Public hearing into OCP is postponed
City council voted unanimously at a special council meeting Friday morning to put off for two weeks the second public hearing into the proposed Official Community Plan (OCP) renewal.
City council voted unanimously at a special council meeting Friday morning to put off for two weeks the second public hearing into the proposed Official Community Plan (OCP) renewal.
The additional time will provide city administration and council with more time to ensure the proposed OCP accurately reflects the decisions by council on the document so far.
The delay pushes the second public hearing out to Nov. 28, tentatively.
The motion was put forward by Coun. Kirk Cameron.
Cameron and Coun. Ted Laking asked for the special council meeting to consider pushing the public hearing back by two weeks.
The motion notes that council has given direction to administration on changes to the proposed Whitehorse 2040 OCP. The OCP was last updated in 2010.
Some of those proposed changes to Whitehorse 2040, however, were missed in preparing the document for a second public hearing because of aggressive timelines to move expeditiously to approval of the new OCP, says the motion.
It says “it is important that the public have an accurate draft to consider during the second hearing process to enable them to provide input to said process that reflects council’s thinking at this stage.”
The motion also directs that council receive a report from administration on the proposed changes so that council can confirm the changes are in line with its direction.
It also directs administration to advertise the need for the break, and to confirm when the hearing process will recommence.
The motion directs administration to retain all input from citizens during the pause period and include it when developing its report on public input following the second hearing process.
It also directs that the final reference to the Stevens quarry area be struck from the OCP.
Council has previously directed that an accompanying map be updated to replace the Stevens area designation as natural resource extraction to future planning.
As the Star reported Friday, a petition opposed to quarrying operations at the site, just west of the Alaska Highway-North Klondike Highway intersection, has attracted 9,265 signatures.
With today being the fifth Monday of the month, there will be no council meeting this Hallowe’en evening.
Comments (2)
Up 5 Down 0
Gravel on Nov 1, 2022 at 10:27 pm
Whitehorse needs a good source of gravel because it is currently running out. Trust me I know, as I work in the industry.
The two options right now are the Tank Farm and Steven's Quarry. The tank farm is closer but it also has much less volume. So for this council to take Stevens right off the drawing table is irresponsible. The only reason they are doing that is because of a few loud NIMBYS in the area. Newsflash, no matter where you try to develop a quarry, there will be NIMBY and enviro pushback, but the truth of the matter is that without a source of gravel, all major projects in the city will come to a halt. Any cancellations or delays on projects going forward within the city sit squarely on the shoulders of this anti-development City Council.
Grow a spine and stop pandering to the NIMBYS while screwing the majority of Whitehorse citizens. Develop Stevens Quarry.
Up 6 Down 1
Juniper Jackson on Oct 31, 2022 at 5:58 pm
Why? This council has decided long ago what they're going to do.