Association of Citizens for Summerland

Penticton Herald Editorial

2009-12-13T15:54:00.000-08:00

Citizens ask RCMP to investigate Summerland election donations

2009-12-13T00:24:00.000-08:00

The Vancouver Sun

Summerland News and Views

2009-12-13T00:21:00.000-08:00

Find a collection of recent news articles on the controversy surrounding the 2008 election in Summerland here.

Summerland Council In the News

2009-12-07T08:57:00.000-08:00

Summerland made the front page of the Vancouver Sun:

"Illegal donations mean Summerland has no legitimate council"

Election Questions

2008-10-13T21:06:00.000-07:00

Here are a few key questions it would be nice to ask every candidate.

According to Human Resources Development Canada, agricultural employment in the Thompson Okanagan grew from 5,500 employees in 2001 to 10,000 in 2005. This was the highest percentage rate of growth of any industry sector. Will you protect the ALR from development, and thus support our rapidly growing agriculture industry?

If elected will you put the needs and desires of existing Summerlanders ahead of the desires and demands of developers?

Kelowna's Development Cost Charges are approximately $20,000 more per home than Summerland's. If you are elected and, during your term, there is a need for additional taxes, will you increase Development Cost Charges or will you increase Property taxes?

Almost 1,500 taxpayers petitioned Council for a referendum vote on the sale of 300 acres of municipal lands to the Summerland Hills group. The petition was rejected by the existing Council. If you are elected, and you subsequently receive an equally large petition, will you support or oppose it?

Do you support or oppose the zoning change to allow seven storey buildings at Wharton Street?

Do you agree that no community, Summerland included, can grow and grow forever? If so, when in your opinion should Summerland stop growing? How large can Summerland become and yet retain its small town feel and quality of life?

Memo warned of issues with treatment plant

2008-09-02T16:11:00.000-07:00

A memo from the City of Penticton Water Quality Supervisor in May of 2005 warned Summerland Municipality of potential issues with the design chosen for our nineteen million dollar Water Treatment Plant. Specifically, this memo refers to the solids in our creek source water.

Our Mayor and Councillors are all long time Summerland residents, as well as much of the District Staff. Anyone who has lived here for a significant length of time knows that Trout Creek experiences turbidity, especially in the spring. How is it, then, that the Treatment Plant design chosen by our Municipality is not able to handle this? Even after warned by another City Water Supervisor, our Municipality chose to continue with this Treatment Plant design. Discussions must have taken place with regard to the solids and sludge. Was there ever a plan to deal with this issue?

It appears the taxpayers of Summerland have paid nineteen million dollars for Water Treatment Plant that only does the job for six months out of every year.

Wharton Street Development - Public Hearing

2008-03-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

WHARTON ST. PUBLIC HEARING

Amendments to the Zoning Bylaw and the Official Community Plan

7pm on Thursday, April 3, 2008
at Centre Stage Theatre,
9518 Main St. Summerland

Attend this Public Hearing to comment on this Landmark Development!

View more details on this Proposal!

Public Hearing - Summerland OCP Bylaw

2008-03-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

OFFICIAL COMMUNITY PLAN PUBLIC HEARING
7:00pm Tuesday, April 1, 2008
at Centre Stage Theatre
9518 Main St. Summerland

Attend this important public hearing to comment on the document which will direct future growth in Summerland.

Review the January 2008 Draft OCP !!

OCP Workbook Available Now

2006-12-05T16:16:00.000-08:00

The municipality has asked for input into Future Growth Areas for Summerland by way of a Summerland OCP Workbook. This Workbook is available for pick up at Municipal Hall or a printable copy is available here.

Completed Workbooks must be returned by December 15th.

The community will benefit from a wide perspective of thoughts and opinions. Please pick up your copy and return your comments by December 15th.

Upcoming Community Events

2006-11-22T23:22:00.000-08:00

Monday Nov 27, 10:00am at Council Chambers, Caroline Lamont from the BHA Planning Group will be presenting the latest draft of the Lowertown OCP.

Council is using the 1996 OCP as a template and is considering amending only three sections: Lowertown, Future Growth Areas and Downtown.

The progress on the Lowertown section to date has included public workshops, a draft Lowertown OCP amendment and one meeting of Council's input (so far).

