Haldi Road Residents to Consider Court Action
Tuesday, March 5, 2013 @ 4:17 AM
Prince George, B.C. – “See you in court” shouted a man as he left the City of Prince George Council Chambers shortly after midnight last night.
In a vote of 8 to one, Council approved an OCP amendment and rezoning that will clear the way for the development of a recovery centre for women in the heart of a rural neighbourhood.
The majority of residents in the Haldi Road region oppose the amendment, saying allowing a therapeutic care facility in the neighbourhood conflicts with the rural residential feel of the neighbourhood.
“We will be meeting with our lawyer, Roy Stewart, to see what our next step will be” says Laura Jagodnik, one of the key opponents to the OCP amendment. Stewart himself had made a detailed submission to the public hearing outlining a number of legal issues which formed the basis for a case against the City. Tracy Kettles, also a key opponent, says Council failed to make a decision based on land use “They made a decision not based on the policies of the OCP, but on the moral imperative for the need in the city for a facility."
Jagodnik says Haldi area residents are still interested in proceeding with possibly pulling out of the City of Prince George, a move that would put them under the banner of the Regional District of Fraser Fort George "There were people who supported the women’s recovery centre, in our community, who said when you come around talking about leaving the City, we will sign up."
The neighbourhood had presented dozens of letters against the amendment, and a petition with more than 500 signatures, but in the end, after 4 and a half hours of presentations, only Councillor Brian Skakun stood opposed to the amendment. He was also the lone dissenter on the rezoning application attached to the hearing.
For the Chair of the Board of the Northern Supportive Recovery Centre, Dr. Michelle Sutter, the decision means the centre can start moving forward “We are very pleased we could get passage of the third reading tonight, we have heard the concerns of some of the Haldi residents and we have actually started a dialogue with two of the women who presented tonight. We met on February the 19th and February the 28th. They brought it up and we are certainly in agreement to proceed with the good neighbour agreement which would be an agreement we are all happy with about how things are going to go.”
Dr. Sutter says certainly communication could be more challenging if there is a legal case, “but we are hopeful we can move forward from here.”
Dr. Sutter says the goal is to make the recovery centre sustainable. She says while there will be some beds for public supported patients, the majority of beds will be offered privately at a cost of about $6500 a month per person. “There are some renovations that need to be done, and we can move forward on that once we have fourth reading.” That final reading could likely come as early as two weeks from now, at which time, the Recovery Centre would apply for a building permit. Of course those plans could be put on hold if the Haldi residents launch court action.
Comments
So I guess the next questions would be how much will the city legal bill be to push this through the courts, and how much will the city loose in property tax revenue once the Haldi Road area leave the city?
Seems to me the collateral cost for the city could have easily paid for a center like this in full elsewhere.
Groundhog Day
Good Christian folks those Haldi Road people!
It has nothing to do with religion Denaljo. It has everything to do with money. Remember this amendment to the OCP is for all of Prince George.
So where can we donate to the Haldi road cause?
What exactly do the Haldi Road residents not agree with? I for one don’t get it. It’s not a nuclear facility or a jail full of murderers or something.
Nope it’s a women’s facility where they are trying to work through some issues……am I wrong?
Surely there are worse things in the world.
Is it better to have the school sit empty and not be looked after? I think the majority of Haldi Residents are probably adverse to it. The 500 that are said to be against this, I wonder if they aren’t a select few and made their family members sign the petition even if they don’t agree with it.
The one question you must ask your self is, if you would like it in your neighborhood. I am willing to bet the answer is no especially if it were put within 500 feet from your house
And what street addict in prince george is going to be able to afford 6500 bucks a month? This is all about a private mega money making project. It has nothing to do with doing good things for addicted women. I call BS on this.
“Dr. Sutter says the goal is to make the recovery centre sustainable”
And here I was sure that the goal was to make it unsustainable.
Too many people these days open up a new business with the goal of going out of business as soon as possible.
The things people say that has absolutely no logic to it.
I hope Haldi Road pursues this court action. We bought our property because of its location to a school. We would not have bought if it was beside a recovery center.
I guess I know where all the city’s pot hole money will be going.
“And what street addict in prince george is going to be able to afford 6500 bucks a month”
None. These are programs which are paid for by taxpayers.
