Some residents of the River’s Edge community just outside Parksville are concerned about potential changes to a lot in their neighbourhood.
“You may recall last year how the community rallied together to fend off the Wild Flower Marijuana MMP (medical marijuana) proposal and with the support of the RDN won that battle. Unfortunately, we are once again at risk having our quiet community changed forever by the following proposal,” wrote Kerry Hoop of her concerns.
Getting information through a neighbour she said is directly adjacent to the property in question, she said residents are concerned a change in access to the property will have a negative affect on the community of large acreages.
She said they are concerned the property owner will sell a portion of the property which would open it up for development that could include semi-industrial uses like a logging operation and will increase noise and traffic on the dead-end road.
“There is no proposed change to the use of the property,” said Regional District of Nanaimo (RDN) Manager of Current Planning Jeremy Holm.
He said the request is just to relax a requirement that a property must have 10 per cent frontage on a road to have access.
The change would allow owner of the 32 hectare property to subdivide off one eight hectare section with a driveway accessing Stone Fly Close, rather than Kaye Road.
“There is no proposed change to the use of that land,” Holm said, stressing that the land is already zoned Resource Management which allows a wide variety of uses including agriculture, resource extraction based businesses like log sorting or primary processing, and that, “if anything a smaller lot would make big industrial uses less likely.”
He said the eight hectare lot would be the smallest currently allowed and that both the RDN and Ministry of Highways have reviewed the proposal and neither have concerns about increased traffic.
Allowing the relaxation, for driveway access where only two percent of the land front the road will be a decision of the RDN board, but doesn’t go through a public hearing process, Holm said.
