Council Meeting Highlights from May 3rd

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS WEEK MAY 1 – 7TH

Emergency Preparedness Week (EP Week) is an annual event that takes place each year during the first full week of May. Is Your Family Prepared? If an emergency happens in your community, it may take emergency workers some time to reach you. You should be prepared to take care of yourself and your family for a minimum of 72 hours. In an emergency, if phones don’t work or families aren’t together, what will you do? Know the Risks  Make an Emergency Plan Watch this video on Making a Family Emergency Plan and preparing an emergency kit at getpreared.ca.

DELEGATIONS

Peter Rotheisler, Manager of the Regional District Waste Reduction, presented Council with an update on the annual results and plans noting that the revenue generated from the recycling program has increased and is allocated back to Lake Country. Good job residents! Lesley Dieno from the Okanagan Regional Library updated Council on activities since the fall of 2009, strategic planning and future directions and the services in Lake Country.  In 2010 the Lake Country Branch was visited by over 780 people per week and the Oyama Branch was visited by a total of 4,500 people! Click here for more information.

REMOVAL OF THE BUNDLED PROCESS FROM DEVELOPMENT APPLICATIONS PROCEDURES BYLAW

Council adopted Development Applications Procedures Amendment Bylaw 786, 2011 which received 3 readings on April 19^th and removes the ‘Bundled Process’ option from the Procedures bylaw.  Click here to view the full report to Council on April 19^th.

AGRICULTURAL LAND RESERVE APPLICATION

Council approved staff’s recommendation to resubmit an application for exclusion from the ALR on Okanagan Centre Road West.  The application needs to be resubmitted because some of the supporting documents are no longer valid due to the length of time that transpired between the time the material was produced and the time the application was considered by Council.

TEMPORARY USE PERMIT

Council approved Temporary Use Permit (TP2011-004) on 6948 McCoubrey Road to expand a home-based fruit processing business. The current use is permitted but the applicant would like to hire some additional staff for the summer months and needs a Temporary Use Permit to do so. The home-based business supports local economic development and agricultural diversification in the community and has minimal impact on the local neighbourhood.

OYAMA LAKE ROAD ZONING BYLAW AMENDMENT

Council had a lengthy discussion about Zoning Amendment (Russo) Bylaw 784, 2011 to re-zone 8, large rural lots along Oyama Road.  Currently all District Official Community Plans recommend a minimum subdivision area of 30 ha (70 acres) in the area, essentially prohibiting subdivision. Staff recommended that a site specific zone be used to pre-plan subdivision in the area allowing landowners the option to subdivide, but not opening the door to configurations.  Council expressed concerns about a minimum lot size and servicing requirements to the area. 

Council gave the bylaw 1^st and 2^nd readings and forwarded to Public Hearing in order to hear comments from residents on the issue. Concurrent to proceeding with the Zoning Bylaw, Council gave 2 readings to Subdivision and Development Servicing Amendment Bylaw 785, 2011.

CARBON NEUTRAL OPERATIONS PLAN INVENTORY

In 2008 the District signed on to the BC Climate Action Charter committing to becoming Carbon Neutral in operations by 2012. The first part of the project involves inventorying District emissions, identifying major sources and trends and preparing an inventory that details those trends.  The inventory presented by staff shows a rise in District emissions from 2008 to 2009 but a slight fall during 2010. Some of the reasons for the District`s changing emissions are due to colder weather in 2009 which increased natural gas usage, and the opening of the District`s Spray Park.

TURF & PARKS MAINTENANCE EQUIPMENT

As part of bringing Parks contractual services in-house, the new Parks Foreman, Shaun Lesowski did an assessment of the services levels, park land inventory and current equipment in the Parks Department. The existing equipment is limited in providing the best quality product of turf and parks maintenance and could easily be improved with an investment in the purchase of 3 pieces of equipment. Council approved staff`s recommendation increasing the budget by $38,000 from the Capital Works Reserve allowing for the immediate purchase of a turf mower, a sweeper and a utility vehicle.  The new mower will reduce the time it takes to cut by half, mow more acres per hour and mow in areas the current mowers cannot access.  The new equipment will free up staff time to be spent on soccer and ball field maintenance, line painting, beach maintenance, volleyball, tennis courts and water park maintenance.

2011 FINANCIAL PLAN & 2011 TAX RATE BYLAW

The Chief Financial Officer presented the 2011 Financial Bylaw 787, 2011 for 3 readings. Council held budget deliberations on December 14^th, January 25^th, February 3^rd and February 22^nd and approved the 2011 Budget with a 3.9% municipal tax increase.  The increase results in approximately $54 for an average single‐family house assessed at approximately $500,000 or about an $11 increase for each $100,000 of residential assessed value. Some changes were made to the 2011 Budget since Council’s approval because of some new information; although none of the changes impact the proposed municipal tax increase. For instance, new information received from the BC Assessment Authority negatively impacted the 2011 Budget because the property assessment appeal process lowered the tax base growth from new construction from 2.1% to 1.6%, resulting in a loss of tax revenue of $40,000.  This loss of revenue was offset by a transfer from reserves. 

When factoring in taxes paid to other taxing authorities, the increase in the provincial home owner grant, and increases in water user fees, the average single-family house will pay $160 less in property taxes in 2011, or an overall decrease of 4.6%.  Click here to view the full report to Council.  Click here to view the Financial Plan Power Point Presentation which uses graphs to detail the operating expenses, capital funding and budget, property tax distribution and property tax comparisons.

Council also gave 3 readings to 2011 Tax Rates Bylaw 788, 2011 which has to be adopted prior to May 15^th of each year. This bylaw provides the tax rates necessary to raise the revenue as set out in the 2011 Financial Plan, tax requisitions from the Regional District, Regional Hospital District and Okanagan Regional Library. The Province of BC, the Municipal Finance Authority and BC Assessment Authority set their own tax rates. Total property tax revenue for municipal purposes will be $8.3 million and the total taxable assessment of the District of Lake Country is $2.6 billion. Click here to view the full report to Council.

FIRE DEPARTMENT 2010 ANNUAL REPORT

The Fire Chief presented his annual report to Council outlining total incidents (818), average response time (10 minutes, 21 seconds), burning permits sold, prevention and inspection programs, public service events and recruitment and training.  Click here to view the full presentation to Council and all the details!