Those which are paid for by rich uncles are located on the sandy surf-pounded beaches of Oregon and California ….. ;-)
“She says while there will be some beds for public supported patients, the majority of beds will be offered privately at a cost of about $6500 a month per person” .. I read that to say, that the public supported beds are the beds paid for by taxpayers, but the majority of beds will be paid by private money. Which in a sense is a good thing if the proposal was all about bringing a business to prince george that is going to make money, but the proposal only talks about the need for a recovery centre for “Prince George”. I say the vast majority of addicted people that we see on the streets everyday in PG are NOT the people that will be getting help, therefore, it is not going to benefit the people OR residents of PG as far as being a recovery centre for local people.
Sorta like letting another city (Vancouver/Victoria) bring and dump its’ unwanted garbage in your neighbourhood.
“What exactly do the Haldi Road residents not agree with”
Who really knows. The parties involved never met to have a meaningful discusion as it states in the OCP.
Council thinks the OCP is a living document (interpret that as meaning it can change any time Council wishes to diregard what it actually tells them.
They do not understand that there are words in the OCP which are guides to process.
They have all these apple pie and motherhood statements in them that need to be pulled out of the document so that it will sound like an OCP of a dictatorship rather than an OCP of a democratic governing body. That, we have found out, is just a guise.
But then, nothing has changed. It is, in fact, the reason we have sprawl in this city even though one OCP after another speaks about managed growth. Along comes money, and they flinch, and the rest of us get to pay for miles and miles of pavement and all the annual costs which go along with that.
MDF plant, BK bottle depot, Casino, WIC, recovery centre and many more like it is the legacy of one Council after another which do not recognize the notion of right facility in wrong location.
We need to come to the realization that they are inept at devising processes which are win-win.
I also hope the residents take this to court. The outcome will not be a slam dunk this time but Roy Stewart did lay the basis for some good arguments.
Did have a chuckle over Hall attempting to postpone the meeting till 7pm today to allow for thoughtful deliberation but when the time came the thought process was nothing but an empty facade with it being painfully obvious the decisions were made long before the meeting started.
Will there be public transportation, regular bus service into the city? Will the street be kept plowed on a needed basic after snow falls, Heath facility maybe in need of help with medical emergencies?
One can only assume that the up keep of highway 16 west of the city to Haldi road will improve?
There is an nice family park on my street that I am sure would make a great location for a medical building! NEXT
Sold out….if they wanted drug addicts for neighbors they probably would have bought in the hood or downtown…
But; You have hit the nail on the head, with your statement (Vancouver /Victoria) will be dumping its unwanted in Prince George, we are getting the unwanted from all over Canada why do you think our crime rate is so high?? We bring them in with all the services we provide, like the needle Van that delivers to your door step, I wonder if Vernon has this service?? One feeds off the other. How long is it going to be before the Government buys this facility like they did with Baldy Hughes, Someone will be laughing all the way to the Bank.
$6500 for a month that is why we have so many addicts! cant get clean even if they wanted, and those public beds haha good luck with that
People should be ashamed of themselves comparing people to garbage. What if it was one of your daughters!!!!! Have you heard about think before speaking.
I have two little kids and if you built this place next to my house I wouldn’t care. It’s not drug addicts in crack houses shooting up. It’s drug addicts trying to get well.
And the needle van? I’m a big fan. Before that thing came around I had used needles on my street. No more. That’s called harm reduction and it exists as much for the general public walking on the sidewalk as it does the addicts.
You are right Noway – it is all about money. Is that the new Christian way?
I support the Haldi road residents… what I don’t support is the bullying and attempted intimidation by some people (and posters above – see hategreen) to anyone that disagrees.
There was an article recently in the Citizen about this.
I was on the fence on this entire issue but hategreen is quickly making me glad that this was passed :)
I think the real issue now extends passed the treatment centre, and is now more about the City not taking, “No” for an answer.
It seems dirty and underhanded to me, a Judge told them they were breaking the rules and they could not have their way…..So they ban together to change the rules of the game.
It reminds me greatly of the residents of BC and the PST debacle. Perhaps we made the right choice, perhaps we didn’t, but we didn’t like the way it was handled, and didn’t like the powers that be trying to force it upon us….So we fought.
Shame on the City Council. Yes, I am sure these are all upstanding citizens trying to get “clean”. I am sure none of these people are from wealthy families who are ashamed of their addict daughters/sisters, etc and who are having them committed to a facility against their wills….and who are still very much looking for a “fix”.
