In what has been described as a 'pathetic' voter turnout, a handful of Whitehorse electors have voted to approve a green space plan in Porter Creek and develop an Arkell greenbelt.

Speaking from Calgary Thursday night, Mayor Bev Buckway said she was pleased council can now move ahead with developments in the lower Porter Creek bench and Arkell. However, she described voter turnout in the plebiscite and referendum as dismal.

'I think it's pretty pathetic; I'm not going to mince my words on that.'

According to the unofficial results published on the city's web site, 12 per cent 1,379 people in the plebiscite and 1,380 in the referendum of the city's 11,150 eligible voters participated in the votes.

The plebiscite, according to the city, met with 82.6 per cent approval and the referendum was approved by 67.4 per cent.

The referendum and plebiscite bylaws were passed last year following a successful petition by Carole Bookless and the Porter Creek Community Association.

The plebiscite bylaw calls for a planning study and green space map which must be voted on to be created any time a development requiring an Area Development Scheme requiring detailed design on things such as infrastructure and traffic patterns is planned.

The referendum bylaw requires a city-wide vote any time an area identified as green space in the city's Official Community Plan is to be redesignated for development purposes.

Bookless said this morning she felt the voter turnout was positive.

'I thought it was a good for what it was. It was not a municipal election where we voted people in and out of office.

'I thought city council could have worked more to get the issues out,' Bookless said.

'I felt the media could have done a better job as well.'

Bookless said she would like to see the green space bylaws continue because even if a lot of people didn't vote, the city has changed the way it deals with the public as a result of the bylaws' existence.

She said planning processes such as the recent use of charrettes came after the bylaws were developed.

'The hammer of having people vote on it is having exactly the effect we wanted.'

Veteran realtor Mike Racz, the president of the Yukon Real Estate Association, said this morning he was pleased both votes were passed but described turnout as dismal.

'I'll fall in with Mayor Buckway's comments it was fairly apathetic.

'It's unfortunate. I think people tend to think if it doesn't impact them, they'll not take the time to go out and vote,' he said.

'This impacts the whole city.'

Racz said he's looking forward to seeing the Arkell greenbelt developed because he feels it will lead to more mobile homes, allowing people who can't afford more traditional single-family homes to buy into the real estate market.

'Hopefully, those lots should be fairly reasonably priced.'

Racz said while he is happy to see that Whistle Bend planning concept could proceed in the lower bench, he would have liked to see more development in the area.

'It's unfortunate that they didn't have the question: Is there too much green space?'

'If you take a look at that plan, you'll see that there's three or four times more green space than in other subdivisions,' he said.

More units would mean the city could recoup more of the infrastructure costs and that the average price of a lot would be cheaper.

Lewis Rifkind, with the Yukon Conservation Society, called voter turnout disappointing but said he feels the referendum and plebiscite bylaws are important.

Rifkind said many people may not have voted in the plebiscite because they felt they'd already contributed to the plans in the city's charrette process.

'A lot of people had already given input into Whistle Bend; the vote wasn't binding.'

In Arkell, he added, there wasn't a development plan presented so the vision was vague.

'With Arkell, you just had a triangle.'

Rifkind said the low voter turnout could also have been due to a variety of factors including poor advertising of the vote, voter fatigue and the weather.

Mike Gau, the city's planning manager, said this morning now that the votes have been passed, his department will continue the planning process for both areas.

For the lower bench, he said, the next phases of planning would include a charrette in the fall on detailed design of the area's neighbourhoods and studies on alternative energy heating sources.

'In early fall, we'll go back to the public and try to design the neighbourhoods for the lower bench.

'We have (also) applied for money from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to do some ground source heating (such as geothermal heating) research.'

Gau said the plan for the lower bench is now to try to get the plan to a level of detail where engineers could start planning utility and road infrastructure.

The next stages of the Arkell area will likely involve a charrette process with area residents to come up with a design, Gau said.

'We need to wait for the fall for that as well. Summer is not a good time to consult.'

He said design work for the lower bench was put on hold and there was no detailed planning done on Arkell as planning is expensive and the city was in a 'holding pattern' awaiting the outcome of the votes.