Town never should have rezoned property
In what has turned out to be a major disaster for the Town of Osoyoos, a B.C. Supreme Court Judge has tossed out the town's attempt to get an injunction to stop go-cart track operations at Rattlesnake Canyon.
While Osoyoos Mayor John Slater said he disagreed with the judge's ruling, he didn't commit the town to what could be a lengthy and costly appeal process.
As it sits now, no dollar amounts were available on what this case has cost Osoyoos taxpayers, but one could certainly expect it to be quite high, especially considering the town has now been ordered to pay the costs for Rattlesnake Canyon as well.
An appeal is a tough decision, considering, as the mayor himself says, that Osoyoos is a small community that can't continue to put out money for legal fees. A winning appeal, of course, would shift the financial burden back to Rattlesnake Canyon, while a losing appeal would only add to local taxpayers' costs.
Regardless, the Town of Osoyoos has already lost. It lost the day it started these legal proceedings against Rattlesnake Canyon. In truth, the town dropped the ball right from the beginning on the issue of Rattlesnake Canyon's go-cart operation.
It started when council listened neighbourhood concerns over noise and yet still gave approval based on changes by Rattlesnake Canyon that did not solve those noise problems.
That was its first mistake – rezoning residential property. While those four lots (now used as a go-cart track) were not prime residential properties, they did act as a buffer between the residential and tourist commercial zones. In reality, no rezoning should ever have occurred.
However, when that was done, instead of helping to solve the problem created by its own decision, the town then resorted to an adversarial position in its dealings with Rattlesnake Canyon.
What ensued, as should be expected, is a long-drawn out public battle that landed both parties before a judge and local taxpayers on the hook for thousands and thousands of dollars.
Town council has had many chances to find a solution to this problem. They chose not to and now taxpayers' are left holding the bag.
