OSOYOOS TIMES-December 15, 2010

By Paul Everest – Osoyoos Times

Anarchist Mountains’ Regal Ridge development has dedicated roughly 1.75 hectares of parkland to the Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS).
Under the Local Government Act, any developer applying to a local government to subdivide a parcel of land can be required to dedicate up to five per cent of the total area of the subdivided property to the local government as parkland.
A developer also has the option to provide cash in lieu of the dedicated land that would be used to purchase municipal green space elsewhere.
The RDOS board accepted the dedication at its Dec. 2 meeting.
Since the area the developer of Regal Ridge, Adrian Erickson, intends to subdivide in the Caribou Way area is roughly 15 hectares, the parkland dedication exceeds the five-per-cent requirement.
The excess dedicated parkland will therefore be used in consideration for the developer’s next subdivision application that would require parkland dedication.
The plot of land that has been dedicated to the RDOS is currently designated as Commercial and Administrative and Cultural and Institutional under rural Area A’s Official Community Plan (OCP).
It is also zoned General Commercial, site specific and Administrative, Cultural and Institutional under Area A’s zoning bylaw.
The developer intends to use the land that has been dedicated to the RDOS to build a community centre in the future.
When the RDOS approved the Regal Ridge development in 2003, it waived the parkland dedication requirement because Erickson placed a restrictive covenant on 606 hectares within the development area for conservation purposes.
He also set aside roughly 1,200 hectares of the development as conservation land.
In 2008, however, Regal Ridge sought a zoning amendment from the RDOS to cover increased density within the development and the need to rezone areas due to the acquisition of more land.
These changes triggered a requirement for Erickson to dedicate parkland within the development.
Because Area A’s OCP was created at roughly the same time that the Regal Ridge development was being established on the mountain, the plan does not identify any areas on the mountain for parkland dedication.
The only places identified for parkland dedication in rural Osoyoos in the OCP are along Osoyoos Lake, said Area A Director Mark Pendergraft.
So, last December, Erickson and the RDOS agreed to create an Open Space–Parks Plan to give future direction for where parkland dedication would need to take place in the Regal Ridge development.
Joe Cardoso, a spokesman for Regal Ridge, said the 1.75 hectares that was dedicated, which is in the Peregrine Drive area, was one of the areas being considered for parkland dedication in the pending Open Space–Parks Plan.
Because the Open Space–Parks Plan has not been completed, he said, Erickson decided to dedicate the 1.75 hectares to the RDOS, otherwise his plan to subdivide the Caribou Way area into 14 lots would be delayed.
Pendergraft said the land that has been dedicated to the RDOS will be set aside “for future use.”
“It’s just held in trust of the public until such time as the public says ‘We want to build a community hall,’ or Regal Ridge says ‘We’re ready to start a community hall here for the area and we’ll build it,’” he said.
At a meeting in October, roughly 70 mountain residents told RDOS representatives they do not want public parkland within Regal Ridge due to concerns such as an increase in fire hazards, loss of privacy for residents within the development and traffic congestion on the mountain’s roads.
Pendergraft said the dedication of the Caribou Way land where a community hall could be built wasn’t contentious despite the concerns brought up in October.
He added that he expects that once the parkland plan, which includes a survey of mountain residents asking for their input on the dedication issue, is completed, it will show that more people on the mountain want parkland dedicated to the RDOS than those who do not.
“There’s more folks up there than those that just showed up at that meeting,” Pendergraft said. “In fact, I’m expecting in the near future that the parkland study will be made public. Generally it’s pretty close on whether people want (parkland dedication on the mountain) or not. In fact, I believe it’s leaning towards ‘prefer’ rather ‘don’t want it at all.’”
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