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Council punts OCP to September

City delays public hearing to seek more staff, community input
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City of North Vancouver municipal hall

City of North Vancouver planning staff are easing back on density in most neighbourhoods while looking at increasing it for Moodyville in the last proposed changes for the official community plan.

Among the changes staff are recommending before the OCP comes up for a council vote: reducing height limits on the London Drugs site and Telus building in central Lonsdale from 15 storeys to eight and six, respectively, establishing a height limit of 16 storeys on First Street and reducing total allowable density in Lower Lonsdale as well as making the city's density bonusing policy more restrictive.

Since starting the CityShaping process more than three years ago, council has had more than 4,500 responses from the public, almost double the original goal. Traffic, infrastructure, the pace of development and loss of views have been the most frequent concerns, according to a staff report, but 75 per cent of those surveyed either agreed or agreed strongly with the overall OCP directions.

Monday's meeting drew a contingent of Moodyville residents who asked council to grant their neighbourhood more density than what the draft OCP envisions to offset the harm done to the neighbourhood as Port Metro Vancouver tenants expand industrial activity thanks to the Low Level Road project.

While council had plenty of questions and comments about the changes pitched by staff, most of the debate centred around the "when" of the OCP, not the "what."

In a series of split-votes, council passed motions to hold two more meetings about the OCP in May or June with an aim to hold a public hearing in September.

Council members will hold an informal "shirtsleeves" session with staff to get lingering questions answered before putting the revised version of the draft OCP out to the public and hold one more public meeting.

The new timeline produced anxiety for city staff who had concerns about whether the delays would hurt the feasibility of getting the OCP approved.

"It seems like a long ways away when we talk about September, but in fact this is very tight in terms of trying to create these two events," said Gary Penway, director of community development.

Coun. Pam Bookham said she was prepared to see the OCP become an election issue, or even see it voted on by new council after the November election.

"I see no problem with having a discussion about the planning for the future of this city in the lead-up to an election and with respect to public input, there is nothing like an election as an opportunity for people to weigh in as to whether they share a particular vision or not. It seems to me, there are some who would be happier to see it all put to bed prior to the time when our electorate is deciding who they want to uphold that OCP in the years to come," she said.

Coun. Craig Keating retorted it was good to see a "frank statement" about what was behind the delay.

"The problem here is that council has decided to meddle in affairs to come up with a time that works for their schedule. This issue is not what our schedule is. The issue is what the community's schedule is," he said.

Mayor Darrell Mussatto agreed and pointed out that the city had already scheduled three extra town hall meetings meant to give everyone one last round of input before the OCP is revised and presented to council for first reading.

"I'm very frustrated with this as well. We had an unbelievable amount of input from the public," he said. "More than we've gotten on any other issue.. .. We know what the issues are. It's just political differences now."