Tuesday Nov 28 at the Arena at 6:30 pm Community Workshops on Future Growth Areas will be held. Council has also made a request for public comment on the possible use of a roundabout at the intersection of Rosedale/Prairie Valley/Wharton. This roundabout would have a greater turning radius than Penticton.

The community is encouraged to take the time to attend and give input into these issues.

Public Information Circular

2006-11-15T19:17:00.000-08:00

The Municipality of the District of Summerland has prepared a public information release to answer some of the questions which have been raised surrounding the sale of Muncipal lands and the upcoming Development Servicing Agreement with regard to the Summerland Hills Development Proposal. Read here...

Municipal Land Was Available for Anyone to Buy??

2006-10-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

Letter writer Buzz Smith, together with some former Councillors and at least two current Councillors, claim that the 300 acres of Municipal Land in North Prairie Valley was available to anyone to buy but only the Summerland Hills group came forward with a bid.
That is a distortion of the facts.
This parcel of land has never been advertised for sale. There was no proposal call, there was no advertising campaign requesting expressions of interest. What happened, we can only assume, was that one development group with local knowledge appoached Staff and the last Council with a proposal, and it took off from there.
How could developers without local connections have known that the property was available for sale?
When the proposed sale of the land to the Summerland Hills group became public knowledge (and before the land was taken out of the ALR) a local consortium with impeccable agricultural expertise and considerable financial backing made a proposal to purchase the land and use it for a vineyard, winery and agro-tourism project. They were told they were too late.
The crux of the matter is that this extremely valuable piece of real estate belongs to the people of Summerland, and if Council insists on selling it then at least it should be sold for the highest price possible. The normal way to get that highest price is to advertise extensively and solicit bids from every possible source, as any novice realtor knows.

Draft OCP Ignores Most Important Question

2006-10-08T20:25:00.000-07:00

Summerland's Draft OCP (like every other Okanagan OCP) sadly continues to ignore the most fundamental and difficult question, which is:- Growth cannot continue forever, that is a physical impossibility. so at what point must growth stop?

Do we just keep on growing until the Valley becomes an undesireable place to live and we run out of space and water? What kind of a third rate plan is that? If we want to preserve any of the qualities that brought us all here in the first place, we must address the question, "what is a realistic carrying capacity for the Okanagan Valley"? For example, pollution is mainly proportional to population density. How much pollution is tolerable in a valley with temperature inversions?

Okanagan OCPs only address the short term future - up to 20 years maximum. They plan for where to grow next. No Okanagan community has yet had the courage to come to grips with the basic problem of how much would be too much. We cannot ignore this question and just pass it along to our children and grandchildren to grapple with. By then it will be too late.

Our population is increasing at an ever accelerating rate, due to the inevitability of that darling of financial planners, compound growth. Instead of just letting our population accelerate along a rising curve, which is stupid to the point of imbecility, population growth should slowly taper off to nothing over many years so we end up with a steady state, sustainable economy and population level and no economic shockwave.

No doubt yet another person will cry "you can't shut the gates to newcomers!" May I remind that person that over the past 10 years 1,400 Summerlanders have died and a far greater number have moved away. Thousands have moved in to replace them. A steady state population still allows for lots of folk to move here every year. Only half of the folks in town today lived here 10 to 12 years ago. "Shutting the gates" is a nonsense. If we really did shut the gates Summerland would almost be a ghost town within 30 years or so. No one advocates that.

Council votes to discuss a Referendum

2006-09-25T21:26:00.000-07:00

Your Association of Citizens for Summerland formally presented the signed Petition to Council at the September 25th meeting. Speakers at the meeting were Amie Harbor, Michael Cooke and Gordon Boothe. Here is the verbatem presentation by Amie Harbor, Association Director:

Thank-you for the opportunity to address Council on this important issue. The Association of Citizens’ Petition as circulated, read as follows: The District of Summerland owns approximately 300 acres of land which has been identified for use by the Summerland Hills Resort and Housing Development. I, the undersigned, request that Summerland Municipal Council present to the voters of Summerland, through full referendum, the opportunity to support or reject the sale of our publicly owned land for this development. A referendum to ascertain the wishes of the majority of residents should end the division within our community regarding this project.

