City councillor wants to accelerate development planning in North Glenmore

Future of North Glenmore

Photo: UBC Okanagan

A Kelowna city councillor wants the city to accelerate planning for the North Glenmore and UBCO area.

An area sector study planned for North Glenmore could take place sooner than had been anticipated.

Kelowna’s 2040 Official Community Plan suggested a sector plan for the area encompassing McKinley, UBCO and the airport areas be undertaken sometime in the future.

However, a handful of property owners who own a large amount of property in the area have approached the city about conducting their own study sooner.

A notice of motion raised by Coun. Mohini Singh Monday proposed moving the sector study from a long-term project to an active planning study.

“The airport is growing with jobs and businesses, the Jim Bailey Road industrial area is growing, UBCO is growing faster than we expected,” said Singh in support of her motion.

“Many people that are coming there to work are coming from different municipalities and that’s putting stress on our roads, putting stress on them and not doing anything for our environment.”

Singh said not everyone relocating to Kelowna wants to live in a tower or a townhome, some people want single-family homes.

“This study gives us some data to see how we can plan our expansion.

“The best thing is it’s not going to cost taxpayers anything and it’s not going to take up staff time. The study will be done under the guise of city planning staff and we set the parameters of exactly what we want to hear from those conducting the study.”

Planning director Ryan Smith said should council advance the motion, staff would bring back a report with options on the scope and deliverables of the study.

”At a high level, we want to look at utilities, areas that are off the table because of ALR conflicts or steep slopes, necessary road connections if we are going to grow in the area, how do we grow with our neighbours to the north in Lake Country and how do we respect the airport and associated flight paths,” said Smith.

A study such as this generally takes a year or two to complete, however Smith says doing it at a high level could allow it to be done a bit quicker.

“I think it’s wise planning to start looking ahead,” said Coun. Rick Webber.

“We are dealing with a relatively small number of property owners that own a large area so if we want to start planning ahead for growth, for roads, for housing…we need a new area in Kelowna to allow for single family homes.

“We don’t really have a lot of space left and we don’t see a lot of single family homes being built.”

Council unanimously endorsed the motion.