Trustees have directed staff to provide only minimum reports for Local Trust Committee (LTC) consideration on new bylaw amendments – including rezoning applications –while the committee focusses on the Official Community Plan (OCP) review currently underway.

The LTC will then decide on a case by case basis whether new applications will be allowed to interrupt their work on the review.

At the June LTC meeting at the WI Hall, Trustee Sheila Malcolmson wondered whether the LTC should refuse to consider any new rezoning applications during the duration of the OCP review. Trustee Gisele Rudischer said she was “all for” the idea. “I don’t see how we’re ever going to get around to (completing) the OCP review the way we’re going”, she said. “Anything that would help that move forward I’m in favour of”. She said otherwise there will always be something coming up that interferes with the OCP work.

As previously reported staff has been directed to reduce their time processing applications to allow more time for OCP review work.

The LTC already spent three years last term to “get through only part of the OCP”, Rudischer said. She said she didn’t want to go for another term and still not finish the review.

Regional Planning Manager Chris Jackson said applicants have a right to apply, and the LTC has the right to say “not now”. He said for the sake of transparency it would be helpful to say “ ‘we are engaging in an OCP review’, and instruct staff that any applications for rezoning that come in will not be comprehensively reviewed until it goes before the Trust committee for direction on next steps”.

Rudischer was fine with that approach “as long as … the staff report isn’t going to take a whole lot of time”. She said she didn’t mind “taking responsibility or blame” for putting the OCP work first.