Pemberton’s mayor and councillors enjoyed a lively council meeting on Tuesday, July 15, with residents tuning in to talk about zoning issues around using shipping containers for business and to share ongoing concerns about the environmental impact of a proposed development at 7471 Urdal—timed with the passage of council’s new rules on public engagement.
Big-box businesses
Mountain Glass and Mirror owner Shayne May wrote in to challenge a 2018 bylaw that prohibits shipping and cargo containers on a property, unless they are listed as a permitted use in a given zone. He wrote that the Village was fining him for a shipping container that has been a part of his business for the last seven years.
He argued the bylaw was either being selectively applied—as neighbouring businesses also use the containers to facilitate their enterprises—or was woefully out of date.
A separate business owner, Garth Phare of Pemberton Valley Hardware, backed him up on the latter.
“Though these structures may not fit the bylaws of the day, we must recognize these bylaws were put in place before Pemberton had unmanageable increases in commercial [and] industrial property values,” Phare wrote to council.
“[Shipping containers] offer a very fast way for any business to create space within their operation by creating instant storage for a fraction of the price of having to purchase more land or building a structure,” he added.
Council was amenable to reconsidering the 2018 bylaw in light of those pressures on businesses. Councillor Jennie Helmer motioned to have staff look into updating the zoning bylaw, including whether it would apply to selected lots or to the entire downtown core.
“I think this is a time to open up the policy itself and make sure it fits the contemporary scene,” she told council.
The current fine levied against Mountain Glass and Mirror was put on hold pending the bylaw re-consideration.
Urdal back on the docket
Following successive council meetings where residents wrote in, tuned in and spoke up, Pembertonians continued to share their concerns over the Urdal development.
A letter from resident Natalie Livermore led the charge at the council meeting.
“While presented as modest infill under the Village’s [small-scale multi-unit housing (SSMUH)] program, the scale, intensity, and configuration of the [Urdal] project are incompatible with the land-use designation, the intent of SSMUH policy, and the surrounding neighbourhood context,” she wrote.
Other residents shared concerns about developing on the floodplain, which can significantly increase flood risk and severity—both for the developed area and surrounding areas. Construction can reduce the floodplain's natural capacity to absorb floodwaters, forcing water to rise higher and flow faster, leading to increased downstream flooding and potentially causing bottlenecks upstream.
“Does council feel like it’s a good idea to be developing … areas that are wetlands in a floodplain community?” asked one in-person attendee. “Because I was sandbagging my housing during the last atmospheric river [and] that is a huge amount of water that is being dispersed out into these areas that we’re now talking about filling in.”
Mayor Mike Richman asked residents to wait until an environmental assessment has been conducted on the site, which will determine “whether it’s a wetland or a spot that gets wet certain times of year.”
Mayor and council reiterated the development is still in the earliest stages, with specs on the proposed development not yet publicly available through the Village’s development portal.
As the development potentially moves ahead, the officials assured those assembled they’ll be transparent with the environmental impacts of the site.
“Pushing the water [downstream] to others is absolutely a concern that we’ve looked at. I get it. We all get it. Nobody is taking this lightly. What I’m trying to do is give you confidence that those things are being considered,” Richman told Livermore and her group.
“It feels like we’re having a couple of conversations prematurely. When [the development] does get discussed, when the flood hazard assessment is complete, [we’ll] get to see [it], so we have that level of comfort and can have that conversation with residents.”
Rules of engagement
The comparatively well-attended council meeting also featured the passage of new rules governing attendance and engagement with council.
Council passed two bylaws updating procedural elements of council meetings, including the addition of a public input period at the top of the public council meeting’s agenda.
“That’ll allow people to give us some food for thought before we even get into the conversation, then we can have questions at the end about how we got to a decision,” said Richman about the change.
During both the opening comment and closing question periods, there will be a limit of two minutes per person. Attendees will have to register to participate in advance of the question period “if the topic is not related to an agenda item from the current or former meeting.”
Other rules for public engagement during council are set out here.
