Final Draft OCP given First Reading

On January 9, 2023, Council received the Final Draft OCP and gave the bylaw First Reading.

What does giving it First Reading mean? First Reading is part of the legislative process to adopt new bylaws and for this project it means that the Draft Bylaw can now be sent to the CRD for approval of the Regional Context Statement, a legislative requirement. Following CRD input, the document may be revised as needed, and after that, a Public Hearing can be scheduled for Council to directly hear from the public.

If it is a “Final Draft” does that mean no more revisions to the OCP document? No, but it means that additional revisions would be done at the direction of Council. The Final Draft is intended to be the version of the OCP to be presented at a Public Hearing where the public will be able to address Council.

How is it different from the Second Draft? Fundamentally it is largely the same, however it has been entirely reformatted into a more polished document. A number of edits are included for grammatical purposes, or to improve clarity in a policy. With this version, you can click on headings, footers, table of contents etc to move around the document.

If I already provided comments do I need to send them again? No, any correspondence received has already been provided to Council, and would be provided to Council again at the time of a Public Hearing. However, anyone can provide additional comments if they wished.

When will there be a Public Hearing? Once the CRD approves the Regional Context Statement then a Public Hearing will be scheduled. Watch the website for an update, and the Peninsula News Review for an advertisement of the date, time and place.