OSOYOOS TIMES-April 28, 2010

By Paul Everest – Osoyoos Times

Roughly 28 hectares of Osoyoos Indian Band land at the head of Osoyoos Lake could soon be home to a housing development.
Developers from Chilliwack are hoping to build 300 detached cottages or houses on properties belonging to band members Jane Stelkia and Modesta Betterton off of an extension of Black Sage Road.
Eric Van Maren of Van Maren Construction Group said his firm has been working on the “Stelkia Resort Development” for two years now and wants to sell the homes for between $300,000 and $320,000.
“Most development in the Okanagan is priced out of reach of the average person,” he said. “This will be the most affordable lakefront property in the Okanagan.”
Before any building can begin, however, the development process will need band approval.
Chris Scott, the band’s chief operating officer, said because Stelkia and Betterton can’t lease the land on a long-term basis without the consent of other band members, the development proposal would have to go to a referendum.
The developers would have to present their plans to the band council, which would then have to approve a resolution authorizing such a referendum.
If more than 50 per cent of the band’s members vote in favour of the development concept, Scott said, Stelkia and Betterton would have the ability to lease the land to the developers on a long-term basis.
Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) would have to oversee and approve the referendum and authorize the long-term lease, he added.
The band has never entered into a long-term lease for a residential development before, Scott said.
Van Maren said his company is still working on the “concept plan” it intends to present to the band.
The company, he said, is waiting for an approval of its environmental impact assessment from INAC.
Once that approval is received, the company will present the concept plans to the band, Van Maren said.
Scott said there are “enormously complex environmental issues” in the area where the developers hope to build and they will have to satisfy federal and provincial bodies that the project would not have any detrimental consequences for Osoyoos Lake or any at-risk species that live in the Osoyoos area.
He added that the concept plan the developers will present to the band will include information on engineering issues, accessibility and sewage disposal.
While the possibility of hooking up to the Town of Osoyoos’s sewer system was discussed, Scott said, the developers are now looking at a package treatment plant.
He added that the company is looking at working with the same sewage treatment firm the band has hired to provide sewer for its industrial park north of Oliver.
In February, the developers sent a request to the Town of Osoyoos asking it to provide fire services to the development, should it be built.
Osoyoos Volunteer Fire Department Chief Rick Jones told the Town in a March 8 report that fire protection could be provided to the site where the development would be built on the northeast shore of the lake if an agreement between the Town and the band was signed.
Barry Romanko, the Town’s chief administrative officer, said providing fire service to the area would require a “change in the fire service agreement that we currently have with the Osoyoos Indian Band.”
“These agreements are (Osoyoos town) council’s responsibility to approve.”
The developers hope to receive approval for the project from the band by the summer or fall and begin construction in early 2011.
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