Red Sands debate goes on this Saturday
By Nelson Daily Editor
By Timothy Schafer, The Nelson Daily
Grains of sand continue to pour through the hourglass as the time narrows for Save the Red Sands Beach group to step up and, well, save the beach.
This Saturday afternoon (11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Prestige Lakeside Resort), the developer of Nelson Landing — which includes Red Sands Beach — will hold a public meeting on the development for the city’s East end waterfront.
Nelson Landing is proposed as a 150-unit housing development that will contain up to 30 below market value units, a hotel and small conference centre and 26 commercial units on a 12.5-acre parcel of land.
There would also be a marina included in the scope of the project, as well as public amenities such as a public waterfront walkway and public access to Red Sands Beach.
But it is the inclusion of Red Sands Beach — the city’s unofficial, clothing-optional beach — that has kicked sand in the face of some of the city’s denizens.
Up until now the community group has had a beach of a time trying to get some insight into what the fate of the beach will be, said Herb Couch, one of the group’s main organizers.
There are two main things they believe in, the first of which is to refuse any rezoning of areas J and K (presently zoned as park and open space).
“Many Nelsonites would feel a tragic loss if this gets pushed through without proper public input,” said Couch. “The citizens of Nelson have been excluded. We are suspicious because we’ve seen this before, where (the City) gets everything in order, then the public gets to see it and sort of rubberstamp it.”
He said the rezoning and development process for the East end of the city has hardly been open, transparent and democratic, with the City working behind closed doors with the developer, Sorensen Fine Homes, for the last two years.
But the project has been vetted through two worthwhile litmus tests, said Mayor John Dooley: the City’s planning department and the advisory planning commission. He pointed to the advisory planning commission as a public safeguard against anything going wrong.
“That is a sounding board for the community,” he said. “Those are community volunteers that have stepped up to the plate.”
The difference between the rezoning of Kutenai Landing in 2008 and now Nelson Landing is staffing levels at City Hall, said Mayor Dooley. When the Kutenai Landing project was first on the books five years ago, the City employed one part-time planner.
Now the City has a full-time senior and a junior planner, as well as other people in the mix as support staff, in order to get it right the first time.
“Unless we have a planning department and good process with fair guidelines that are applicable to everybody that comes through the door, and at the same time are able to work in an expedient manner to get these projects off the ground, we won’t get these projects done right,” he said.
The political piece has been out of the equation entirely up to this point, he said, and it is also out of the equation as to the proponent presenting to the public.
Council has instead followed a process as outlined in the Local Government Act, and will let the merit of the project and the will of the people carry the day before council puts its stamp on the project, he said.
Although Nelson Landing developer David Sorensen isn’t commenting on his proposed development for the city waterfront’s East end, he will be talking Saturday at the open house on the project.
He did hint there were changes he made to the plan — removing a single family home and triplex on other side of the beach — to give Red Sands Beach and its users more space to breathe.
However, an eight-space parking lot and a 600-square-foot picnic building will replace the two omitted structures. As well, four triplexes are to be built just below the beach, an area now zoned by the City for park and open use space — requiring a rezone decision by city council.
For more information on the project, see http://www.nelsonlanding.com/
There are 650 people on the Facebook site created to save Red Sands. You can view it at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nelson-BC/Red-Sands-Nude-Beach/36928143970.
