Skip to main content

Prince George Citizen August 27, 2020

Page 1

WHY THE KIDS ARE RIGHT ABOUT MUD – PAGE 11

PRINCE GEORGE 0

58307

00200

$2.00

5

LEGION NEEDS OUR HELP Page 9

Your community newspaper since 1916

Thursday, August 27, 2020

PGCITIZEN.CA

PRINCEGEORGECITIZEN

Social housing project passed ARTHUR WILLIAMS Citizen staff

The Phoenix Transition Society is planning to build a 14-unit social housing project on three vacant lots on Zelkwas Avenue.

This map shows the proposed four cannabis production facility properties planned for Goose Country Road.

Pot production plan approved ARTHUR WILLIAMS Citizen staff

The Regional District of Fraser-Fort George has approved rezoning four properties just northeast of Prince George to allow cannabis production, despite substantial opposition from area residents. Last Thursday, the board of directors voted 10 to four in favour of rezoning the properties along Goose Country Road. The regional district received an 88-signature petition opposing the project – although more than a dozen signatories did not live in Prince George – and residents

voiced their concerns at a public hearing held on July 14. The board also received 59 letters regarding the proposal, split roughly equally between people for and against the project. Goose Country Road residents Dee and Art Jones said three of the proposed growing facilities will be within 200 metres of their home. “It really felt like our community had no value – we counted for nothing,” Dee Jones. “You don’t fully understand the implications (of these operations) until it is right next to you.” If the district board isn’t going to listen

to public feedback, why ask for it at all, Art Jones said. “We thought the process would work for us, but it did not,” he said. “We were planning to retiring down to the island, now with this those plans are in question. I’m not sure how many people want live within 200 metres of three grow ops.” The Jones concerns were echoed by many of the letter writers: concerns about noise, traffic, smell, the impact on the local aquifer, property values and the potential fire hazard. See RESIDENTS page A6

Last Monday, city council approved rezoning for the lots located behind, and owned by, Trinity United Church located on Fifth Avenue. In a letter to the city, planner Hillary Morgan of M’akola Development Services – acting as an agent on behalf of the society – said the society already operates three housing facilities in the city “The proposed rezoning will allow the Phoenix Transition Society to expand their existing Harmony House operations,” Morgan wrote. “Harmony House is a safe house whose mission is to provide support to pregnant women and new mothers struggling with mental health and or addictions.” Harmony House offers 24-hour staffing, including registered nurses, early childhood education workers and support workers, the society’s website says. The goal of the program is to help women transition to independence and providing safe and caring homes for their children and themselves. “The Phoenix Transition Society is a non-profit society that offers temporary shelter/housing for women and women with their children who have experienced and/or at risk of abuse and violence,” Morgan wrote. The lots have no history of use, and are covered with grass, weeds and an asphalt area not used for parking by the church. Funding for the project is being provided by BC Housing, and the project is expected to be a two-or-three-storey building, built using modular construction methods to speed up construction.


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Prince George Citizen August 27, 2020 by Prince George Citizen - Issuu