We are here tonight to present to you 1386 petition signatures. These are your friends and neighbours. These are the people who elected you. This number represents 33% of active voters and more than double the number of signatures required to bring an Alternative Approval Process to a full Referendum. We have accomplished this in a short time, with little publicity, and using only volunteer commitments. Whereas little interest was shown in the dated 1996 OCP document, there is unprecedented public interest now. Nearly 1400 residents are asking you for the opportunity to vote on the sale of their land for this project.

Information, discussion and debate surrounding this Municipal land sale has been scarce. We found many residents to be unaware that the development involves so much public land. The developers have done a good job publicizing and promoting their project, so good in fact, that much of the community believes it to be a done deal already. Why do we need to depend on paid advertising or Letters to the Editor for information about this mega project? Our community deserves a balanced and factual account of the issues, including true costs and realistic projections of what it might take to see this proposal become a reality publicized by Municipal Hall itself. With this information in hand, residents could decide whether or not to be supportive.

A referendum or plebiscite will encourage discussion of the facts. What is the true value of this land? Why is this the best choice for our public land? Fourteen hundred residents are asking you for this information and the opportunity to vote.Our Association is asking you to value citizen involvement in your decision making process. This 300 acre parcel of land is owned by the taxpayers of Summerland and the monumental decision now faced by six Council members and Mayor will affect every single resident of our community, today and into the future. We are requesting that a Notice of Motion be tabled tonight, asking that “a referendum question on the Municipal land sale for resort and housing purposes be posed to the community.” The best decision you could make tonight is to give the residents of Summerland a voice on this issue.

Council voted to discuss the option of posing a referendum question on the Municipal land sale at the November 14th meeting.

Citizen's Association Press Release

2006-09-07T10:29:00.000-07:00

In response to public concern, the Association of Citizens for Summerland has initiated a petition calling for a referendum to gauge public sentiment before Council moves further on the Summerland Hills Golf Resort and Housing Development.

Last month’s public hearing on the Neighbourhood Plan for this project revealed a community divided. Council itself was also split during discussion and vote on this Plan, specifically with regard to affordable housing initiatives and the use of the Municipal Land.

During the Municipal elections last year, the City of Penticton posed a referendum question on the intended use of city owned land near Munson Mountain. The Association of Citizens for Summerland hopes their Council will follow suit and allow the community to cast a vote on whether 298 acres of Municipal Land should be sold, without any competitive bidding process, for this 780 million dollar project.

Amie Harbor, a director with the Citizens’ Association comments, “Because this is the last large piece of land held by the Municipality, and the consequences of this sale will be far reaching, the decision should not be made by Mayor and Council alone. Does the community support selling this parcel of land for this project? A referendum will settle the issue in the public’s mind.”

Director Gary Strachan adds, “The residential component of this project will involve significant costs to the community, including an additional water source and treatment plant, a new electrical substation and considerable road improvements. Any future borrowing for these projects would need to be brought before the public through an approval process, so why not ask the community up front if they are in support?”

The ACS is well underway collecting signatures for the Petition. They will be setting up signing stations in downtown Summerland over the next few week-ends as well as at the Summerland Fall Fair.
Diane Northcote, Association Treasurer comments, “If the developers truly believe the community is in support of using our Municipal land for their project, I invite them to support our initiative for a referendum.”

REFERENDUM PETITION UPDATE

2006-09-05T22:29:00.000-07:00

Completed petition forms are coming in thick and fast, and to date (5th September) we have just passed the 1,000 signatures mark. All signees declare that they are Summerland residents, over the age of 18, and registered voters.
In other words, roughly 15% of all eligible voters in Summerland have already signed.
At the Provincial level if 10% of voters sign a petition the Government is obliged by law to act upon it. If this was a Provincial matter we would be far in excess of the required number of signatures. Sadly no such legislation exists at the Municipal level - so Association members will continue to collect signatures. Look out for the booth at the Fall Fair.
The most surprising and gratifying fact coming to light is that the overwhelming majority of Summerlanders support this petition - very few people object or decline to sign. The Association has always felt this to be the case but it is so nice to see the proof.
In the light of the results we are seeing, how could Council possibly refuse to give voters a say via a referendum?

