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Ravens Crest needs a government

Pemberton and SLRD need to decide who’s in charge

Ravens Crest is beginning to hit some of the red tape the proponents have been working so hard to avoid.

More than 100 people attended a second informal public information meeting last week regarding the proposed real estate development just outside Pemberton. And one of proponents of Ravens Crest, Cam McIvor, said he now has close to 200 signatures from members of the public who will support the project.

But the issues of governance and servicing are enormous and for Ravens Crest to work the Village of Pemberton and the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District need to agree on a boundary change of some description.

McIvor said he wants the Village of Pemberton to extend their boundaries to include all 351 residential units on Ravens Crest’s plans. This would, in theory, solve most of Ravens Crest’s issues because the project would then be handled by Pemberton’s planning department and should make it easier for the project to connect to Pemberton’s water and sewage networks.

"In my opinion it’s the best option for our area to grow its tax base to have it in the (Village of Pemberton)," said McIvor. "And there’s more controls with regards to providing services and collecting taxes than there are in the regional district."

At a recent Pemberton council meeting the mayor and councillors indicated that servicing was their main concern while the issue of governance was more a matter for the SLRD. Because the project would be located in SLRD Area C the SLRD board has to decide whether to support the boundary extension.

"The big catch is the servicing because it means that this really has to be in the Village of Pemberton boundaries, as per the village policy," said McIvor.

"But the (village) does not want to get into a fight over boundary extensions with the regional district, so at this point we need the regional district to have some clear direction that they would not oppose a boundary extension."

The other major issue McIvor and his partner Colin Johnson have is that there are several housing projects happening around Pemberton and some people have raised questions about demand for more housing.

"We keep hearing issues about timing and conflict with Pemberton Benchlands development," said McIvor. "But we have significant demand in place both from local buyers and international buyers," he said. "We have that in place and we’re very comfortable with our position."

"Raven Crest is also going to take two to three years to bring on line once we start construction, so we’re talking in that two to three years of what the demand will be."

Ravens Crest will be formally presented to the SLRD at their regular monthly meeting on Monday.