By Sebastian Kanally, Times Chronicle

Rural Oliver is among four electoral areas that wish to opt out of regulating private water and sewer systems in the Regional District of the Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS).

At the RDOS planning and development committee held on June 19, 2025 options were considered around the ongoing attempt to regulate all new private sewer or water systems in the regional district.

The RDOS has been considering this move since 2023, but momentum really picked up in February 2025 when the committee directed the necessary amendments to be initiated such as changes to the Official Community Plan (OCP), zoning bylaws, development permits, among others.

These changes were then given first and second reading in March, but not without some hesitancy from a handful of area directors. Electoral Areas “C” rural Oliver, “E” Naramata, “G” rural Keremeos, and “H” rural Princeton wanted to opt out of the new changes.

The new proposed amendments do not compel the RDOS to take ownership of all proposed water and sewer utilities.

Chris Garrish, planning manager for the RDOS explained that the new changes are intended to provide the board with “discretion”.

If a new proposed development came to the board with plans for either a water or sewer system, the new changes would allow the RDOS three options: either allow the new utility to be privately owned, require the new utility to be owned by the RDOS, or prohibit the creation of the new utility.

Before this decision is made, the board will be presented with a “utility condition assessment” from a qualified engineer that answers whether the system design meets RDOS standards, whether there are any existing works on it, and a certification that the system has the capacity to support the intended development.

If the system were to be owned by the RDOS, before making a decision the RDOS will receive information on the required staff resources, anticipated annual rates, and any legislative amendments that are needed such as the creation of a new service area.

The RDOS has faced problems where system owners no longer have the financial ability or technical expertise required to meet current regulations in their utility systems. The RDOS then received requests to take over the old and failing systems.

For this reason, the RDOS maintains its position that going forward they are in favour of publicly operated utility systems versus any operated by businesses or strata corporations.

Areas “C”, “E”, “G”, and “H”, agreed to an exemption that says in their electoral areas “a community water system or community sewer system does not exclude a system owned and operated by a strata corporation, private water utility or business corporation.”

Tim Roberts, director for Electoral Area “G” rural Keremeos explained to the board that “my concern originally, and still continues in regard to overstep, realizing the issue was created initially by the province not doing its due diligence in regard to overseeing and now we end up with these problematic systems.”

He continued to say that he still has questions around the liability of these RDOS decisions. He explained a scenario where the RDOS allows a variance to let a utility be run privately, “are we then liable for anything moving forward?”

While Garrish said he did not know and would need to get those answers, he said “I’m inclined to suggest that I think the board would be fine, otherwise how could you ever make a decision without being worried about the liability attached to that decision?”

Director of Area “C”, Irwin Chahal only commented that he was comfortable with the recommendation that rural Oliver be in the exemption.

The proposed amendments, with these recent exemptions, will now go to the board for third and final reading.

The new regulations only apply to new builds and the RDOS would be involved in working with the developers from the very beginning. This is in an attempt to start from scratch and set rates appropriately right from the beginning. They are not talking about old systems moving to their possession.

For more information on the RDOS plans and consideration around private utilities see link here.