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January 29, 2014
Bylaws make development costs skyrocket
Inside
KEVIN PARNELL
Using a church as a place to protest offends columnist Jim Taylor’s sense of respect. ...............................
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It may take a while to come to fruition, but Lake Country’s cultural amenities are presenting their case to council for more space to present local history and art to the public. ...............................
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Lake Country is taking a stand on where medicinal marijuana production takes place. ...............................
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Flyers ■ Budget Blinds ■ Coopers ■ Jysk ■ Shoppers Drug Mart ■ Staples
The balancing act between attracting new business and improving the infrastructure in Lake Country was centre stage at Lake Country council last week as a developer was sent back to the drawing board after a heated discussion amongst Lake County politicians.
At issue was the development of a new drive-thru oil change business, proposed for the same lot as the current 7-11, along Highway 97 through Lake Country. According to Lake Country’s bylaws, developers are tasked with paying for and installing proper infrastructure when they develop in the
area—things like sidewalks, gutters and sewer. The lot in question sits at the corner of Highway 97 and Okanagan Centre Road. With plans to add a new Great Canadian Oil Change business, as well as renovate another building on the lot and open a tire store, the developer was required to build a 130-metre side-
walk along his property, fronting Okanagan Centre Road. He was before council asking if he could install just 59 metres due to the rising costs of such construction. “When I got into this I was a little bit naive about the requirements,” Brian Casavants, the owner of the lot, told Lake Country council. “The first thing I was
told was I needed to put sewer across Highway 97 and that was $110,000. (Lake Country) has form and character requirements and I had to redesign the building— approximately a $30,000 retrofit. There are retaining walls needed and the (municipality) has certain requirements. There is a lot of extra costs coming into this com-
munity. This is quickly getting out of budget.” Casavants said relief on the length of the sidewalk being required would save him about $75,000 and allow for the new building to be constructed and the business to open. The request by Casavants sparked a debate
SEE DEVELOPMENT A2
A clear case for green ice KEVIN PARNELL As the Zamboni prepares to head out onto the ice sheet at Kelowna’s Memorial Arena to clean the scrapes and snow after the completion of yet another hockey game, there is more activity than ever behind the doors where the ice machine will eventually emerge. Staff are busy checking the water temperature being loaded into the Zamboni, reading gauges in the arena’s mechanical plant and fine-tuning a new ice making system that is widely used in Sweden and Finland. Called REALIce, Memorial Arena has installed the new system under a unique FortisBC pilot project aimed at saving thousands of dol-
lars a month. Valued at $30,000 (a tab that will be paid by Fortis if Memorial Arena decides to adopt the system) the REALIce system seems to turn everything ice-makers have traditionally done on its ear. It’s a complicated technology that uses a vortex system to change the property of the water before it’s put into the Zamboni. In layman’s terms, and in a perfect world, it allows a Zamboni to put cold water on cold ice and create the same quality of ice as was created under the old system where water as hot as 65 C was used to flood the ice. In the process, it saves money on heating the water, running ice-making compressors that
KEVIN PARNELL/LAKE COUNTRY CALENDAR
THE WORKING end of a Zamboni now filled with room temperature water instead of the boiling variety in a
test being conducted at Kelowna’s Memorial Arena. cool the floor under the ice and limiting the amount of energy usage. “The old thought on
ice-making was if you used cold water, it freezes too fast on the ice and causes the ice to fracture
DARLA
easily,” said Justin Pont, a Memorial Arena building operator. “If we can offer the
same quality of ice for less energy consumption,
SEE ICE A3
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