The Big Pond RV Case: The Case of the Other Case

The Case of the Other Case

As the Big Pond RV case slouches toward the N.S. Court of Appeals, I am going to write a few posts about the UARB ruling. as it has not been covered in detail in the press, save The Cape Breton Spectator. 

Two points as I begin:

  1. The CBRM does not allow racetracks or campgrounds to be built in CBRM unless they meet the tests set out in Policy 17 e of the Municipal Planning Strategy MPS.

2.  One of these tests involves the visual impact of the development; in this case, an RV park. 

3.  If the visual impact test is not passed, the CBRM Council is required to reject the RV park,

Onward. 

One way to understand how a visual impact test is conducted by the CBRM planning is to watch planning describe such a test to Council. (I will provide links at the end of this post.) 

CBRM Planning had to apply such a test in a case where a business owner wanted to store some RVs behind his house in a field. 

Planning decided that this business owners plan did not meet the visual impact test of policy 17 e - the same policy that applies to the Big Pond RV park proposal.

Why? 

  1. The stored RVs would be in a predominately low-density residential area
  2. The stored RVs would be visible from some nearby properties, even though there was a line of trees on parts of the field’s boundary.

Interestingly, the planner decided that only if the nearby residents would support the storage of the RVs could Council approve the business person’s plan. 

There is simply no way to square the planner’s analysis of this case with the analysis of the case in Big Pond. 

The Big Pond land in question is part of a predominately low- density residential area and RVs would be seen from existing homes should the proposed development go forward. 

And what is striking is that a public hearing with overflow rooms crowded, where only one person spoke in favour of the proposal, was ignored by planning. 

The UARB ruled that they could not give full weight to the planner’s opinion as an expert because of the clear inconsistencies in these cases (I haven’t used personal names):  “The Board accepts the submission of the Appellants that (the planner’s)  analysis on XXX Road is inconsistent with the analysis in the present appeal relating to Big Pond.  It could be argued that the three reasons outlined by (the planner) in the former matter would provide even stronger support for denying the zoning amendment in the present Big Pond matter.  In light of this inconsistency, the Board assigns less weight to the planners opinion in this appeal”

I do not know why the visual impact test was applied so differently in these two cases, but like the UARB, I think it is is important that it was. 

The UARB RULING. Search for “Pt. Aconi”

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