The city will not be holding a greenbelt referendum in the Oct. 19 municipal election.

In an interview this morning, city manager Dennis Shewfelt said a referendum on an Arkell greenbelt was cancelled when it was discovered a mistake had been made in legislated voting timeline requirements.

'Basically when we were looking at the timelines, we realized our mistake,' he said.

'With the elections there are certain specified timelines when undertaken in elections. Our mistake was we felt the same timelines applied to referendums.

'In fact, referendum timelines differ from election timelines,' he said.

City council brought forward under the bylaw process the Arkell greenbelt question earlier this month.

The city was slated to voted on whether an Arkell greenbelt between that subdivision and McIntyre should be changed from a green designation to a residential development designation in the Official Community Plan.

The vote was to be in line with the city's new greenbelt referendum bylaw, Bylaw 2006-10, which was passed by city council earlier this year.

Bylaw 2006-10 was developed following a petition spearheaded by the Porter Creek Community Association which calls for a referendum to be held anytime an area designated as green in the official community plan is to be changed into something else.

According to city information, the city missed the referendum window by about two weeks.

'On September 25, 2006 the council of the City of Whitehorse gave first reading to Bylaw 2006-35, a bylaw to amend the Official Community Plan by changing the land use designation of a parcel of vacant commissioner's land adjacent to the Arkell subdivision from green belt to residential.

'The referendum question should have been posted by September 14, 2006 along with the preliminary list of electors that was correctly posted.

'As this was not done per the legislated timelines, at this time the referendum question is being withdrawn from the Oct. 19, 2006 polling date.'