After a three-hour public hearing on Tuesday night, where councillors got an earful from local environmental groups, Kelowna city council voted to extend the public hearing period for the McKinley Beach development proposal until August 24.
“This is death by a thousand cuts,” Tom Warshawski told council during the meeting.
“We are continuously making concessions to developers; they’re nice people which deviate from our climate action plan.”
“It is specifically this type of poor development planning that will continue to increase our carbon footprint,” May Ann Olson-Russello told council.
Olson-Russello was just one of many concerned citizens who came forward to voice opposition to McKinley Beach’s latest development application.
“We would like to see you hit the pause button on this,” said David Jenkins from the Okanagan Sustainability Leadership Council.
Council was asked over and over to put off any application approval until a new environmental impact assessment could be done.
“Defer this decision and get more information so we can have an informed conversation about the benefits and impacts of a project like this,” Shayne Meechan said.
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Meechan is the executive director of Green Okanagan, a group dedicated to sustainability in the Okanagan.
Kelowna city councillor Loyal Wooldridge wasn’t surprised by Tuesday night’s vocal opposition.
“These types of decisions warrant this level of public scrutiny,” Wooldridge told Global News.
“I think the public was very clear last night that there was more information that was needed,”.
During the lengthy public hearing, the developer from McKinley Beach gave a presentation to city council and was there to answer questions.
“The planning on these lands to date has incorporated a detailed analysis and an avoidance of both steep slopes and environmentally sensitive areas,” Andrew Gaucher of GGroup Development told council.
But after three hours of public scrutiny, councillor Wooldridge said council was forced to defer its decision — the application is asking the city to amend the Official Community Plan, rezone portions of the property and extend boundaries in exchange for a park.
But it was a procedural error that forced council’s hand not, public opposition.
“It came to our attention that people who requested the traffic impact study were not granted those,” Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran said.
“I don’t think it was malicious; it was just an honest mistake.”
As a result, the public hearing period will remain open until Aug. 24, when council will revisit the application.
However, environmental groups say they won’t be looking for a deferral anymore.
“We’re going to ask them not to approve this project,” Meechan said.
“The developer made it very clear that they are able to get the unity density of 1,300 units into their existing footprint. There isn’t a need to expand to this additional acreage.”