District of Squamish staff said the Upper Mamquam Blind Channel (UMBC) planning study is on the backburner in favour of what district planner Cameron Chalmers said are "higher priority" plans - namely the new Official Community Plan (OCP) and the Downtown Neighbourhood Plan (DNP).Chalmers asked that the plan be held off until council adopts the DNP, and until the OCP reaches its public hearing stage, during a presentation to council at the Tuesday (Oct. 14) strategy session.Councillors agreed the study should be a high priority."I see it as imperative that we move this process forward," said Coun. Patricia Heintzman. "I think we need to get this dialed in before anything else big comes around."Coun. Corinne Lonsdale said she was concerned about the UMBC being held off for the OCP because she felt the issue has been around a lot longer than the other two plans.Coun. Greg Gardner said since Kingswood Development - which was recently denied a rezoning request for a large residential development - is a fairly significant stakeholder, the UMBC plan needs to be implemented."We need to address general points of view. We need to address land use, treatment of the waterfront plan and trails along there, address pedestrian access, vehicular access, and we need to make sure we are going to designate that as a public area," said Gardner.A stakeholders meeting last May was considered a failure as public and private groups asserted different perspectives of the land use between themselves and the district.Since that meeting, Chalmers said, there has been little to no progress and staff feels less pressure now that Kingswood will act within the current zoning with its proposal for a RV park.District planner Jim Charlebois said stage one of the UMBC plan will be to consult the community, council and stakeholders through a series of open houses and workshops. They will then refine the ideas generated into a summary report for council to review.Gardner was not impressed by the lack in progress."This report is what I was expecting very early in the year." He questioned the cost of the phase one consultation period."I guess spending $25,000 to get to a point where I think we are pretty close to now doesn't give me a lot of warm fuzzies," said Gardner.Lonsdale disagreed, saying $25,000 disappears fast when a consultant is hired, but did agree that the number of public meetings and workshops were probably unnecessary. Councillors agreed that staff needs to involve council more throughout the formative stage. Phase one of the UMBC will be go ahead after the DNP and OCP are addressed.