I do not understand what being Christian, Catholic, or Atheist has to do with anything. It is making assumptions of people and their beliefs based on what? The fact they don’t want to share their neighborhoods with a recovery center?
There has been a lot of bashing done by City residents of the Haldi Rd citizens, yet not once as any other neighborhood come forward and offered their vacant school up as an alternative. Perhaps Dr. Sutter and her bunch could purchase the land beside the former Gladstone Elementary and start a recovery center there. Or, the former South Fort George Elementary. Both schools are now owned by NHA. Maybe Dr. Sutter can arrange for an employee discount.
From the OCP
Policy 7.5.9 Permit affordable housing, including non-market rental, supportive housing and transitional housing, to be located in all residential areas subject to SITING CRITERIA
Policy 13.4.16 – The City should develop simplified SITING CRITERIA for location of supportive and transitional housing and emergency shelters IN CONSULTATION WITH COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS.
As Roy Stewart pointed out, there are no siting criteria. One would think that with such a controversial project, that someone would have made some effort (and that should have been the City, with the developer and the local residents) to put the siting criteria in place.
I am well aware of the useless word âshouldâ in there. Not very imperative, is it? Goes along with the mindset that the OCP is, after all, just a guideline and a living document. So, it is sort of like a New Yearâs resolution, it appears. You make it and then after a few days you give up because it is, after all, just a guideline and a living resolution. And hey, its fun to write useless words.
How about âthe City will developâ¦..â oooooh, far too prescriptive â¦â¦.
The Siting Criteria should have been done at the time of the OCP â¦.. but they were not and likely never will be. It just looks good.
So what is missing in all this? Simple â¦. Wherever there are policies, we must have procedures to implement the policy. So where is the procedures manual consolidated to accompany the OCP policy statement? Is there a Councillor who dares ask that question? Does the Mayor, after this fiasco, sit down with the acting city manager and tell her that she wants the procedures around each one of the policies in the OCP to be put in front of Council so that the City is not put in such an embarrassing situation in the future.
But then again, so many in the City really would not understand that so no one is put into any embarrassing situation after all.
It is the mediocrity we live in as Councillor Frizzell was so quickly buying into.
Instead of intelligent co-operation we have (as previously predicted) more confrontation. However, the die was cast before the meeting even started, imho.
The editor may wish to set a standard for what is acceptable here for a username! This is a website which is global, after all!
The Haldi neighbourhood has been robbed……missing are city services and the character. Suspects are believed to be one female queen bee and 7 male worker bees known to be connected to the Fehr/Wood gang. The thieves have left a trail of messy OCP honey. Be on the look out in every rural and residential neighbourhood spot in Prince George. After a long restless winter it is time for the bears to heal and forge ahead and voluntarily survive in everyones neighbourhood. More honey more bears. Be bear aware.
Wow
The cost for a month that Haild is charging Wow???
I would like to know how they came up with that price. There are shelters for women and men in town that doesn’t have a lot of funding. Some of the shelters use the client welfare cheque to pay there bed a month. A single person on welfare gets about a total of $530.00 a month and the shelters take a % of that to pay there beds, feed them, etc
You can look for funding. Northern health does funding for drugs and alcohol or there mental heathy beds.
There is also men and women halfway houses. I bet they don’t charge $6500 per month.
Watch out for those berries, they are addicting…as some are picked fresh, some will ferment and some will die this season, but rest asure they will continually produce again each spring and summer.
This program will be a 90 day program. So the cost per person would be $19,500.00. I was under the impression that it was $20,000.00 per month, however $19,500.00 for 3 months sounds more reasonable. (for some).
In any event you can rest assured that people will come to this facility from all over the Province, and so the Haldi road residents were screwed over by the Liberal Government (who is hiding in the background on this issue) and the proponents, who over time will probably sell this facility to the Government, like they did with Baldy Hughes.
The whole process was not fair, and in fact was a prime example of our Mayor and Councillors looking out for the vested interests at the peril of the tax paying citizens.
I too will be more than happy to make a donation to support taking this issue to court. It must be fought to the highest level in order to get the attention of the Mayor and Council, that they cant just do what ever they wish whenever they wish.
Seems they have forgotten (if they ever knew) that they are servants of the people. That is to say ALL the people, not just those that want to push through their pet projects.
The contact for the Haldi Group is;
haldiroad64@gmail.com
The only thing missing last night in chambers was a ceiling fan and a councillor named Bubba. It could be the setting for To Kill a Mocking Bird part 2. This is not the first time some thing like this has happened to me but usually there is a kiss involved.
