Jordan River area battlegrounds back on market.

Botanical Beach, Port Renfrew, BC, Canada.

Times Colonist
January 29, 2010

"Jordan River area battlegrounds back on market"

by Judith Lavoie
Times Colonist, January 29, 2010

A large chunk of waterfront and recreational land on southwest Vancouver Island that sparked a battle over the future of former tree-farm licence land is back on the market.

Steve Frasher, president of Western Forest Products, said yesterday 2,300 hectares of private land in 61 lots would be sold to help the company pay down debt.

The property will be marketed as recreational, unlike in 2007, when the forest company planned to sell all the parcels to developer Ender Ilkay, who envisioned a community of 10,000 at Jordan River.

"They are the same parcels as before, but we have learned from the fallout of criticism from last time," Frasher said, noting any rezoning is up to the buyer and community.

Botanical Beach
Tidal Pools

The parcels include 960 hectares of Jordan River waterfront and townsite, Jacob Creek waterfront, 487 hectares around Shirley, four parcels by Muir Creek and 227 hectares adjacent to Sooke Potholes Regional Park.

At the heart of the original battle was community fury that the province released private lands previously governed by tree-farm licences, assumed to be forest land in perpetuity.

The Capital Regional District rezoned the area to 120-hectare minimum lot size, but the change was struck down in court.

"This is the loss of our wild coast and government could still step in and do something," said Vicky Husband, spokeswoman for the Jordan River Steering Committee.

The smallest parcel is two hectares and the largest 142 hectares. However, most of the land is in the Otter Point, Shirley and Jordan River settlement areas, not the rural and resource lands where new bylaws will restrict lot size to 120 hectares. That means much of the area for sale has a four-hectare minimum lot size.

Juan de Fuca MLA John Horgan said the properties are going on the market "just at the time we thought we had peace in the valley."

The B.C. government is showing no interest in what the sale could do to the area or regional growth strategy, he said.

Frasher said meetings have been held with the province and CRD, but there is not yet any commitment to buy parkland.

Community and Rural Development Minister Bill Bennett said the province has been unsuccessful in finding conservation groups willing to acquire the land and it is unlikely that B.C. taxpayers, facing cuts in many areas, would be willing to have the province spend millions acquiring private land.

The new CRD bylaws, combined with zoning in settlement areas, will ensure there is local control over land use, Bennett said.

But Arnie Campbell, president of Otter Point and Shirley Resident and Ratepayers Association, said reviews of old community plans, which anticipate the area remaining as forest, have not yet started.

The area for sale makes up 45 per cent of the Shirley and Jordan River official community plan area, Campbell said.

"It's a massive amount of land to be taken out of forestry and put on the market," he said. "Many feel there's room for some kind of development, but we want that development to happen after the planning has taken place."

This article published from the "Times Colonist"

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