Petition for a Referendum

2006-08-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

The Association of Citizens for Summerland has initiated a petition asking Council to hold a general Referendum to guage support for the sale of approximately 300 acres of Muncipal land to the Summerland Hills Golf Resort and Housing Development.

Signing stations will be set up in Downtown Summerland on the week-ends of August 26th and 27th, September 2nd and 3rd, and at the Summerland Fall Fair on September 8th thru 10th.

We encourage residents to support this initiative, as a referendum would help to end the division in our community regarding this issue.

A REFERENDUM is warranted

2006-08-18T11:36:00.000-07:00

We don't all have to agree on what the eventual use of the municipal property might be. The municipality's intention to sell the entire 298 acre piece to one developer with no competitive bidding process and very little public input is the issue at hand. With this as the current direction of Council, a referendum is warranted, to gauge if the public is in support of this decision.

Here are some facts regarding the municipally owned land and some of the history to this point.

The 300 acre municipal land parcel has NOT yet been sold to thisdeveloper. The recent OCP amendment and Neighbourhood Plan approval in no way commits the Muncipality to selling this land parcel to this developer.

The sale of municipal land should go through a competitive biddingprocess to ensure the best deal for the taxpayer.

A serious agri-tourism proposal was submitted to the muncipality for this land in 2005.
During the 2005 Municipal elections, the city of Penticton posed areferendum question on the intended use of City owned land near MunsonMountain to determine if the community supported a ball park project.

The Summerland Hills Development, requiring 300 acres of Municipal Land, is a 780 million dollar project with a build-out population increase equalling the current size of Peachland.

Alternative uses for this land, with equal social and economic benefitand far less infrastructure costs, have not explored or considered.

The "alternative uses" comment points to the fact that, now that Council has decided to grow out in this direction, there has not been serious consideration given to any other plan than that of sale to and amalgamation with this 1000 acre resort development. If this land were opened to other bidders, an alternative use or alternative bidder might propose a tourist winery development, or an affordable housing initiative, or an agricultural university campus or any combination of uses. In fact, the 1988 North Prairie Valley Concept Plan by the RDOS had advocated sale for small holdings (2-5 acre) with rural designation. There are many possibilities. This area has long been designated as future growth. But with Municipally owned land, it should be a question of choice to ascertain the best and highest benefit for the entire community. Different ideas, choices or designs have not been compared and contrasted in a cost versus benefit manner.

Should this land be sold in this way for this development? This should be asked of our community.

A thought provoking letter re: Summerland Hills

2006-06-25T20:09:00.000-07:00

Dear Mayor Gregory,

I am a Summerland resident who has no vested interest in whether or not the new town proposal for Summerland Hills proceeds as an investment initiative. I have carefully considered the implications of the proposal and I feel strongly that the proposed new town should not be incorporated into our Official Community Plan.

In the short term there will be a handful of people who will strongly benefit from the proposed new town. The developers and some contractors will earn millions of dollars, but there will be no immediate benefit for the average Summerland resident. There will be moderate short term and heavy long term costs to the Summerland community. If we proceed, it will be too late to turn back when we are all affected by the long term costs.

We will have immediate bragging rights about the project. It will be flashy. There will be construction jobs. There will be tax revenues. Unfortunately, residential tax revenues typically do not offset the service costs. Unless the developer is levied with a huge initial cost, the eventual infrastructure costs will have to be borne by an overall increase in property and business taxes for Summerland. CMHC has estimated the infrastucture cost per housing unit to be approximately $40,000 per household, even in a large, efficiently operated development such as their Ottawa Carlton study.

Golf courses typically require the financial support of development profits from the community which surrounds the course. User revenue is usually inadequate to cover either long term capital development costs or short term operating costs. This means that in the long term, after the developers have taken their profits and gone, the community will have to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to maintain and operate a golf course in the new town.

We are presently (June 2006) in Summerland Stage one water restrictions at the end of an unusually wet spring season. The recent Thirsk Dam project contains no excess capacity for expanded water use in Summerland. It is barely adequate for present water use.

Climate change is no longer a hypothesis. It is reality. The Trout Creek water resource has been carefully studied and has been projected to decline in volume and to peak earlier in the spring. Water demand is projected to increase for both agricultural and domestic consumption. Summerland’s present requirement is barely being met by the Trout Creek system, therefore future expansion of water supply must be drawn from Okanagan Lake.

