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COLLINS: How valuable are city plans?
KAMLOOPS COUNCIL’s decisions recently on land use make me somewhat skeptical of the city’s Master Plan for zoning and development.
If I were moving to Kamloops, I would look at the master plan and determine where I want to go both for business and housing. But what happens when the city plan isn’t worth the powder to blow it to hell? If we can’t trust the plan, is it worth it? You make a plan based on what seems right at the time. As time goes on, it’s reasonable to assume there will be changes. These should be relatively mild. If you’re contemplating major changes, did you screw up the plan in the first place or has city growth changed so that something else makes sense?
Right now, the city and the province are looking at every spare piece of vacant land with the idea of turning it into rental or affordable housing. But some of the ideas make me wonder if that approach is going to come back and bite us in the backside.
Some ideas just don’t fit. Council is looking at a six-storey development in Valleyview. Residents have concerns about the new building. They don’t want changes to the zoning. Council gave unanimous approval to a housing development on Notre Dame Drive, at a prime location in our industrial park. Does that make any sense to you? Why would we do that?