City Council Preview, Monday, September 14, 2015

As we noted last week on the blog, the rest of September is shaping up to be a very busy one for members of Prince Rupert City Council and the surge in work on the horizon begins with a fairly full evening ahead for tonight's schedule of Council activities.

In addition to the Regular Council session on the evening, Council members will also convene a Public Hearing, where residents of the City will have an opportunity to comment on the proposed rezoning plans for the Masonic Hall on Sixth Avenue, that rezoning if approved, would allow for a Prince Rupert furniture store to use a portion of the hall for storage.

The Committee of the Whole session also will provide opportunities for the public to review an update on the city owned Legacy Corporation and offer comments should they have items that they wish to discuss regarding the city's efforts on that file.

As well, a portion of the Committee of the Whole session also is reserved for members of the public to raise any issue of concern that they may have, or draw attention of Council to items that they wish to bring up.

When Council gets to work on its Regular Agenda for the evening, the main focus of the Regular Council session will be on a number of applications for Development variations, Zoning Bylaw amendments and another review of the Permissive Property Tax Exemption Bylaw.

As well, Council will hold a discussion on the latest efforts from the Housing committee.

The full review of the evening ahead can be found from the Regular Council Agenda for September 14, 2015

Prior to the Regular Council session, Council members will conduct a Closed Session at 5 PM, where they will hold discussions related to two topics that Council believes requires the exclusion of the public :

the acquisition, disposition or expropriation of land or improvements, if the council considers that disclosure could reasonably be expected to harm the interests of the municipality;

and

 negotiations and related discussions respecting the proposed provision of a municipal service that are at their preliminary stages and that, in the view of the council, could reasonably be expected to harm the interests of the municipality if they were held in public.

Below we'll highlight the different elements of this evenings work from the Regular session Agenda, for further background on each item, the page number from the Agenda is listed in red.

The evening begins with the Public Hearing on the zoning of the Masonic Hall.

That is followed by the Committee of the Whole session, featuring the Legacy Corporation update and public comment opportunities.

The Regular  Council session starts off with the adoption of agendas and minutes.

Petitions and Delegations

Any Unfinished Business is then up next on the Agenda.

Followed by Reports and Recommendations

Report from the City Planner -- A Development Variation Permit for a property on Prince Rupert Boulevard heads towards the Public Notification stage  (see page 8 of the Agenda Package)

Report from the City Planner -- Application for a Development Variance Permit for a property on Atlin Avenue --  Council will consider the recommendation to send the  process on to the approval stage ( see page 19 of the Agenda Package)

Requests follow next in the night's timeline.

Followed by any late Correspondences for Action

Resolutions from Closed meetings and Resolutions from Closed Meetings

Bylaws mark the next item of the Agenda on the night.

Report from the City Planner -- Regarding a Proposal to Use a Portion of the Masonic Lodge at 180 -6th Avenue for storage -- With the Public Hearing having been completed prior to the council session, Council members will then discuss and consider the recommendation for Third Reading and adopting of the amendment bylaw (see page 40 of the Agenda Package)

Report from the Chief Financial Officer -- Regarding the Permissive Property Tax Exemption Bylaw -- Council will review the details of the report and then discuss and consider the recommendation to provide First, Second and Third realigns to the Bylaw ( see page 44 of the Agenda Package)

The evening then wraps up with Additional Items from Council members, as well as Reports, Questions and inquiries from Members of Council.

On the latter theme, Council members have indicated that more discussion related to the City's Housing Committee will take place at this time.

The Live broadcast of the City Council session can be found here, a video archive of past sessions is available here.

Our Archive of the September 14th session can be found here.

While our archive of all sessions of 2015  for council  is available here.