We will all be affected in the event of a water shortage, not just the new town. The lake as a water source is limited. In the event of a water deficit, it is the most recently allocated licences such as a new Summerland application that would be withdrawn to provide priority supply to older licences, such as Oliver and Kelowna. If Summerland were to expand their water supply by acquiring a new licence to pump from the lake, it would not only be the new town, but all of Summerland who would be rationed for water when the pumping licence is withdrawn. The declining Trout Creek resource will be the only water source for Summerland, when the Okanagan Lake licence is cancelled.. With climate change and population expansion in the Okanagan, valley wide water deficits are projected to occur within the proposed development duration of the new town. It will likely be impossible to complete the new town, even if it is approved.

The Summerland Hills developers have cleverly and successfully divided Summerland residents by proposing a controversial, attractive, modern, new town for the area. Their studies have not addressed the complete costs and eventual consequences of their actions. On examination, a new town centre for Summerland will create more problems than benefits.

I have only a vested interest as a resident of the community in which I live. I am not a NIMBY.

The developers have a vested interest in earning millions of dollars at our expense. If there is such a high priority to be placed on a new town, it should also be viable if placed into an undeveloped region with no infrastucture. In that event, the developer would be forced to pay the complete cost of establishing and operating the town, rather than paying for part of the cost and then transferring the long range costs and consequences to an existing community.

Sincerely,

Gary Strachan, BSA, SM

Costs of Community Services

2006-06-15T23:24:00.000-07:00

A Canadian Study

There has been a lot of research on Costs of Community Services in the United States in an attempt to better understand the implications of land use decisions. Here in Summerland, with regard to the Summerland Hills Golf Course and HOUSING DEVELOPMENT, it has been repeatedly said that municipal tax revenues will be bolstered by this project. Now a Canadian Study has just been completed revealing that, in Canada as well, Residential Developments do not pay for themselves. The city of Red Deer Alberta conducted this study and found that for every dollar of tax revenue collected, between $1.66 and $1.81 was spent on servicing that residential unit. The citizens of Summerland need to think long and hard about this figure, considering the substantial infrastructure implications association with the Summerland Hills Development Proposal. Do you like this proposal enough to subsidize it well into the future with your tax dollars?

Smart Growth and Regional Carrying Capacity

2006-06-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

What follows is a precis of an article called "Smart Growth: The Role of Carrying Capacity in Regional Planning" by Stuart M. Flashman, Ph.D., J.D.

Over the past several years, a new catch phrase has sprung up in the environmental community: “smart growth”. It arose as environmentalists struggled to find an attractive alternative to the low-density auto-oriented development that has become endemic to North American suburban areas. The latter is often popularly referred to as “suburban sprawl”.

What is smart growth? It is an attempt to direct growth into less environmentally damaging avenues. Thus, smart growth favors “infill” development (i.e., development within already urbanized areas) instead of development of previously undeveloped areas (Prairie Valley? - ed). Smart growth tries to minimize the increase in demand for limited resources, such as water, by promoting development that uses less of those resources.

Environmental groups, most notably the Sierra Club, have launched a major campaign in support of smart growth. The basic idea is that North America has been foolishly squandering its environmental resources on an inefficient form of development. The campaign appears to be paying off. Governmental agencies have begun to discuss smart growth as a better way to accommodate expected increases in population.
However, the success of the smart growth movement only serves to highlight what it fails to address – the long-term question of how much growth a region can reasonably accommodate. This issue has often been referred to as regional carrying capacity.

While regional carrying capacity has many components, the single most important is infrastructure – the various components needed to keep a human population supplied and functional. Among the major modern infrastructure components are water supply, treatment and distribution, wastewater collection, treatment, and disposal, solid waste disposal, energy supply and distribution, roadways, and public mass transit. Other components that tend to be less limiting, at least in terms of physical facilities, include education, public safety, and recreational facilities.

