Village of Anmore – May 8 2012 Regular Council Meeting Notes
This meeting started smoothly enough. The meeting was called to order promptly at 7pm and after a bit of dialogue as to what qualifies for “Additions and Deletions to the Agenda” the agenda itself was approved, the March 13th Council Meeting minutes adopted and a number of bylaw motions approved. Then a lot of discussion ensued. For the complete list of bylaw motions please refer to the agenda download at the end of this post.
There was one Bylaw motion reading that raised some discussion which was around the new water rates. You may have noticed on your last Water bill that the rates reflect the new increased rate of $1.49/cm even though the financial plan has yet to be approved. Fear not though, if this new rate doesn’t go into effect for any reason, then the village will be applying a credit to its residents.
A question was asked about resident response to the proposed municipal tax rate increase of 6% (or $110/year for the average home) and the Village has received no feedback to date, although they do expect some will respond for clarification on the increase when their tax bill arrives at the end of May.
A copy of a letter from the City of North Vancouver regarding allowing secondary suites in duplexes was provided and much discussion was had. The history of duplexes in the Village was explained as being allowed around 10 years ago. When these duplexes began to take on monstrous form and concern arose about secondary suites being built within them, the Village put a kibosh on future duplex development. Now the idea of once again allowing duplexes was discussed but the council was quick to point out several flaws including safety issues with retrofitting existing buildings, pressure on existing services and parking and generally going against the grain of what the Anmore concept is all about. Mayor Anderson asked that this at least be forwarded to the APC so they are aware of what other communities are doing and the motion was passed.
Councillor Laidler asked when the noise bylaw his committee so diligently worked on would be brought to council and more discussion about prioritizing staff time was had. It was suggested by Mayor Anderson that if council felt this was their top priority they would give that direction to the staff to meet the May 22nd meeting deadline. Councillor Laidler was concerned about being so demanding and wasn’t sure that this necessitated priority over everything else, he just wanted to see that some urgency was put to this now that many other priorities are out of the way.
Next up was a new agenda item requested by Councillor Laidler to discuss the procedure for acquiring legal opinion. After much debate about whether council members have a right to obtain legal advice directly as individuals rather than go through staff and if all legal advice should be in writing, which would get expensive, it was agreed that councillors would give explicit direction to staff if they wished for a written response.
The Mayor’s report touched on the question of whether communities could get some gas tax back, the Mayor’s attendance at Saturday’s May Day event in Port Coquitlam and mentioned her dad’s – a long standing member of our community – 80th birthday.
Councillor Palmer-Isaak reported that the Social Committee has met and are already looking into some exciting events to celebrate the Village’s 25th Anniversary. Councillor Palmer-Isaak also noted that the trail at the end of Black Bear Way has been regularly vandalized by someone covering the trail with logs and other debris making accessibility difficult for others, including the folks that built and maintain this trail. Tim Harris will be contacting the RCMP to see what can be done.
Councillor Green reported that she attended a Sustainable Communities International event last week and had the honor of tapping into 8 great city planners from around the world.
A date of June 20th was discussed for Anmore Volunteer Appreciation and the idea of moving this to early Fall to coincide with the 25th Anniversary was raised and agreed that further discussion will be had at the next meeting once Councillor Palmer-Isaak has distributed details to the rest of council.
Pinnacle Ridge is once again in the news. Registration will finally begin in the next month with 22 lots and a $50k bond required for each lot. Builders in Pinnacle Ridge will be required to have one specific septic treatment plant in place and builders/owners will not be allowed to deviate.
Download May 8th Regular Council Agenda
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