The Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen held its first virtual meeting on April 16.

Dale Boyd

Osoyoos Times

The Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) voted to forgo two public hearings at the first virtual meeting held by the board on April 16.

The first public hearing waived related to a rural Princeton compost facility on Copper Mountain Road, which the community was in full support of, according to board directors.

The amendment to the zoning bylaw, rezoning the property to formalize an existing salvage operation, received first and second readings on March 5 and a public hearing was scheduled for April 2 — however the RDOS cancelled their April 2 meeting as they readjusted operations under physical distancing orders from the province.

Under ministerial order the RDOS board can waive the requirement for a public hearing as long as a zoning bylaw does not also require an official community plan amendment.

Rural Princeton Director Bob Coyne said there were three letters of support for the compost facility which came from a public information meeting earlier in April, noting that composting has been a part of Princeton’s identity for some time.

“Composting has been going on in the Princeton area since the early ’80s,” Coyne said, with one operation going for over 20 years.

“It’s very well accepted in the community and used in the community and created a lot of jobs in the past 25 years in the Princeton area and it was very well accepted by the local residents.”

The Town of Princeton and the Lower Similkameen Indian Band have voiced support for the project as well.

“There’s no concerns from pretty much anybody around here,” said Princeton Mayor Spencer Coyne.

An earlier public meeting about the compost facility was well-attended and concerns were not raised by the community, according to RDOS planning manager Christopher Garrish.

Going forward, the regional district must give notice to the public of the waiving of the public hearing.

“We would still do the required advertising in newspapers for two weeks in a row and send out letters to neighbouring properties as per usual requesting feedback via letters/email,” board chair Karla Kozakevich said in an email.

Area F (Okanagan Lake West/West Bench) Director Riley Gettens, asked how the RDOS handles public feedback moving forward without public meetings, and Garrish said the inability to hold public meetings is causing concerns.

“We have those concerns too, applications that have come in since the health crisis and we haven’t been able to put out to the community through a public information meeting. Obviously we’re not getting the same feedback that we would with previous applications which then impairs our ability to make a recommendation to the board not only on where to hold a public hearing, but whether we should even be waiving them,” Garrish said.

With the two zoning bylaw amendments on the agenda, the regional district was able to get through the normal processes at the April 16 meeting.

The second zoning amendment brought changes to duplex zones in the rural Osoyoos,  rural Oliver , Okanagan Falls and Skaha East,  Naramata as part of ongoing work related to the preparation of a single zoning bylaw for the South Okanagan Valley electoral areas.

The amendments had “no objections when advertised, so it was felt that we could proceed to process without public hearings,” Kozakevich said.

“We feel comfortable recommending waiving, that we are not adversely impacting anybody or people aren’t being given the chance to make their views known,” Garrish said.

The RDOS will have a notification sent out for public hearings that are waived and residents will be able to submit comments to the board.