Most of the current discussion of smart growth takes the projected amount of future growth as a given. There is little discussion of what can or should be done to limit the amount of future population growth in a region. Yet, the amount of growth that will occur in a region is certainly affected by a variety of factors, including employment growth, the local economy, cost of living, availability of trained workforce, and availability of necessary infrastructure. Sadly, infrastructure limits have often failed to control growth

Part of the reason infrastructure limits have failed to control growth may be that such limits are often hidden. Thus, for example, water agencies are usually required to issue “will serve” letters before a development project is built. These letters are supposed to ensure that the water agency has sufficient supply and facilities to serve the new development. However, water agencies routinely issue will serve letters based on supplies and facilities that are only projected. The same often holds true for wastewater treatment and disposal. Other infrastructure components, such as roads and public transit, do not require any kind of review and approval prior to development approval, other than the general discussion that occurs during the environmental review process. More often than not, this process is seen as just one more hoop to be jumped through to get to development approval. Thus, Environmental Impact Reports all too often contain flawed or cursory analyses of traffic (and other) impacts.

As a result, development often ends up straining the capacity of the agencies responsible for infrastructure. Thus, development in the Santa Rosa area north of San Francisco has repeatedly outstripped sewage treatment capacity, resulting in overflows of raw sewage into the Russian River. Similarly, the inability of water supplies to keep pace with urban and suburban growth has contributed to California’s more and more frequent “water shortage emergencies”.
Recently, and for the first time, the California legislature has acknowledged the folly of cities and counties approving development projects while closing their collective eyes to the inadequacy of infrastructure to support those projects.

It should be obvious from the above discussion that without consideration of carrying capacity, such “smart growth” plans are little more than an exercise in Pollyanna planning, with little connection to what really will happen over the next twenty years. Indeed, if San Fransisco Bay Area planning efforts continue as currently envisaged, the most likely result is that far before their build-out is complete, Bay Area development will grind to a halt, stymied by the inadequacy of available infrastructure. The economic cost of such an unplanned economic “train wreck” will be colossal -- far greater than if carrying capacity had been taken into account and a gradual transition to a steady-state regional population and economy took place

The Perfect Project for Summerland – 14 Tests.

2006-06-12T19:52:00.000-07:00

The document that follows was delivered to the Mayor and every Councillor, as part of a package from the Association.

The Perfect Project for Summerland – 14 Tests.

The following questions could be used to determine the net benefit (or otherwise!) of a project to Summerland and Summerlanders.

1. Design and Financing: Does the project have an excellent design and is it well financed?
2. Compliance: Does the project comply with the letter and the spirit of the OCP?
3. Highest and Best Use: Does the proposal represent the highest and best use for the location and piece of property in question?
4. Smart Growth: How well does the proposed project comply with Smart Growth principles? Does the project reflect Smart Growth principles for Summerland?
5. Growth Rate: Does the project meet the wish of citizens to limit the population growth rate to a maximum of 2% per annum?
6. Quality of Life: What will the impact of the project be on the quality of life of most citizens?
7. Future Capital Expenditures: Will all consequent long-term capital project expenditures be financed directly by the project or by DCCs, and not by future property tax surcharges or increases?
8. Municipal Operating Costs: Will the project result in substantially increased operating costs for the municipality, and if so will the property taxes received from the project fully cover those costs?
9. Existing Infrastructure: Will the project make best use of existing infrastructure? Is it located within the sewer specified area?
10. Employment Ratio Impact: Will the project have a net positive impact on Summerland’s employment ratio, and will the jobs be skilled, well paid positions?
11. Downtown Benefits: How much will the project benefit the downtown business district, when compared to alternative but similar projects?
12. Affordable housing: If it is a residential development, does the project have an affordable housing component suitable for low-income households?
13. Parks: Will the project improve (or at a minimum maintain) the population to parks acreage ratio?
14. Adherence to Proposal: What likelihood or guarantees are there that the project will be completed as proposed, and by the proponents?

Planning and Summerland Hills

2006-06-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

Dear Mayor Gregory and Councillors,

Re: Planning and Growth Concerns, and the Proposal to Incorporate the Summerland Hills Plan into the New OCP

We are concerned that the evaluation of proposed projects for Summerland has not in the past been done on a sufficiently comprehensive basis, and so we have developed a suggested set of Planning Criteria. We have applied these criteria to the Summerland Hills proposal. A copy of the suggested criteria plus the application of them to the Summerland Hills development is included in the attached document. We ask you to give this work due consideration.

