PRINCE GEORGE – City Administration has its work cut out for it.
A lengthy meeting took place Wednesday night around the proposed new Official Community Plan in which Council peppered Administration with referrals for more information and suggested changes to the draft report.
Some of the direction for instance was to have Administration look at expanding promotion of Prince George beyond a winter city to one around wildfire mitigation.
“That Council directs Administration to report back with additional directions to enhance safety by mitigating wildfires in the City of Prince George.” It included looking at a policy to limit the planting of flammable trees.
Another request was a review of food security and a motion requesting Administration tweak one section of the draft OCP “that clearly supports the protection of urban tree canopy and equitable replacement of significant tree loss on both private public development areas. Policy direction should consider the potential for mandatory replanting, developer contributions toward reforestation or urban greening initiatives.”
“What Councillor [Kyle] Sampson is trying to enhance Section 16.1.4 with a bit of a stronger policy directive to update the Tree Protection bylaw,” noted Deanna Wasnik, Director of Planning and Development.
One proposed amendment was an Infrastructure Renewal Strategy to look at aging or redundant infrastructure. But it was deemed to be a far-too onerous and costly project to be handled through the OCP process. Rather, it was referred to a future Finance and Audit Committee meeting.
All-in-all there were nearly forty suggestions from Council for changes to the draft OCP, albeit not all were approved for further information.
However, Wasnik noted that, with the sheer number of reports for more information on implications of a number, she suspects there won’t be a report come back to Council until June and the City’s Manager of Legislative Services, Ethan Anderson noted there very likely be another public based on what requested of Administration.
