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Pemberton still working to bring back music festival

New application for non-farm use may be required, Pemberton mayor says

The Village of Pemberton continues to work on bringing back a major music festival, but it may require new approvals from the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) to do it.

Pemberton Mayor Jordan Sturdy said as much at the Village's Annual General Meeting, held on June 28 as is annually required under B.C.'s Community Charter.

Addressing various business items facing the Village, Sturdy said parties involved in organizing the festival may have to forward a whole new application to the ALC, which regulates agricultural land in the province, in order to permit a music festival to take place again.

The reason is that the Village tried recently to make it so that an event promoter besides Live Nation, the company that put on the 2008 event, could be permitted to put on a festival on a property that has received a non-farm use permit for one weekend every year for ten years to hold a festival. The commission denied the Village's request.

"We appealed to the ALC to have that particular term amended or removed because we didn't want to have all our eggs in one particular basket," Sturdy said. "Unfortunately the ALC did not agree with us and denied us our application, so we're left with a couple of choices, and one of which is for us to put forward a whole new application, which is again something that council will be grappling with over the next little while."

 

Community concerns persist around Cedar View Estate

 

Concerns persist in the Pemberton area around the decision not to allow the owners of an agricultural property to hold weddings at their home.

Jan Kennett, a resident of Squamish-Lillooet Regional District Area C, which lies adjacent to the Village of Pemberton's boundaries, said in a question and answer session that she was dismayed to see that council did not permit Cedar View Estate, a bed and breakfast, to hold weddings despite the fact that neither Village bylaws nor the ALC allow them to happen unless the property is being farmed.

"For those of us who are in the tourism business, I was really dismayed to see that decision done," she said. "I'm wondering if there is going to be another look at bylaws and so on and noise issues, so that a compromise can be made so that a business that really does help many businesses is not down, and any more are, if there could only be some bylaw compromise.

Sturdy responded that when the Agricultural Land Commission last visited Pemberton, they were very clear that holding events on agricultural land requires a rezoning, an action that requires a referral to the commission, unless the events are subordinate to the use of the land for agricultural purposes.

"Staff had recommended to the proponent that they get their ducks in a row with the ALC," Sturdy said. "If the ALC provides approval, supports the application, then absolutely, council will look at it and consider it. In this particular case, there's a whole series of issues that we have with the ALC and they gave us a pretty clear message that they weren't going to support this as it was."

The issues around Cedar View Estate first flared up in April, when advocates both for and against weddings at the property packed a Pemberton council meeting to make their case.

Beau Craig, the Cedar View Estate owner, expressed his displeasure that he wasn't allowed to hold weddings because the Village approved a sign application that advertised such events as a use for his property.

Council did not relent at that meeting, voting instead to deny first and second reading for zoning that would have allowed the property to operate as a venue for commercial events.

 

Human rights tribunal makes up majority of Village's legal expenses

 

A single case being argued before the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal against the Village of Pemberton is taking up a majority of its legal expenses.

That's according to the Village's 2011 Annual Report, which shows that of a total $95,697 in legal expenses, $34,572, about 36 per cent, is being taken up by costs associated with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

Those costs are tied up exclusively in a case that has been brought against the Village by David MacKenzie, a former councillor, volunteer firefighter and mayoral candidate who alleges he has been discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation.

Village Administrator Daniel Sailland said the money is being tied up in legal fees such as billable hours for a lawyer to represent the Village.

"When you're reviewing all the files, lawyers have to prep, review everything, cross-examine," he said. "In some cases it's now that we're approaching various ins and outs of the case, it's prep time.

The current case actually stems from a previous complaint that MacKenzie brought against the Village and its fire department in 2007. Back then he claimed that he was passed over for an officer's position with Pemberton Fire Services because he's a homosexual. The Village settled that complaint.

The current complaint concerns an interview that Fire Chief Russell Mack gave Pique for a story that appeared in a November 2008 issue that gave his side of the first human rights complaint.