We the signed, call on Saanich Council to NOT remove the Local Area Plans from the Official Community Plan (OCP) Bylaw.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Background:

Saanich Council is poised to disable the municipality’s Local Area Plans (LAPs) next month in April 2024, if they so choose.

They are set to do this by removing them from the district Official Community Plan (OCP) bylaw by downgrading them to a mere Council Resolution. Then in order to ensure that they are legally powerless: 7.23 inserted into the draft of the new OCP states:

“Defer to the OCP where there is an inconsistency in policy direction between the OCP and a Local Area Plan or Action Plan”.

Policy, while it sounds strong on paper, is as legally binding as both wishful thinking and fantasy.  A council resolution is as legally binding as a New Years resolution.

Two worlds can then exist side-by-side.  The wishful thinking of policy and the actual legally binding new OCP, which sets semi-rural Saanich on the road to Manhattanization without the sort of checks, balances and publicly informed on-the-ground planning that the Local Area Plans represented and protected in bylaw.

The disempowering of the LAPs is being prepared so subtly that the public is almost entirely unaware, and the Residents Associations have been as quiet as a mouse on the issue.

If the council is at all democratic, it will inform the public of the issue, and put the question of whether or not the Local Area Plans should be rendered legally non-binding to a referendum.



Note: This petition is for residents of Saanich only.  Please do not donate money toward the petition.  Please pass it on instead to as many residents as possible.

For more information please contact: 
SaanichPetition@mail.com