Brad Elenko, agent for owners of property at 2815 85th Street in Osoyoos told board directors that a Notice of Claim has been filed in Supreme Court seeking damages.
The story is complicated but results because of a mapping error that the Regional District claims to have occur many years ago. The Regional Board on Thursday corrected that error after a long process of delays, presentations by lawyers, and finally a public hearing.
The area director, Mark Pendergraft wanted a further delay but the remainder of the rural board would not do that inviting the developer to proceed with a new application for whatever purpose it intended for the land.
That land is just south of the Haynes Point Provincial Park entrance on lakefront land that would be extremely valuable if zoned correctly for high density housing.
Elenko says the land in questioned was rezoned from Large Holdings (LH) to Residential Multiple Family in November of 2008. He states there is no existing LH property on Osoyoos Lake.
The land was taxed as Residential Multiple Family (RM1) for a number of years says Elenko and articles in the Osoyoos Times reflecting on that zoning change.
A sale was transacted based on this zoning with new owners in 2012.
Earlier this year a plan for a 115 multiple family unit was presented to RDOS staff.
In May of this year it was recommended by senior staff to correct the error and rezone the property.
The developer wanted this delayed and request a full explanation of how the error was made.
The developer also states that part of their proposal is for a substantial gifting of land for park purposes.
A check with the BC Supreme Court document retrieval system reveals no statement of claim filed or available for public viewing.
Previously
Gary and Gail Grelish own land south of Haynes Point and have found themselves in a quandary. (2815 – 85th Street)
The land is zoned Residential Multiple 1 and they submitted an application in March to the RDOS for the go ahead on a development.
The Grelishes told Regional District directors they actually want the rural riparian type land to be purchased by the BC Government as a natural fit with the Haynes Point park and that their application was an effort to stop a rezoning.
The RDOS says the land was rezoned in 2008 by mistake to RM1 and believe the error should be corrected making it a Large Holding (Zoning and OCP).
Much debate from all quarters including a lawyer representing the Grelish’s. The fixing of the error could cost negotiating power according to at least one director.
Both parties have agreed to wait until the next meeting of the board before deciding to proceed with the fix. A level of confusion on the part of directors and the RDOS staff as to how to make it a win-win situation.