Earlier verdict ‘doesn’t apply to Everall’
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Updated: October 20, 2009 1:32 PM
White Rock council has received legal opinion that it is within its rights to reject a zoning amendment – such as one required for a townhouse project on Everall Street – even if it meets Official Community Plan policies.
Coun. Lynne Sinclair told the city planning committee Monday that the lawyer’s opinion provided important confirmation of the committee’s actions in returning the project for review on Sept. 14.
“At the time, there was concern that we were putting the city at risk,” Sinclair, the committee chair, said. “There was a question as to whether this was a Yearsley situation.”
In May, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Janice Dillon upheld a suit filed against the city by Bob and Jacqueline Yearsley, owners of Sausalito Bed and Breakfast, who claimed council had exceeded its powers in denying them a 2007 development permit application, which met all zoning bylaws and OCP guidelines.
The difference, Sinclair said, is the Everall project requires a zoning amendment, while the Yearsley project simply required a development permit.
Meanwhile the development application for the six-unit, three-storey project on Everall is on hold at the request of the applicants.
Developers Saverio Lattanzio and Tejinder Dhillon had asked that their application for 1466 Everall St. be deferred to allow time to prepare it for committee review.
Council members, sitting as the land use and planning committee, accepted that request Monday and publically released an Oct. 6 report from development services director Paul Stanton outlining the legal opinion.
In his report, Stanton said legislation requires that any bylaw adopted be consistent with the OCP – but that the city is not under any obligation to adopt a bylaw merely because it is consistent with the plan. The only requirement, he said, was to give such an application “due process and consideration.”
“Council can, in fact, reject a zoning amendment application that is consistent with the OCP, when it is not in the public interest and so long as the decision is based on land-use rationale.”
At the Sept. 14 committee meeting, members defeated a motion to send the project on to council for first and second readings and public hearing, opting instead to return it to staff with a requirement the developer lower the unit-per-acre ratio, which would reduce the number of units to five.
Stanton’s report noted the final decision on any such application must be made by council, not by the committee.
But if council rejects the necessary zoning amendment, council is “under no obligation to consider the associated development permit application” as it would not be consistent with existing zoning, he said.
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