Golf Course on the watershed...

As I posted before, Rosa Jordan has been emailing some very interesting information and opinions in regards to the golf course development up near the ski hill and in our watershed area.

I am interested in learning more about the situation and also hear your thoughts and opinions here.

This is the latest email from Rosa:

Hi, Everybody,

I made a couple of errors in my previous e-mail about the proposed golf course development. Unfortunately, the correct facts make the situation even worse than I explained it.

For starters, it's not 120 acres to be deforested, as I said, but much more. The total development is to cover 450 acres: 132 acres for the golf course, 150 acres for housing, the rest in--what? Green space? Roads? Parking lots? Don't know. Will have to wait until the actual development plans have been presented to the City, at which time they go into the public domain, and anybody (including you) can request a copy.

Second, the area is ALREADY zoned for a golf course. How this came about is that when the City of Rossland incorporated that area back in the 1990s (supposedly to protect the city's watershed!), with it came the existing RDKB zoning of Rural Residence 1 (RR 1). That zoning allows for agricultural, forestry, mining, logging, single-family dwellings, equestrian, hiking, and downhill skiing, and yes, golf courses. With that zoning still in place, City Council could approve the golf course. However...

The Rural Residence 1 DOES NOT allow the massive housing development Red Mountain Ventures wants to put there. Present zoning only allows 1 house per 20 hectares (about 50 acres). It is in order to squeeze many, many times more residential units into this area that Red Mountain Ventures is requesting rezoning. (Because what the golf course is REALLY about is not meeting Rossland's needs, but selling real estate.)

Rossland Council can re-zone that area, but the re-zoning has to be consistent with the Official Community Plan. Since what Red Mountain Ventures wants to do is NOT consistent with the current official plan, Katkov is asking is that Council AMEND the town's OCP.

As everyone knows, Rossland has been working toward the development of a new OCP for nearly a year; that's part of what the Vision to Action process was all about--so citizens could provide input as to what they want to see in the new OCP, which is to be the guiding document of what they want to see in terms of the direction their town develops. So why amend the existing OCP now, particularly to take things in a direction NOT indicated in the Vision to Action's Sustainability Plan?

Well, because Katkov wants the old OCP amended. Now. So he can get on with the golf course project and related real estate.

But as I explained before--and this part I DID get right--the Local Government Act specifies that in order to amend an OCP, there should be "one or more opportunities for public consultaiton." Public consultation can be arranged by either the city or the developer, but it has to happen, and Council can't go ahead with amending the OCP until at least one public consultation happens. And it can go ahead with the rezoning until it amends the OCP.

So--if you want this thing to not go forward, what you must do is: make very sure that everyone on City Council knows you do not want a golf course in your watershed, and do not want the OCP amended to allow a humongous housing development, roads, parking lots, etc. in that area either; that the deforestation of such a huge area of land and that kind of massive development simply cannot be good to drink!

Note re water: The developer said at the meeting the other night that only 25% of the development (a little over 100 acres) will be in Rossland's watershed. I do not know if he got his percentage right, but I do know that a fair bit of that area drains into Topping Creek (the town's water supply). From looking at a topographical map, it seems like the rest might drain into Hanna Creek, below Rossland's water intake on Hanna. If this is the case, then some of the fertilizers and pesticides and traffic discharge would not be in our watershed; those contaminates would be in the watershed of Oasis and Riverdale. But hey--those communities won't mind. Will they?

Anyway, if you care about YOUR water, you had better pop off your e-mail to council members (if you haven't already). Simply to ask them to NOT amend the OCP, for the simple and obvious reason that the whole idea of extending the city's boundary to take in that area in the first place was to protect the watershed! WHY would the city rush to amend its guiding document (the OCP) simply at a developer's request, without waiting for studies to be done (by agencies other than the developer) as to the the likely impact on a water supply we already know is dwindling due to climate change?

If you don't take the very simple action of contacting your councillors, then you will have no one but yourself to blame when our once clean and abundant water supply gets "conserved" by the golf course and all the big houses surrounding it, while Rossland (and other communities further down the mountain) get the contaminated dregs.

This is not inevitable, but neither is it something a handful of people can stop. It takes action on the part of a lot of people. We don't have to be a group, we don't have to be a team, we don't even have to be friends. We just have to ACT, as individuals, to convey our feelings to those who will be making this decision.

And yeah, I know some of you already have. I have seen copies of some DYNAMITE e-mails that have been sent to council members already; e-mails that just might have taken the edge off the glow those council members got from the celebrity party Katkov invited them to on Thursday. Can't blame Mr. Katkov. He's just trying, in the nicest possible way, to let the council members know what HE wants. How about you?

Rosa