Council ignores community on OCP

Public not heard at public hearing
By Erin Cardone - Saanich News

Dean Murdock wonders what the point was of a public hearing to discuss Saanich's new Official Community Plan.

After almost three hours of suggestions from citizens, council voted to adopt its new OCP July 8 without including any of the public's comments from that evening.

"It's disingenuous," Murdock said. "That's a disservice to staff, it's a disservice to the community, it's a disservice to council. People put a lot of time and energy into those comments and, for those to be dismissed, it's showing they don't want to hear from the community."

Mayor Frank Leonard said the hours of suggestions from the 14 speakers were recorded and could be included in the new OCP at a later date. A housekeeping amendment to the OCP document could come in about six months, he said, calling it a "living document" that changes often.

"There's a handful of suggested edits – some folks were editing," Leonard said.

Murdock, who is running for Saanich council in November's election, said a later amendment would be "an unfortunate afterthought."

"After listening for two and a half or three hours to say, yes, they agreed (with our comments) then pass it without the amendments anyway is a huge disservice to the community."

The July 8 public hearing wasn't the public's only opportunity to give feedback on the 2008 OCP. Two committee of the whole meetings were held this summer to provide that opportunity and the approved document contains changes suggested at those meetings.

But Haji Charania, past president of the North Quadra Land Use Protection Association, isn't sure why the public hearing was held at all, if those comments weren't included in the vote.
"I was quite dumbfounded in the sense that I thought there was going to be a round of discussion then councillors were going to speak and there would be some amendments made," Charania said. "Why would you get people to speak for two and a half hours ... then just give an overall approval."

Charania hopes his comments weren't a waste of time.

"This is why people are so discouraged to come speak to council: Nobody cares. This is an election year and I'm losing a bit of confidence. This is one example of lack of transparency."

Coun. Judy Brownoff said she, too, was surprised and disappointed no amendments were made at the public hearing, but voted to approve the OCP, saying it wasn't initially clear what council was voting on.

"I think people left the meeting very upset," she said in an earlier interview. "They wanted some tweaking and there was none of that."

ecardone@saanichnews.com