WHAT'S THE POINT OF THE RDOS DEVELOPMENT APPLICATION PROCESS?
OSOYOOS TIMES-June 11, 2008
The Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) has once again shown us that local governments have little concern for the very processes they are entrusted to carry out.
Even though it did not receive final approval from the RDOS board of directors until June 5, an Osoyoos greenhouse business increased its greenhouse space by more than 7,000 square metres earlier this year.
Construction began in February, in plain sight, and was completed in April, nearly two months before the expansion application received fourth and final reading.
RDOS Rural Area A Director Mark Pendergraft told the Osoyoos Times that sidestepping the approval process was the greenhouse owner's choice and added that the owner's decision to proceed with the expansion was a risk.
Such comments demonstrate that the RDOS administration either has nothing but contempt for the entire regional system of approving or denying development applications or they lack the teeth to actually enforce their own protocols.
According to an RDOS development services department report, the greenhouse owner did not have the approval of the provincial Transportation Ministry for the expansion, a necessary step in the process since the business is within 800 metres of Hwy. 97, until March 3, long after construction on the greenhouse expansion had begun.
And yet nothing was done to stop or delay the development once it started.
If RDOS residents do have the choice to proceed with their development or building plans without adhering to the readings process and face little more than a risk for failing to wait until the process runs its course, why shouldn't everyone just go ahead and put their plans into action?
It brings up the question of what the RDOS would have done if Eike Scheffler and Donna and Rudy Ferguson would have just carried out their subdivision plans on Anarchist Mountain before the RDOS board denied their applications.
The greenhouse owner said he had to begin construction on the expansion before it was actually approved so that he could be ready for a seasonal market.
Otherwise he would have faced financial difficulties.
By allowing him to do so, however, the RDOS has insulted anyone who has followed and adhered to systematic application processes and maybe even opened the door for more people to make a choice to break the rules and develop on their own whims.
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