“A Place to Call Home!”
Harbour View Manor
• oceanview • respite care • elevator • non-smoking • personal care
Chronicle The
Since 1908
www.chemainuschronicle.com
Serving Ladysmith, Chemainus and area
Ladysmith raises $45,000 for Tour de Rock P. 3
250-245-2900
$1
(plus GST)
TO DO:
Publications Mail Agreement No. 40010318
www.ladysmithchronicle.com
www.harbourviewmanor.ca
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Call AFD to save Oil 10¢/litre on Heating
Badminton club enjoys successful season P. 12
Three-year-old Amelia Ottenson of Nanaimo buries her hands in a bin of cranberries inside the packing shed at Yellow Point Cranberries during a tour of the cranberry farm Saturday afternoon. Yellow Point Cranberries hosted tours to celebrate Cranberry Harvest Days Oct. 3-5. To find out more about the farm, owned and operated by Grant and Justine Keefer, please turn to page 7. LINDSAY CHUNG
Couverdon boundary expansion rejected Lindsay Chung THE CHRONICLE
The boundary expansion proposal by Couverdon Real Estate will not be moving forward at this time. During a special council meeting Oct. 1 at Aggie Hall, Ladysmith council voted 5-2 against supporting the proposal to bring 273 hectares of TimberWest land into the Ladysmith boundaries while transferring 202 hectares within community watersheds to the Town. Mayor Rob Hutchins and Couns. Glenda Patterson, Steve Arnett, Gord Horth and Jill Dashwood did not support the proposal by Couverdon, the real estate arm of TimberWest, while Couns. Duck Pater-
son and Bill Drysdale voted to support the boundary expansion. Because the proposal did not get council’s support, it will not be considered as a referendum at this time. “I am disappointed it’s not going to referendum,” Couverdon zoning and planning director Frank Limshue said following the meeting. “I think the biggest thing is just for us to take a breath and think of what the next steps will be, re-assess the process that we’ve gone through and try to understand what we could do differently or better.” In a presentation to the roughly 200 people at the meeting Hutchins noted that Couverdon approached the Town in April 2008 and said they would like to consider a boundary expansion.
At a town hall meeting in June 2008, council said they wanted to press the pause button, and they set a series of workshops on sustainable communities, explained Hutchins. Council looked at the proposal again in June 2011, and Couverdon held an open house, and Hutchins says that by the middle of 2011, it became apparent that residents of the Diamond were learning of this proposal for the first time. Hutchins went on to show a history of boundary expansions and alternative approval process (AAP) results in Ladysmith. Numerous AAPs over the years have passed with zero responses from residents, but when the Couverdon AAP took place this spring, the Town received 1,601
responses against the proposal. In April, council resolved not to consider this further until it had received a water study with climate change modeling. That study came forward in September. Following Hutchins’ presentation, Limshue and James Miner of Sasaki Associates in Boston reviewed the proposal, which Miner explained is likely a 30- to 50year vision. Greg Roberts asked why nobody on council has taken the concerns of the people who signed the AAP response forms seriously. “We’ve had public meetings, but I feel like we’re being lectured at,” he said. Brian Trueman asked if the Town could See Many Page 5
Where dreams come home
Assessed value versus Market Value.
250-245-1111
What’s the difference?
Sue Perrey
410A First Avenue, Ladysmith
www.IslandHomeSales.com
Luke Kolk