public trust and accountability. This is just plain wrong. It reminds us of the newly intended city hall, voted down in civic referendum not so long ago. This new edifice will arise, if it does, without public input. The council has discovered another way to circumvent public policy and its usual rules to again spit in the face of the voters, voters who will surely remove them from office, should their memories be long enough. One can only hope they will be.
The buildings which may house a new grow-op are already under construction. There will be six; any or all of which could be used by the grow operators, should they surface, even though, according to community rules, this should be a multi-tenanted site.
That it is nervously close to Brookhaven Care Home has been neatly taken care of by a spurious technicality.
Although the borders of each are within 110 metres of each other (150 metres being the legal minimum), the council is using the fact of the actual buildings being far enough away from the boundaries for the new site to be licit. And the fact that there are trees between the two sites is apparently a sufficient odour filter should the distancing still be prohibitive
West Kelowna voters should flood the media and the council with letters and emails and phone calls of protest against this egregious distortion of our bylaws.
Lee Karvonen, West Kelowna