Rural gentrification, backyard roosters and “garbage mining” are among several concerns and suggestions shared with the regional district in a request for a “strategic framework”supporting healthy communities.
At its Dec. 9 meeting, the Columbia Shuswap Regional District (CSRD) board received a lengthy letter (the sender’s name redacted in the board’s agenda package), with several ideas and recommendations on a range of topics.
CSRD administrator John MacLean said the letter was well written and addressed a number of issues of policy and regulatory authority in the CSRD that warrant “a good wholesome discussion as to where we want to go as a region, as a community.”
MacLean said staff would bring something back to the board addressing the points raised.
The writer begins their letter by asking the CSRD for a strategic framework that defines where “we, as a group of communities in these uncertain times, see ourselves in the coming decade.”
“I envision living in a community which values right-sized homes over McMansions; which values local food and home gardens, and which values the opinions and weighs the needs of the poor and disenfranchised as much as the wealthy and powerful,” reads the letter.
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The author then shares their concern around gentrification of rural areas in the regional district. This came about after they “unknowingly violated the ‘rooster bylaw’, and my neighbour, newly moved from Ontario, reported me and three or four other neighbours who had small backyard heritage flocks.”
The writer argues a bylaw banning roosters is counter to local food security. As an alternative, they propose a well-defined noise bylaw with “measurable limitations on times, loudness and length of noise instead of targeting a specific agricultural animal.”
“We need to re-think our intolerance of noises associated with farm animals that sits side-by-side without unthinking tolerance of the noises involved with material consumption (whether it’s the sounds of construction or the luxury of pets).”
The writer then comments on allowing “subdivision and strata developers to set the minimum footprint sizes for housing,” arguing that with no bylaws that “create environmental boundaries for private development, we are allowing our strategies to be set by those who want to maximize short-term profit.”
“Please think about what this means for us in the next 50 years, when the disruptions and changes will be astronomically worse…,” reads the letter, whose author goes on to call upon the CSRD to advocate for changes to building codes to support use of natural building materials such as straw, clay, lime and hemp.
Speaking to the CSRD’s upcoming solid waste review, the author asks some thought be given to the possibility of “mining our garbage for resources including nutrients, metals and minerals, stating there are innovative, inexpensive methods to do this, “like using plants known to hyper-accumulate heavy metals… then harvesting the plants.”
The letter also includes input on how bylaws are enforced within the CSRD, stating this can be critical when it comes to community building. The author suggests the people are abusing the CSRD’s “complaint system,” and that it is taking the place of communication between neighbours and the chance for “community problem solving.”
The board had no comments on the letter, and was supportive of staff coming back to a future meeting with more information.
lachlan@saobserver.net
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