I don’t think they listened at all. For all those who are going to speak in front of council may I suggest you speak real s l o w as apparently they have a hard time comprehending what is being said.
But you can’t speak tooooo slow or you’d offend Green’s 5 minute rule!
One person can go to treatment 3 or more times on our tax payers money. Ministry will pay there treatment and the cost to get there almost every time. If the cost is 19,500.00 for 90 days of treatment, them how much do we pay for one person during there struggle to clean up. Then we get the city bill with a increase. How does that work???
$6500 bucks a month? Ya gotta be kiddin’ me! For that price you can get TWO rooms (suites) at the PG Chateau, complete with five hunnert bucks a month leftover to hang out at Tim’s. Plus they have a shuttle to the Casino. Hmmmm?
I am looking at a new GM pickup. Sullivan Motors in Houston says they will gladly take the money I was going to spend at Craig Wood’s dealership. What else can I do ? I can’t refuse to pay my city taxes so…..
There is funding from Northern Health, UNBC or Provincial government……
Consider this….. $6500 / month is hardly affordable by the elite, let alone the lesser fortunate, so this now leads to ask, how viable is the business proposal? And is this business also sustainable for the long term?
With the rezoning, this has now permitted any facility to be placed into this location, and in the inevitable end of which the women’s recovery facility closes down due to lack of funding, this will happen.
Now I then see this turning to a halfway house, or perhaps a drug rehabilitating Center for the “higher risk” violators, for there is much higher provincial and federal funding for those type of individuals.
Haldi people, I think you have been hoodwinked, and your troubles haven’t even been close to realized! Truly a shame how the city of which you pay taxes toward can use your own money to segregate your community.
IMO, ban together, seek out the council proponents, and open equal-like facilities in their neighbourhoods, or by their businesses. I am sure then you will find strong argument from the council why that type of a facility is not suited for their neighbourhood!
Hmmmm wonder why a gaming grant is on hold……
The two parties had a lease all along. Wonder if they were waiting for grants….
At the end of the day, what Mayor Green and council, (except for Brian Skakun (thank-you for your intestinal fortitude)) demonstrated on Monday night was that this city council has no regard for neighbourhoods. Why would anyone want to invest in a city where their investments are in peril with a leadership that bends with the slightest breeze :(
What a shame that the Haldi road residents have to use the courts and spend their hard earned money to get the City to abide by their own rules (OCP) not once but twice. That is a crime!!! Who do I contact to donate to their legal costs to fight this the 2nd time around?
Am also interested in separating from the city and joining the regional district as our area isn’t getting much for the taxes we pay either. It’s time to move on if the city will not support the residents but only cater to big business friends.
This Council is intent on running us into thre poor house with legal fees.
I thought it was a good idea until I found out they don’t want to help out our locals. If it’s purpose was to help the people of our community I would have been the number 1 supporter. it’s just a business it doesn’t belong.
At 3rd reading, one of the points coming through loud and clear was that the Women’s Treatment Centre at Haldi should go ahead because scrapping that idea and starting the process over and finding a new location would only cause more delay. Really??? How much more delay will be caused when this goes to court a 2nd time? Would be interesting if Hudta Lake centre could go ahead and be up and running before this Haldi mess gets started. Go Hudta Go!!
Seems to me I heard one of the delays on the Hudta project had to do with being on native land. Shouldn’t we all be working together on this!
social services
B.C. to run Prince George addiction treatment centre
WENDY STUECK
The Globe and Mail
Last updated Thursday, Sep. 06 2012, 10:25 AM EDT
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bc-politics/bc-to-run-prince-george-addiction-treatment-centre/article2095420/?service=mobile
According to a recent report in the Prince George Citizen, the number of residents at the facility has dropped from 65 to 48 since March, and five Prince George residents resigned from the board between November, 2008, and March, 2011.
Makes me wonder when some of the names are connected.
geepee: Seems to me I heard one of the delays on the Hudta project had to do with being on native land. Shouldn’t we all be working together on this!
I have been saying this all along. I hope there are some very wealthy first nations that can afford $6500 a month. The bands say they are broke…..
Does Krause not sit on the board for Hutda?
wow, 6500, this started out as 3000.
It does not matter what they come up with it is a smoke screen to make themselves look good – oh it will now be for 35 – 60 year old professional women…HUH –
What matters is this time it is for the whole city….
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