GBGPCA Gives Feedback on the OCP “What We Heard” Summary

Dear Mayor Milsom, Councillor Rick de Jong, Councillor Doug Findlater, Councillor Jason Friesen, Councillor Stephen Johnston, Councillor Carol Zanon, Councillor Jayson Zilkie,

After watching the October 26 Council Meeting, we would like to thank you for expressing your concerns on the public response in the, “What We Heard Summary Report”. We agree with these concerns and believe the lack of response from our residents was not from feedback fatigue but from lack of notice and difficulty with navigating the tools available to us.

In reviewing the report presented we were disappointed to learn that a pop-up event had taken place on Willow Beach this July without notice to our community association and have concern that this timing likely garnered much more response from tourists than residents. In October, we were provided brief notice on the second round of pop-up events which provided an opportunity to chat, have select comments recorded on sticky notes, and affix building stickers on a map. While several of our members attempted to participate in the online portion, they found it difficult to navigate the required registration process and once successful with that, were faced with several more challenges including trying to decipher how to respond to the feedback options available. In particular “pinning” types of buildings on the map was difficult to do accurately, and it was not clear whether you could select one or more types of buildings for an area. 

To answer one question that arose at last night’s meeting, single family houses could not have been chosen because it was not a clear option. Perhaps the intent was that small lot residential or single family with a suite indicated that, however, “single-family home” did not appear on the list.

To fully understand the conclusions of this report it seems important to be able to see the actual data and comments that were submitted, as was shared in the appendices after the visioning process. Given so many changes are foreseeable in the Gellatly Bay Goats Peak Community in the near future we believe that it is extremely important that we get this right. If the Housing Map exercise is of any influence in zoning for our neighbourhood it is critical that the information is accurately and carefully collected and reported.

We love West Kelowna and hope to help shape our City of the future to be the best that it can be.

And, in answer to Councillor Rick de Jong’s question – no, we do not want high rises in Gellatly Bay!

Sincerely,

GBGPCA
Gellatly Bay Goats Peak Community Association
gellatlybaycommunity@gmail.com | www.gellatlybaycommunity.com