Who wants to bet on witch way Mayor and council will go on this one. Council is still a bit mad someone took them to court and won. Now council will go out of their way to make things miserable for the tax payers and voters.

It will be interesting to see which Councillors will vote tostop it in its tracks. They have already heard from the community. They know what their points of view are. If there will be another public hearing, the rest of PG needs to come out to speak in order to protect their future issuess as well ….. twice, the bottling depot and now this one ….. what a way for those on Council to show their contempt for the people they serve.

It would be ineresting, I would predict that it is ging to get rubber stamped thru the process, and Haldi road residence will be in a uproar about the place for months to come.

Is our mayor in conflict of interest this time? But how right you are Gus. The public has spoken and No means NO. This is going to be a tough night for council. If this passes through, we all need to speak at the public hearing to protect us in the future for our neighbourhoods. This is crazy it’s before council again. Money talks and everyone else walks. !Brian and Craig Goliath!

“Haldi road residence will be in an uproar about the place for months to come”

Not only that, but they will take it to court again. As I repeatedly state on here, BC is in bad need of a provincial municipal board. This did not have to go through the courts. There needs to be an administrative appeal process just as there is for municipal building code decisions for which there is a provincial administrative appeal process.

In my view the City’s administrators were totally lazy or incompetent since they had a chance to deal with this for years as a global application to the city’s land use planning, not just this special case.

It is not a special case. Such facilities ought to be able to built in more than one location. That a high level document such as the OCP has not provided accommodation for this use after community after community has been providing for them for many years shows that this City is incapable of dealing properly and ion a timely fashion with emerging issues.

If OCP guidelines had been in place for such facilities, then any proposal such as this would have had to be screened through the OCP standard for locating such a facility. As it is, the screen is being set up to make sure that the Haldi Road proposal will pass it, not the reverse.

In fact, in my opinion, such OCP exceptions ought not to be processed this way. It does not meet the test of the best practices way of making changes to the OCP. City Hall ran years late with the current OCP creation. Now they have to make changes to it when they should not have had to do that. Because of that, they have had to spend staff time plus court and legal costs.

There is an interesting conflict of interest which we typically do not look at other than in cases which go through the courts.

Council acts as a jury would in such public hearings. On tha one had, they need to set aside personal feelings about the case. Specifically I am talking about the feeling of “we will get them because they not only dared to defy us by going to court, but also because they won. We will show them who has the last word here.”

Councillors with vindictive streaks should excuse themselves unless they can honestly deal with this as a de novo hearing.

In my opinion, this is not a slam dunk.

If the City can not change the OCP to allow this development in Haldi Road, does that mean that Pine Valley Golf Course can not be rezoned and sold unless it stays a park?

The city has been doing more “ammending” and “Housekeeping” this past couple of years like changing diapers on a baby,and appears for business/special interest groups. Which tells me, they, at City Hall have not been doing their job… The new OCP was completed in 2011. So maybe the city can explain to the citizens WHY it was not done properly if we have all these changes. The city is not doing the job of future outlook like they should be. The new OCP was being worked on when the Haldi and BBK fiascos started, the city has had plenty of time. The community asked for several meetings with the city and were ignored.

Since the city has a new OCP as of 2011. My thoughts on this is either someone is being put between a rock and a hard place in the planning department or possibly special people are being served by this city. An OCP should have at least a minimum of a 5 years plan – in some areas it is 10 yrs + . If one is to look at all the other centres with 30 or more people in the province there is not one located similar to the Haldi Road area……

Step 4: Consider the appropriateness of your request.
The City chose the OCP designation for your
property for a reason. OCP designations take into
account surrounding land uses when determining
the ideal locations for particular types of
development. Be sure your designation fits into
this larger picture.

After review from the Advisory Planning
Commission, the Committee of the Whole
will make recommendations to Council on
how to process the application at the next
available meeting. Council has the option to
give the Bylaw readings, request changes or
more information, table or refuse it.

Council will consider all
comments raised at the public hearing.
Then, Council has the option to give Third
Reading and Adoption, table it, refuse it, or
request changes.

Not sure if there is a place to make donations to the Haldi group. This group needs the financial support of the people to fight the gestapo attitude prevalent at city hall.

Resident, you are forgetting that it is not city hall putting up a fuss. It is the locals of Haldi doing so.

