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One Man's Opinion

COLLINS: How valuable are city plans?

Jan 30, 2025 | 6:00 AM

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?

We have or are considering other spots in the city for housing that make no sense. All to meet ill-advised regulations by the province to fix the housing crisis with some harebrained schemes that will eventually make the system worse and not better because they are only being implemented as a short-term fix.

And the worst part is that only a small number of these units are affordable for most potential tenants.

I don’t care what kind of threats the province makes. Our council needs to examine all these proposals carefully and make sure they meet our long-term as well as our short-term demands. And if we’re prepared to make changes to our master plan that make little sense, let’s scrap the plan, reduce staff and save some money.

I’m Doug Collins and that’s One Man’s Opinion.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.