Thursday, June 2, 2016

City's process of implementing Land Use policies begins to line up


City Planner Zeno Krekic made two
presentations on bylaw items related
to Land Use on Monday night
Prince Rupert City Council took care of a pair of bylaw requirements on Monday night, bringing into motion some of the elements required to move forward with their ambitious Land Use Policies that were approved in April.

We offered a review of that Land Use framework initiative with this item from the blog in early May.

On Monday night, City Planner Zeno Krekic provided the background related to the two bylaws, charting some of the ways that the city will address growth in the community with the prospect of large scale industrial development still on the horizon.

The first was a new Bylaw to establish policies and procedures related to the City's plans to gain more information from development proponents as part of the Development Approval process. Mr. Krekic observed for Council that the city is on the doorstep of one or more major projects and that the new procedural bylaw dealing with impact assessment planning and would allow city staff to ask questions from a list of topics from those proponents planning development in the region, providing specifications on how the information is to be provided.

As well, as part of the process  applicants would have the opportunity to ask the Council to reconsider requirements that have asked by staff.

The new proposed bylaw would allow staff the background to seek impact analysis on any proposed development, a process that is to compliment the Land Use Policy Framework.

The Second portion of the twin bylaw presentation involved some background on the Quality of Life - Official Community Plan amendments, which as Mr. Krekic described would dovetail with the previous bylaw.

That proposed initiative would amend the Qualify of Life Official Community Plan, delivering an overarching policy that will allow City Staff to seek impact assessments on proposed projects, some of the aspects for those policies included in that plan will require further detail work to fully define the standards and specifications to be delivered, that fine tuning will commence in early July.

The Agenda from Monday's Council session provided an overview of the main thrust of the proposal:

Major economic development projects including those associated with the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) can potentially affect the quality of life that has been identified by the community through the engagement process described in this Part. 

The accommodation of such projects in the City or adjacent areas will provide greatest benefit to the community if their impacts are thoroughly understood and carefully managed. Requiring development proponents to provide well-researched impact information is one tool that the City can use to assist with the integration of such projects into the community, whether the project is temporary in nature or long-term.

The second of the two bylaw proposals will go to Public Hearing on June 13th prior to the City Council session scheduled for that night, allowing residents with any questions or comments to make them known to Council members.

A notice of that Public Hearing session has now been posted to the City website.

Mayor Brain observed during the presentation that the Interim Planning booklet is available on the city website for the review of the public prior to the Public Hearing. Mr. Krekic also advised that he and the City's Communication Manager would be working to provide further information on the topic to the public.

The information referenced by Mayor Brain can be found here.

The Full documentation for both of the bylaw initiatives can be reviewed from the Agenda Package from Monday evening, starting at page 6 and continuing through to page 14.

You can review his two presentations from the City's Video Archive starting at the thirty three minute mark until just before the 42 minute point.


A review of Mr. Krekic's talking points as well as the other items of Monday night's council session can be found on our City Council Timeline page.

Further background related to City Council discussions can be reviewed on our City Council Archive page.

No comments:

Post a Comment