Haldi Rd. like Quebec? Keep voting until you win? Seems so. The word no doesn’t seem to have the same understanding in city council as it does with the rest of the real world.

And what fuss would that be Loki. The fact that it took the Supreme Court to send the message to council that you cant just go against your own bylaws and spot zone where ever you want to. And now the city wants to change all residential neighbourhood OCPs to include facilities such as a recovery centers, which IMO is again spot zoning. So are residents of Prince George suppose to sit back and watch the city change a neighbourhood’s character and identity at their whim. Hmmm sorry I am not that type of person so the fuss will continue.

007 wrote: “After review from the Advisory Planning Commission”

We have no Advisory Planning Commission. It was disbanded about 20 or so years ago. I used to sit on it for a few years.

The Parkng Commission went “south” as well.

Loki wrote: “Resident, you are forgetting that it is not city hall putting up a fuss. It is the locals of Haldi doing so.” …. when it comes to the issue of neighbourhood integrity

That sound very familiar …..

Let me see, how about this?

‘Loki, you are forgetting that it is not city hall putting up a fuss. It is the locals who drive the streets of Prince George doing so.’

…… when it comes to the issues of state fo street maintenance in PG.

Really, one could apply that to anyting, can’t one?

We have to remember, we are the clients and the City is the servant. Not the other way around.

So, I realizee that the City does not believe in having the attitude that “the client is always right”. Their attitude is that the City is always right.

As I stated before, if you look into who actually wants this Recovery Centre, who asked for it, who will utilize it, how it will be funded, where the clients will come from, you might get closer to the truth as to whats taking place.

These types of facilities cannot survive on thier own. They need Government funding. Why is the Provincial Government silent of this issue. They are in fact the ones who will fund the Centre, after its established. The same as they did for **New Hope** at the Baldy Huges faciity.

Lets hear from Bell and Bond. Is Rich Coleman and the Liberals behind the establishment of this facility. Lets not forget that it was the Liberals, who shut down the Nechako Treatment Centre, that was a co-ed 18 Unit facility that treated people with drug and alcohol problems.

Why did they shut down the Nechako Treatment Centre??? They stated that they were going to deliver this service in a different way. I expect that Baldy Hughes, and Haldi Road, are the different way.

So, what is the Provincial Governments role in the establishment of this centre at Haldi Road. If I was a betting man, I would bet the facility at Haldi Road has the tacit approval of the Liberal Government, and they as much as the City, are responible for the location of this centre.

LOL Memory lane with mayor green and the crew.

If you ask the neighbours, the answer is no.

They raised concerns about water supply, something the Haldi neighbourhood has struggled with. There were questions about security, increased traffic, and if housing people who are battling addictions will bring drug dealers into the neighbourhood, and what will having a facility such as this in their neighbourhood do to their property values?.

Marshall Smith told Opinion 250 the facility could be a positive for the community “The facility is a healing community, this is place where the women can come to focus on themselves, away from those negative influences.” Smith says a facility like this will have an impact on the community, “Having a healing community where there is love and respect and wellness happening in the centre of your community will impact your community, it will impact you in a positive way.”

Smith says there are many services that can be provided by the facility “For example there is a park located next to this facility that has been run down, that’s an opportunity for us to use that as a working program and update that park and revitalize it and maintain it for the use of the community.” He says there are also plans for a greenhouse which could supply produce to the neighbourhood, and there is a plan for an artisan bakery.

Palopu – I’ve said this from the start… Liberal supporters/members all the way through.

Posted by: Palopu on May 7 2011 7:49 PM
I tried to show that the Treatment Centre connected to the Regional Hospital was closed for a reason. The reason being that people will be sent to these treatment centres run by Charitable Organizations, and the Provincial Government.

Why do we need, Baldy Hughes, Huda Lake, Haldi Road. I also heard that there might be one opening up at the old Poultry Farm East of Prince George.

A few years ago the Liberal Government, and more specifically Kevin Falcon and Coleman were looking into the whole structure of treatment facilities in BC.

Are we being set up as one of the destination Cities for treatment in the Province?? Maybe we are clearing out Vancouver???

Prince George:

Crime capital of Canada

Treatment center capital of Canada

Pothole capital of Canada

There is no end to list of awards won by the present mayor and city council. No wonder people are willing to pay more for a house just to live elsewhere.