Two property owners will likely have to wait to have their request to purchase a road dedication near Manson Avenue acted upon by City of Powell River.
At the July 9 committee of the whole meeting, councillors received correspondence from Joe Hargitt and Tami Hik, making a formal request to purchase the city-owned road dedication that divides their property.
Director of planning services Jason Gow said the land was dedicated as a road in 1981 when three properties that were part of a subdivision were subdivided.
“The approving officer of the day envisioned a secondary road parallel to Manson Avenue that has never come to fruition,” said Gow. “You can see there is no further road dedication beyond. Council could direct staff to move forward with the process related to road closure and removal of highway dedication. That process does have requirements for notice. It is a bylaw that council adopts.
“There would be costs associated with staff time, as well as public notice being published twice in the newspaper. We don’t currently have a process dealing with this type of application because it’s not one we see very often.”
Gow said the city has gone through the process before. There was a case of a road dedication that the city sold to a landowner developing land around Joyce Avenue. He said in that case, there was benefit to the city in the sense that the applicant has moved forward on developing a series of rental apartments which are currently rented.
In the correspondence being reviewed, the property owners stated they wanted to build a carriage house and a shop in the future. Gow said servicing across a road dedication can be difficult, with private services running across public land.
“The question for council is whether you want to direct staff, specifically planning staff, to spend time on an initiative that would benefit one property owner, as opposed to some of the work we are doing that is benefitting multiple property owners, especially when there is not an application fee associated with something of this nature,” said Gow.
Councillor Cindy Elliott asked if council was interested in supporting this project trying to move forward, would there be something Gow would need from councillors.
Gow said planning staff would need direction from council to include this in the planning department’s work plan.
“The question I am posing to you is prioritizing,” said Gow. “If you would like staff to spend time on this initiative, then that is taking away time we are spending on other initiatives. I’m not suggesting it is a horrible idea. There are lots of pieces of undeveloped road dedication throughout our community that go back to an era of an approving officer who had a vision for a road network that never came to fruition.
“There might be benefit at some point of looking at all those road dedications and starting to reach out to property owners to see if they would be interested in purchasing those lands.”
Councillor Rob Southcott said he supported the idea of closing this road, but he did not support the idea of distracting planning staff for priorities. He asked if there is a possibility of putting this task on a list so it is included in terms of intention for a better time when there is more staff capacity in the planning department.
Chief administrative officer Lisa Bhopalsingh said she wanted to echo the concerns of planning staff.
“We have many strategic priorities that you have set for us around supporting many, many units of housing development,” said Bhopalsingh. “While we could add this, this could be, in terms of our current capacity, two or three years, possibly, down the road. Should council want us to proceed with this one, we would drop off some of the other priorities that you have put forward to us.
“It’s not to say the letter writer doesn’t have a valid concern for their own property but we are looking at so many much bigger impact pieces that you have directed us to do. While we can add it to a list, realistically, this is something that would be two to three years.”
Councillor Earl Almeida asked if there were alternatives to selling the land that could be administratively easier.
“Is there something that is an alternative that would allow staff to execute a solution and then we can tackle it in a bigger, broader scale down the road when we don’t have as many things on the go?” asked Almeida.
Gow said unfortunately, a lease would require a similar process to a property sale.
Councillors did not direct staff to prioritize the requested property sale.
Join the Peak's email list for the top headlines right in your inbox Monday to Friday.
