It is interesting to note the comments the judge uses as she singles out your comments for voting no on the Yearsley’s development application. Perhaps you could use her quotes to help your readers understand the difference.

Council that determined whether or not Bosa was able to build taller than 12 stories as outlined in the 2002 OCP we able to do so not because the OCP is a guide and not a bylaw. The Bosa development required rezoning and this allowed council to determnine height and density and not follow the guidelines as set out in the OCP of the time.

Council’s in the future should be very wary about setting zoning without proper consideration and planning in place to determine how the zoning may impede or restrict creative options or possibilities that residents in White Rock would be proud of.

In terms of public consultation processes…I think the public’s confidence reached an all time low when the council you sat on decided to ignore a year’s work of OCP consultation and allow private interests of a small group of non-residents to reap their rewards by allowing an almost doubling of density and height in the town centre.

Pardon me, but what happened in the case of Kwantlen wanting to house a small satellite in the Bosa towers? Council allowed two more floors to be built and when Kwantlen pulled out, those two floors went to suites benefiting who?

In the case of the Yearsley vs City of White Rock, had the property been zoned differently and required rezoning than your comments, as specifically pointed to in Judge Dillon’s judgement, and the many residents would have held some weight and council would have been correct in turning down the application.

The OCP is a guide, just because it intends to allow higher density and height in a particular area, that area may require rezoning which requires a specific bylaw. If the OCP was a ‘bible’ then we wouldn’t have had the Bosa Towers.

Again, when a property is zoned for a particular density and height it cannot be ‘down-zoned’ because of non-technical reasons, as you point out in your explanation above.

The problem I see in most zoning and rezoning applications is that the City lacks a vision for certain areas of the city. In the case of where the Yearsley’s have property, the area there is underdeveloped. A proper plan should have been in place for that specific area and perhaps a special zoning in place that requires the entire area to be developed together and not separately. One example of how this has been accomplished relatively close to the area in question is Victoria Terrace. A development that seems to fit into the hillside and is attractive and rather unassuming, meaning it doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. That development is also considered to be of high quality and sales for units there rarely stay on the market for very long.

So, residents and council fear not, you do have a great deal to say when a development application requires rezoning. But if the area or property already has zoning in place, the judgement states you have little to discuss unless it is technical in nature and is relevant to the zoning.

Council should take care in how they zone properties.

Mayor Ferguson’s comments quoted in the Peace Arch News in May 2009 failed to include zoning in her statement and seemed to confuse guidelines with bylaws. The difference being the same as the terms ‘May’ and ‘Shall’. In rezoning it is ‘may’ and in zoning it is ‘shall’.

I am interested also in your comments about better defining development permit criteria. Would be interested in hearing an expansion of your argument.