KUDOS TO COUNCIL FOR TACKLING A COUPLE OF IMPORTANT ISSUES
(OSOYOOS TIMES — September 27, 2006) —
A couple of kudos are warranted for Town Council.
At its September 18th meeting, the mayor and councillors bit the bullet and said they'll undertake a couple of actions which are good moves.
They took the Town administration's advice and agreed to pay for a traffic study for the development area around Peanut Pond and, after being cornered by a justifiably upset condo resident owner, they also agreed to take another run at the notoriously difficult issue of enforcing the bylaw precluding short-term rentals.
Both these actions are good, not just for their own sake, but also because they display Council's willingness “ guts, even “ to tackle tough issues and apply a longer-term, larger view to these questions.
On the traffic study, yes “ traffic flows need to be looked at in chunks bigger than half a city block. We would argue that, given the rapid rate of development in Osoyoos, there may be call for a study that looks at the flow of traffic through and around the whole Town, forecasting needs for 20 or 30 or 40 years in the future.
More than just studying flow in and out of a development or a block, Osoyoos should know what major arteries may be needed, and whether highway truck traffic should forever rumble along the length of Main Street.
On the short-term rental issue, there's no doubt it's a 'tiger by the tail'. But residents who come to live in town and enjoy their lovely, newly bought condos deserve a major effort by Council to find a way to put some teeth in its own bylaw enforcement.
Perhaps other municipalities offer examples of enforcement? Or perhaps we need to lobby the provincial government to allow local officials or police to check up on complaints in a more aggressive way.
