How the city can use the official community plan to keep greenspace
And is Airbnb a problem in Prince George? Read to the end for a goose with the zoomies
Over the past few weeks, I’ve written a few times about the difficulty of using the official community plan (OCP) — or any civic tools — to maintain greenspace on privately owned lots. That includes yesterday’s writeup on the official community plan meeting which was made up largely of people involved with the group Ginters Green Forever. However, just because there are challenges should by no means indicate there is nothing that can be done so I appreciate Jenn Matthews, who is part of the organizing crew for this group, supplying today’s guest column on where she and others in the group are focusing their efforts:
How to use the OCP to protect urban greenspace
By Jenn Matthews
The city has many tools that it can use to protect greenspace on private property:
Zoning: currently much of the land on the escarpment is zoned AG/AF (Agriculture / Forestry). The OCP states how the city sees land use / zoning changing in the future. The OCP could say that they see this area staying AG/AF or even say that they see it being P1 (strongest park protection status) in the future. This is totally within the scope of the OCP.
Road planning: as you all know one of the major problems with the current OCP is that there are major arterial roads planned for the Ginter's area. These can be removed from the OCP.
The major threat to ALL of our greenspaces in PG is urban sprawl. The OCP can clearly dictate that we will not grow our city out, while letting the centre of our city deteriorate. The OCP can demand that development be done in brown infill sites. The OCP can focus on mixed use development, which we currently DO NOT have a zoning for in PG -- this is really messed up, because there is a ton of evidence that mixed use developments bring in the most taxes and make the safest and most vibrant cities.
Since one of the major threats to this area is the plan to build major roads, the OCPs take on active transport and buses are critical to the protection of our greenspaces. This is also a key piece to stopping urban sprawl.
The new OCP directs the bylaws the city will have to update, which should include a very strong tree bylaw that maintains or GROWS our tree canopy. However it should also include how we protect the city from fire, flood, and landslides, which will all be a much higher risk if the escarpment continues to be developed. Even under the current zoning the land above the pathways and old mansion at Ginter's could be completely cleared, which would drastically increase our fire risk and would change the hydrology in a way that would likely put the escarpment at risk of flood or landslide. We need strong bylaws to control the safety of this area.
It's the job of good planners to take the citizens' ideas and think about HOW land use planning can be used to support our values and goals. The city has a ton of power over what happens to private land and we should not pretend otherwise. Finally, the citizens stepping up and showing how much these areas matter to us should also be a sign that there could be support for these lands (which should never be developed for the reasons mentioned above) to be purchased and be made into an official park.
The mayor said last night the people should submit their thoughts officially to the OCP email address and to mayor and council. So please keep sending thoughtful emails: ocp@princegeorge.ca, mayorandcouncil@princegeorge.ca.
Jenn Matthews is a member of Ginters Green Forever.
The visitor information centre is moving back downtown
After considering a number of locations, Tourism Prince George has announced its visitor information services will be moving into the Prince George Civic and Conference Centre. Among their reasons for selecting the downtown location:
Tourism Prince George understands the challenges that our downtown core, along with many other municipalities around the country, face. We are committed to being a part of the solution, and we look forward to working with community partners to create a vibrant environment.
Darrin Rigo wrote about this in his own newsletter arguing for a downtown location, saying
One of Prince George’s most public beacons planting its flag in the ground of downtown and saying out loud, “this is the spot where visitors should come” would be a warm flame in an otherwise chilling ground. With that flag will, eventually, come a nice influx of visitors walking between hotels, conference goers experiencing local restaurants, and a more educated visitor to experience PG.
Also, honestly, it just makes sense from a logistics perspective — there continue to be a lot of hotels downtown, particularly those attached to conferences which are hosted at the conference centre. Having a location right there that can suggest restaurants, hikes, events makes a ton of sense if you’re looking to convert business or academic visitors into people who are spending a bit more time and money in the community. Additionally, the pool, library, and art gallery are all within a few hundred meters and the museum is much closer than any of the other proposed locations. The fact it will apparently save an estimated $600,000 a year probably doesn’t hurt, either.
You can read more about the decision on the Tourism Prince George website and on My Prince George Now and the Citizen.
So… is Airbnb a problem in Prince George?
Earlier this week, the province announced new regulations for short-term rentals which include forcing people who rent out properties to actually live at the same location.
Premier David Eby, earlier this week, said the real issue is that short-term rentals are contributing to fewer units available for long-term rentals:
"Bottom line is when people own multiple condos and are renting them out as private hotels in our province when we are desperate for long-term housing for people, it's just not acceptable. So we're going to deal with it."
At CKPG, realtor Janine Phllips says she doesn’t expect Prince George to be too heavily impacted by this:
With only around 200 Air BNB listings in Prince George, Phillips believes even if Prince George were to feel the effects of less short-term rentals, it would be minimal. However, unlike the provincial government, Phillips believes these short-term rentals serve an important role in our community.
“Short term rentals are often summertime based and are rented in a longer term to students when school is in season as well. So they have students in over the school year and then just rent it out in little blips over the summer when the students are gone,” she said.
My gut instinct is short-term rentals aren’t a big contributing factor, either, but that doesn’t mean non-zero, just less than cities that tend to get more tourists. There are 100 per cent places in town that aren’t on the market for long-term tenants because they are being listed on Airbnb and VRBO instead. And last month, a McGill professor published a report commissioned by the B.C. Hotel Association breaking down how much different parts of the province were being impacted by this. Here’s some of the relevant local data for Prince George:
Daily active listings (June 2023): 120
Listing growth between June 2022-2023: 8.9 per cent
Active listings as a per cent of total dwellings in city: 0.4 per cent
The report also calculated the estimated number of rental units lost because of short-term rentals, and the relative increase in rent to everyone else as a result. In Prince George, we went from 50 short-term rental units being lost in June 2022 to 60 in June 2023, with there being 0.6 short-term rentals per 100 rental units total. The extra rent paid per month by the average renter as a result was $6, adding up to a total of $800,000 paid by renters in Prince George because of short term rentals. This was one of the lowest impacts seen in the entire province. You can read the full report here.
Quick news:
B.C. United (formerly B.C. Liberal) leader Kevin Falcon is in town Friday making an announcement about his election team in Prince George. Since we already know who is running in Prince George-Mackenzie, I am assuming the primary news will be whether Shirley Bond plans to run again.
Have a car that needs repairs? CNC automotive tech students might be able to help.
Couple evicted from Millennium Park say their “lives have been in turmoil”.
Saik’uz Chief says First Nation, Search and Rescue working tirelessly to find Chelsey Quaw.
A swim-in movie night, with Moana playing at the Aquatic Centre.
United Way Day of Caring will see Cedars Christian Students clean up garden at Hart Pioneer Centre.
This post just made me want to mention that I appreciate the new pedestrian-controlled lights at various crosswalks throughout town and I’d love to see more of them — both as a driver and a walker.
Today’s song is from Janelle Monáe because it’s just the way you make me feel.
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There are already assigned Dangerous Goods routes and there is no way Foothills needs to be one. Hiways 16 & 97, Boundary Rd., 1st Ave., PG Pulp Rd., Northwood Pulpmill Rd., and Noranda Rd.
The people of Gunter need to look at the bigger picture. We need a dangerous goods route which is foothills . Others cities create ring roads we need that. Look into the history of the that property and you will see some hinky things the city, province and developers have done