We are very concerned about the proposal to incorporate the Summerland Hills design into the New OCP for Summerland. In our view this plan does not represent progress for Summerland. Rather, we see it as a retrograde step that will steer the community away from steady, efficient and compact growth, and towards rapid and expensive sprawl. Further, we believe that the long-term consequential costs of this development will impose a severe financial burden on Summerlanders in the future. We ask you not to incorporate the SH plan into the new OCP.

We would ask you to also consider the following points before approving any major planning change or development for Summerland.

Summerland desperately requires that a fund to be established to finance future infrastructure when population growth demands it. This should come from DCCs. Current residents should not have to raise money on demand, when the need for infrastructure was created by developers who will have taken their profits and departed. Increased DCCs would be an incentive for quality development, and may also assist the municipality to maintain control of the growth rate.

We have a problem of declining air quality. During the spring and fall burning seasons, the air clearance index must be consulted on a daily basis for any major burns, and there are many times when there are temperature inversions or quiescent air. Any pollutants such as wood smoke or vehicle exhaust remain trapped. The increased population will not limit pollutants to burning season and cannot be expected to shut down when the clearance index is low. We can expect to have higher incidence of respiratory illness and asthma throughout the valley, directly related to population growth. We are not on a flat plain or in a maritime zone. We are in a deep mountain valley that is protected by inversions through many months of the year. It is the inversions and cloud cover that protect our fruit industry from winter low temperature injury but they also trap pollutants and particulates.

Our water supply is also a major concern. Climate change studies are shifting into high gear and Summerland would be foolish to grow quickly when making promises on water licenses and allocation. Runoff will decline and will occur earlier in the season, and the demand will increase both for agricultural and domestic consumption. Extrapolated conclusions are always risky, but the trend is very real and if we commit to serve an expanded population with inadequate assurance of a water supply, it will be a very costly mistake. We must have a drought management plan that deals with new development. If we go into a drought situation the insurance companies which sell to home owners and the agricultural community need to be assured of adequate water available during peak irrigation periods and fire season. The two go hand in hand

We are willing to meet with you at a time of your convenience to discuss these thoughts further.

Yours Sincerely - Board Members

Two Upcoming Meetings

2006-04-09T22:17:00.000-07:00

A Start-up Meeting for the Review and Update of the
District of Summerland’s Official Community Plan

Thursday April 20, 2006
Banquet Hall 8820 Jubilee Road East
6:30 pm - 8:30 pm

The community is invited to set aside a few hours on the evening of April 20th to get together with neighbours and participate in discussions concerning the future of Summerland.

The meeting format will be as follows:

6:30 - 7:00 pm Open House
(a series of displays summarizing the current status and possible directions for the future of Summerland)
7:00 - 7:15 pm Mayor Welcome with Staff and Consultant Team Presentations
7:15 - 8:30 pm Rotating Community Workshops (focusing on specific > community issues)

++++++++++

Public Open House
for the South Okanagan Regional Growth Strategy:

Thursday, April 27th
from 4:30-7:30pm at the Arena Banquet Room.

The Downtown

2006-02-02T21:53:00.000-08:00

Smart Growth principle #1 states "Mix land uses - neighbourhoods have a mixture of homes, retail businesses, recreational opportunities, etc."

Two Summerland specific questions were asked. "What practical actions could we take to encourage the re-development of our downtown core to include mixed retail/residential buildings?"

Encourage Urban growth and containment rather than sprawl.
Define a downtown development area
Introduce incentive policies for downtown redevelopment, e.g. tax breaks, zoning bonuses.
Review fire and licencing restrictions.
Support downtown businesses to create favorable business conditions
Encourage the formation of business cooperatives to assemble land parcels large enough to make mixed higher density development possible and economical
Provide for a mixture of spaces (residential and commercial) including smaller spaces to make rents affordable
Clean up the backside of buildings, especcially along Wharton Street, to improve the ambience of downtown
Expand the downtown improvement theme e.g. trees, street lamps, brick pavers to neighbouring and connecting areas
Make the downtown more pedestrian and scooter friendly
Develop people places, e.g. plazas

The second Summerland related question was "What forms of mixed use should be encouraged for Lower Town?"

Comments on this topic were:

Respect and maintain viewscapes - concern about unsuitable buildings.
Better trail/pedestrian connections to down town.
Perhaps some small tourist/boutique commerical.