Following a petition spearheaded by the Porter Creek Community Association, the city has unveiled new green-space bylaws which may be put to Whitehorse voters in a city-wide referendum.

The bylaws follow the association's successful greenbelt petition presented to the city on Feb. 3. The association exceeded the 2,000 signatures required to make it legitimate under the city's petition and referendum bylaw.

Council is set to give first and second readings to the bylaws this coming Monday. The third and final reading, before the drafts become law, will be decided in a citywide referendum or by council if it wishes to pass it itself.

Presenting the bylaws to council, Robert Fendrick, the city's director of administrative services, said the bylaws, referred to as Bylaw 2006-10 and 2006-11, were created after careful examination of municipal and territorial legislation. They were designed to reflect the intent of questions in the association's petition.

The two questions contained in the petition were:

• 'Shall the City of Whitehorse pass a bylaw requiring that, for every new or existing residential subdivision, a Green-space Plan, passed by area plebiscite, be amended into the Official Community Plan (OCP) as part of any preliminary development process in that area?'

• 'Shall the City of Whitehorse pass a bylaw stating that it will maintain the designation of Green Space, Greenbelt, Park, Park Reserve or Environmental Protection on any land once so designated in any OCP, unless changed by area plebiscite and referendum?'

Explaining the bylaws to council, Fendrick pointed out they are in their draft stages and are just draft bylaws and are under legal review.

The two bylaws, Fendrick explained, involved the adoption of a planning study, involving community consultation and participation, into the planning and development process.

According to council's agenda, city administrators are recommending that council vote on the following recommendations:

• 'That council direct that bylaw 2006-10, a bylaw to require the adoption of a planning study as part of any preliminary development process for residential subdivisions be brought forward for due consideration under the bylaw process.

• 'That bylaw 2006-11, a bylaw to amend the OCP (Official Community Plan) to require a planning study for any preliminary development process for areas designated Greenbelt, Environmental Protection and Park Reserve in the OCP be brought forward for due consideration under the bylaw process.'

Fendrick said in drafting the legislation, city administrators interpreted association president Carole Bookless' questions in the context of existing municipal and territorial legislation.

City administrators highlighted each bylaw separately in council documents.

According to the documents, bylaw 2006-10, referred to as the Planning Study Bylaw,'requires a plan to be developed prior to detailed planning work and that the plan is put to a vote' in an area plebiscite to gauge community support of development initiatives.

'The proposed study specifies that a Planning Study means a plan that specifies location and size of trails, parks, greenbelts and environmental protection areas as well as policies related to use of these areas prepared through a public planning process.'

The plebiscite, Fendrick explained, would be non-binding and a majority vote against a planning study would not require council to develop a whole new planning study as it could hold up development indefinitely.

' ... (I)f a majority vote was entrenched into the bylaw it may result in an endless cycle of study modifications and plebiscites, unduly stalling the development process. There would be no incentive to approve a planning study.

'The benefit of an approved planning study is that there is an opportunity for participants to express their views on the issue. Achieving approval of the planning study indicates that the participants are in agreement and council can consider it prior to proceeding with area development schemes,' the council documents state.

Bylaw 2006-11, according to council documents, requires that area planning studies be 'entrenched' in the land development process and that additional public processes be used for changing green-space designations.

'The draft bylaws will have the benefit of providing definitions to provide the context and intent and be able to provide a process that does not circumvent the OCP and work within existing development approval processes to make them practical as well. The bylaws would in effect be an extra step in development approval instead of a separate process all together.'