Family camping traditions, Northern way-of-life at risk, critics say
Christian Gammon-Roy
Tribune
West Nipissing is seeing increased attendance at municipal council meetings as it works to update its Zoning bylaw, with amendments pertaining to travel trailers getting lots of attention. The attempt to put rules in place for trailers on private land is proving to be divisive among members of the public and even between members of council. During an April 7 meeting, the discussion took nearly 2 hours of the roughly 3-hour session. Councillors debated at length on what constituted appropriate public consultation and whether that should occur before or after getting a draft written. Eventually, they settled on moving forward with a specific handful of proposed regulations to discuss as part of the whole zoning bylaw review, and pushed some of the more contentious points to future discussions on a specific trailer licensing bylaw.
The review and update of zoning bylaws is a requirement set out by the province. “Under the Planning Act, municipalities must update their Official Plan every 10 years,” explains mayor Kathleen Thorne Rochon, adding that the municipal plan “has to be consistent with the priorities laid out in the Provincial Planning Statement and the Planning Act.” That effectively means that every 10 years, municipalities are required to draft a plan that aligns with the province’s current set of priorities regarding growth and development. “The Official Plan is kind of a large, aspirational document. So, it’s large, high-level policy for the municipality, but it’s not specific. Then, the Zoning bylaw is the actual implementational tool. They are the practical, day-to-day policies that are used in the issuance of building permits, or land-use conflicts, that kind of stuff. These are the actual rules and regulations on how we are going to achieve those goals in the Official Plan,” the mayor further explains.
So, while some critics may wonder why the Zoning bylaws need a change at all, municipal officials explain that the last Official Plan was drafted in 2011, so the municipality is already past due on this review. “The last Zoning bylaw, which we’re under now, was adopted by council in 2014, and that’s now 12 years old,” the mayor points out.
