Some frustrated and upset residents from 150 Mile House attended last week’s Cariboo Regional District meeting, holding signs showing that although they might not be able to speak, they will be heard.
Resident Bev Goldstone shares why she held a sign high in front of the Regional Electoral Directors as they discussed planning bylaws for consideration of third reading, in which a trucking company is vying for business on land in a residential area.
“Somebody has to do something. It’s not fair to everyone who has built their dream homes on this neighborhood and it’s all gone for not. Who’s going to want to buy my property or anybody’s property on my side on the street when what you’re overlooking is going to be trucks, trailers, equipment? It’s like being an industrial area, and yet we’re in a neighborhood residential.”
Goldstone says the trucking business also poses a concern to not only residents but also the environment.
“We sit here and watch every year, there are a moose and a calf. She brings her new bring calf every year through here…and she goes up and down this stream and she actually sleeps in this little grove of trees that’s just in the back of my property. We have her for 6 to 8 weeks…We’re going to lose all that and it’s going to be gone.
“We have this huge marsh that is filled with birds, well he’s (trucking company) Â backhoed half of the marsh so now I don’t know what’s going to happen to that. Environmentally to me, it’s very sad.”
“Yeah we can go to provincial bodies over this, but the specific land use is a Region District issue…We keep saying it’s not a building permit issue, it’s a land use issue.”
Goldstone says although they have spoken to Area F Director Joan Sorely, their concerns, for the most part, have fallen on deaf ears.
“We just felt like we really needed to address the CRD and say how do you people enforce your bylaws that are in place? We asked to meet the CRD, at their meeting. We asked if our group could come in and speak at the meeting and we were denied access to their meeting and we said we don’t want specifics on this piece of property, we just want to know in general what the land use rules are and we wanted to hear that from the board…they denied our request.”
Goldstone says they will ask for another application to be heard at the next Cariboo Regional District Meeting which is scheduled for Dec 12.