Read the full story in the June 28 edition of The Interior News.
Residents of Telkwa had a chance to share their thoughts about the zoning bylaw review, recreational priorities and the 2016 annual report during Saturday’s town hall meeting.
The five-year soft review of the zoning bylaw will look at any changes that may need to happen to the existing bylaw.
The dozen people in attendance shared their thoughts, suggestions and concerns to Mayor Darcy Repen, who was the only member of office in attendance.
Janneh Meerdink is one of the residents who came out to share her thoughts on the zoning bylaw and she’d like to be able to subdivide one of her properties.
“We own several properties in Telkwa and a couple of them are large lots … We had put in a request six months ago to subdivide one of our properties and we were told that they weren’t even going to look at it until they had dealt with the water issue,” she said.
Looking at an aerial map, Repen said Telkwa is sparsely populated with a lot of options for commercial and residential development. The review will also look at the minimum allowable lot size.
Repen would like to see a good neighbour policy be drafted, which would help in avoiding conflict with neighbours.
“If we as a community can get together and draft a policy that can sort of give us some guidelines to people and the community as a whole as to what’s acceptable and not acceptable,” he said.
The Village is also looking to do dike maintenance, which Repen said they have about $40,000 in that reserve fund to deal with the tree problem.
As for the water tower, Repen said they’re working on the same schedule and will have the archaeological assessment and the engineering done this summer.
With the zoning bylaw review, Repen stated it’s about improving the village.
“The hope is to improve Telkwa, to make sure that we’re prepared for the growth that is going to come and plan,” he said.
If residents would like to share their thoughts on the zoning bylaw, they can contact Mayor Repen or the Village. There will be more meetings in the future to discuss the zoning bylaw review.
