Dear editor,
I would like to thank Comox Valley Regional District Area A director Bruce Jolliffe for speaking out about the imposition of minimum rural lot sizes within the designated “settlement expansion areas” around the Comox Valley.
This will affect many property owners who, like myself, purchased their property with the understanding they could either subdivide if necessary to supplement their retirement income or pass as an inheritance to their children or grandchildren.
I think that most of us affected are not developers with huge properties to be developed into multi-residential lots. Most I believe, again like myself, have small acreages that could be subdivided into only two to four lots. Keep in mind that most owners might not subdivide unless they felt it necessary.
We heard at the last public meeting that one of the reasons for this plan was to prevent residential development in rural areas until they are taken into municipal jurisdiction and able to provide water, sewer, etc.
When would this happen? I don’t believe in my lifetime.
I implore the regional district board to seriously rethink this injustice to property owners or consider a grandfather clause.
It would permit those landowners who had purchased their property prior to, for example, December 2012, to be permitted to still subdivide at any time in the future. Any property purchased after December 2012 would be purchased with the knowledge up front that they would not be permitted to subdivide less than the minimum lot size in the SEAs.
Once again, thank you Mr. Jolliffe for understanding the property owners’ financial concerns and ramifications for their future and their children’s future.
Gail Eggiman,
Courtenay
