Notes From Nanaimo City Council
The meeting of Nanaimo City Council on Valentine's Day was most amicable with Council pretty much gliding through the whole meeting without a contentious word spoken. Their 'rehearsal' must have gone well.
- The meeting saw the official return of the Operation Nanaimo-Gram flag which made it's way to our troops in Afghanistan this past year. The flag and 12 Books of Greetings were distributed to Canadian soldiers all over Afghanistan.
- The Mayor officially proclaimed Feb. 20 as Kinsmen and Kinettes Day, Feb. 21 as Family Day, Feb. 23 as Pink Shirt Day and Feb. 21 - 27 is Heritage Week in the City of Nanaimo.
- Nanaimo Volunteer and Information Centre Society received a grant in the amount of $1408.06 on the recommendation of the Grants Advisory Committee.
- Council authorized staff to begin the process of disposing of a sixty year lease of lands located at 437 Wesley St. to the Provincial Rental Housing Corp. for a 36 unit supportive housing project.
- Council also authorized the expropriation of land along Bowen Rd. to accommodate the expansion project in the event the settlement cannot be negotiated with the owners.
- A Variance Permit for a new 7 - 11 store on Nicol St. has been sent back to staff pending discussions with the applicants and citizens in the area around the matter of hours of operation of the new store.
- Two properties, one at 174 Commercial St. and 150 Wallace Street will be given 14 days to clean up graffiti or the city will do it at the owner's expense.
- Many unresolved building deficiencies were dealt with by instructing Legislative Services to file Notices with Land Titles.
- Proposed changes to the Fire Protection and Life Safety Regulation Bylaw were not passed as it was felt the changes were too restricting regards backyard bonfires. The changes would basically make any form of cooking fire illegal. The Bylaw will be tweaked by City Staff and brought before Council again.
- A Hammond Bay Rd. resident presented Council with his findings regards the safety concerns surrounding the proposed cell tower installation at 4600 Hammond Bay Rd.
- City Council finally adopted some guidelines for LED signage within the city. They pretty much agreed with the guidelines as presented with little discussion. They have discussed the matter considerably over the past year or two and little was left to say. The guidelines, basically aren't very helpful, as the subjective rules are going to be open to the interpretation of whom ever is charged with processing a LED DVP application.
Jim:
ReplyDeleteYou left out item 13:a and b around which much of the nights discussion revolved effecting zoning, density, building height and the protection of views.