Residents of Green Lake are looking to an official community plan to help manage impending lakefront development in the area.
Gordon Labinsky, Dennis Tupman and Alan Boyd, of the Green Lake Ratepayers’ Association (GLARA), lobbied the Cariboo Regional District (CRD) at its Sept. 17 board meeting for the creation of an Official Community Plan (OCP).
An OCP could help guide and manage the lake’s growing population while protecting the lake itself from environmental degradation.
“Green Lake is in high demand for permanent and recreational residential development,” said Labinsky. “In my 30 years as a Green Lake taxpayer, I’ve seen this lake evolve from an area where most people came for a few weeks to camp on their 21-year recreational lease lots, to the present day where many are choosing to retire and live full time.”
Labinsky explained how he had seen the population of Green Lake grow to 850 residences, and how the lake’s infrastructure grew in concurrence,
“In the early years we accessed our properties on a poorly maintained gravel road with no hydro power,” he said. “Now we have paved road, hydro power, natural gas, telephone service, a fire department, school bus service and a waste transfer station.”
Further growth wouldn’t bode well with the lake being extremely vulnerable to environmental degradation, he commented.
“Green Lake is officially classed as having zero flow-through, which essentially means it’s a very large pond with no natural flushing action,” he said. “And whatever pollutants enter the lake stay in the lake.”
Because Green Lake is divided by two regional districts, with the south end in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District (TNRD), GLARA has been appealing to both districts to come together for the creation of an OCP.
“I think what really kick-started this whole thing was a meeting we had with BC Land and Water Inc,” said Tupman. “They told us we should get a community plan in no uncertain terms.”
Tupman said that if BC Land and Water, Inc. were to come into Green Lake with a similar, aggressive plan for residential development as it has for Lac des Roches, there would be a revolution.
“But that’s something we’re trying to avoid,” added Tupman, who emphasized that GLARA was not against development. “We have to be pro-active on it, avoid problems and manage it. That’s the key.”
Showing her support, CRD Director Maureen Pinkney informed the GLARA congregation during the meeting that a request to start negotiations with the TNRD over the matter had already been made, and that the CRD would be looking into an OCP for Green Lake next year.
There were others seeking OCPs as well, and that with constraints of time and money, a plan for Green Lake wouldn’t be immediately forthcoming.
“The trouble is we have lots of people who want OCPs,” said Director Al Richmond. “So getting it into the hopper and getting it done is going to be the biggest task. Certainly our board is moving forward to keeping OCPs, and trying to get more in place.”
An OCP for Green Lake would provide structure, before human settlement becomes unmanageable.
“The human settlement aspects is the real enemy of all these lakes, not just Green Lake,” said Labinsky. “It’s human settlement that has the impact on the lake. Unless you can manage that, you end up losing water quality and the visual quality around these lakes. That’s something a community plan would address.”