You Say No to Buying Land From Province
Friday, November 15, 2013 @ 3:59 AM
Prince George, B.C. – The Province has yet to make a final decision on whether or not it will sell a significant chunk of Crown Land south of Summit Lake, to the City of Prince George.
The City wants to buy 584.78 hectares (a little more than 1,445 acres ) from the Province for heavy industrial development. Such development can’t happen within the City’s existing boundaries because of the impact on what is already a very sensitive airshed.
Although the price of the property has not been set, the Province has advised the amount will be determined once three independent evaluations have been submitted. As some portions of the property are more suitable for development than others within this parcel, the cost could range from a low of $600 to a high of $1,500 an acre. That means the total amount for the full 1445 acres could range from a low of $867 thousand to $2,167,500.00
So, we put the question to you.
Should the City purchase Crown land in the Regional District for heavy industrial development?
79.2% (1,706) say NO.
20.8% (449) say YES.
There is no word on when the Province will make a final determination on the status of the property.
Comments
79.2% (1,706) say NO.
20.8% (449) say YES.
In reality, that should be reported as
: “there were 1,706 votes for no and 449 votes for yes”
That cannot be reasonably disputed because it does not infer that there were actually 2,155 separate individuals who voted.
There could have been half as many with some voting a few times when they went on their home computers, their tablets, their smart phones and using any of those at different WIFI locations in the city. People actually do not have to go through the trouble of accessing free proxy servers which can ping in from anywhere in the world.
By writing that I am not disputing that the vote would have been split in roughly a similar proportion.
The main thing, however, is that, in my opinion, there was inadequate information provided to voters as to why the city wants to do this in the best interest of promoting heavy industry development. If we are not going to do it, we cannot rely on the regional district, nor can we rely on the province or the feds.
What I really want to know is what approaches has the city made to have the province take a lead on this from the point of view of their “jobs plan” and interest in developing the interior and north to provide alternate employment opportunities as the jobs in forestry will drop even further through the “mid term” pine harvest downfall of some 40% of historic values.
So, why do we not treat this the same way as anything else to the nay-sayers.
If people do not like it, don’t just say no. Understand the reason why the RDFFG has identified that area as THE prime industrial development land and tell us whether you would support heavy industry to locate in that part of the Regional District or not.
If you do, then tell us how we will actually get off our asses to make it happen 15 years after the RDFFG and the City actually started to realize that such development could not occur within the city limits unless industry was prepared to put in squeaky clean plants as they do in many other parts of the modern, best practices industrial world.
“Such development canât happen within the Cityâs existing boundaries because of the impact on what is already a very sensitive airshed”
sounds like it will be producing a lot of polution…
how can they get away with it????
the government complains about the amount of carbon I put into the air by breathing…
political party donations? and back scratching?
One of these days one or more of the pulp mills will have to be rebuilt from scratch, perhaps even produce paper products instead of just pulp.
That is the type of location that such a plant could be built.
How about a refinery that is under discussion every now and then?
Take a look at the pellet plant next to Dunkley. When the air is warm enough to minimize the amount of steam which covers the pollution, there is nothing but a blue cloud coming from the stacks.
Same with new sawmills. If that site had been ready, we may have been able to get Lakeland to rebuild there.
Some heavy industrial parks are “green” from the point of view that the waste products they produce are fed into energy generation which can be used by a variety of other park businesses. The old heavy industry “parks” south of the do not have such infrastructure, although they could be retrofitted in that way and commitments made to use best available technology to remove most of the pollution generated.
BUT, again, no one has that will, especially not the MoE which should have that will!
that should be south of the city … the computer has not had breakfast yet and is gobbling up words … ;-)
With the way the city keeps raising taxes and coming up with new fees I’d like to move to the regional district too.
Pulp mills require a very large & reliable water supply, I don’t think there is that resource in that area.
Lakeland had to rebuild on River Rd because the City needs them for the bio-heating system. Or to put it another way even if Lakeland wanted to build out of the bowl the City needed them to rebuild on River Rd.
Not surprising. We say no to pretty much everything around here.
Probably insurance company made them rebuild there. Plu its already zoned appropiately and they own the land. Why waste time an money buying another parcle of land and waiting for the rezoning totake place. Get the jobs back online quicker.
That is why you need transparency. Who knows maybe it is a good investment. It seems the helm is being run buy fancy big spenders though.
I am sure the city is lobbying the other two governments for a huge grant for the unavoidable PAC!
I suggest that the city ask the province to have that land granted to it, free of charge! The province knows that putting more industry into the bowl area is a no-no because of the bad air quality (health of the public at large!!!) so it should encourage and facilitate new development to locate outside of the bowl!
It will cost the province next to nothing!
Elected officials – city council and MLAs – get with it!
Concentrate on things that make sense! Air quality first – arts and entertainment second!
I think the province should sell it to one of their liberal friends.
The city needs to get out of the business of being a business and start managing essential services effectivly and on budget and quit speculating with tax payers money..
If the pulp mills ever built a new mill, it would be a super mill, and they would shut down all three of the present mills, so you would end up with approx. the same production, less pollution, and considerably less workers. If your going to spend all those millions you may as well get the maximum bang for your buck.
As for the property on the Hart. We don’t know what they are looking at, however if it is a pollution spewing project, then it should be refused. We need not sell our souls for a dollar.
With cheap Natural Gas, pellet plants could be a thing of the past.
“I suggest that the city ask the province to have that land granted to it, free of charge!”
Exactly!!!!
An earlier government set aside provincial land for a University for no money.
Had they not done that, we could have gone to the second choice, north of the Nechako and east of Foothills. That was the second choice when they were evaluating locations.
Downtown was never a serious contender …. although many people now wish that they would have built there and moved downtown to College Heights. LOL
Anyone who ‘buys’ the land beit from the city or feds or regional district is not going to pay land taxes to the City of Prince George so why get our tax $$ involved? If this land was within city limits then maybe a case could be made.
Besides the mayor is busy with all the Chinese investment that she says is going to be happening now with the opening of the new road
You do know that PG is in the Regional District, right?
You do know that the citizens of PG pay taxes to the Regional District, right?
You do know that if a major industry locates just outside of PG, in the regional district and pays taxes to the Regional District, that our component of taxes is reduced, right?
And, of course, you do know that major industry located near PG while generate additional service business which is likely located in PG, and could generate new business to locate here which is all good for the City and/or the RDFFG because it will generate new residences in either one of the jurisdictions, right?
So, if you knew all that, why do you have this stupid look on your face, slinky?
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