Highlights from November 7 Regional Board meeting
Regional Board of the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen held Thursday, November 7th
With new Health Canada medical marijuana regulations scheduled to take effect in early 2014, the Regional Board took a first look today at the potential impact changes to how medical marijuana production is administered would have on the Regional District.
The Board determined it didn’t have enough information to make an informed decision on how to move forward and requested RDOS staff provide additional material on general zoning requirements that might impact the proposed operations.
The existing Marihuana Medical Access Regulation will be replaced with new Marihuana for Medical Purposes regulations early in 2014, the Board was told. The biggest change for local governments is an indication the federal government will now respect local government zoning when determining whether to issue production licenses.
Currently, local governments typically become aware of medical marijuana operations “after investigating a complaint from a neighboring property owner or through the local RCMP detachment as a result of a police investigation.”
Over the last six months, the Regional District’s Planning & Development Department has fielded a handful of queries about existing properties suitable for commercial medical marijuana operations.
Most of the queries involve lands within the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR), and would be permitted in most Electoral Areas, the Board was told.
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A visit from Richard Linzey, Manager of Heritage Programs and Services with the provincial Ministry of Forest, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, provided the Board with a look at the Keremeos-area’s Grist Mill’s operations and a partnering request to ensure the heritage site could continue operations.
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With a new water system in place to serve West Bench residents, the Board turned its attention to providing for system maintenance and approved a plan for the Public Works department to assume operations from the City of Penticton, which has handled maintenance since the dissolution of the West Bench Irrigation District.
To provide for fairness and best value to West Bench residents, the Regional District put out the service contract to tender. Three replies were returned, including one from the Regional District itself.
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The Board gave three readings to and adopted a bylaw establishing a reserve fund to set aside annual carbon mitigation expenses budgeted since 2012 to provide funding for provincially mandated greenhouse gas emissions reduction measures and the purchasing of carbon offsets.
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The Board approved a motion brought forward by Area “C” Director Allan Patton to forward to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for consideration at the organization’s annual general meeting a recommendation that a moratorium be placed on genetically engineered food and animal registration applications. The moratorium would provide time for a non-partisan review by Parliament and public input on the controversial issue.