OUR GROWTH ISSUES
The selection of broad growth issues has been done through the lens of the Local Government Act and the unique situations and growth challenges facing our member municipalities, electoral areas, and the Regional District as a whole.
Several growth issues have been identified by local elected officials, the broader community, stakeholder groups, and planners throughout the Region. Although this is not an extensive list, these preliminary issues categories attempt to capture the major concerns, related to the impacts of growth that must be addressed within the North Okanagan Regional Growth Strategy. As our Region moves into the future, we must consider the issues that will affect our quality of life, our enjoyment of our communities and our regional identity. Growth issues affect us all and we want to your input into our exploration of these issues. Please visit our comments section to provide us with your input into refining our growth issues with your priorities, concerns, and experiences.
Economic Development
As our population grows, sustainable, rewarding, efficient, and appropriate economic development, including industrial development, must be encouraged in such a way as to service our communities, support our electoral areas and continue to diversify and localize our economy.
Managing the Environmental Impacts of Growth
Regional growth has numerous negative environmental effects, which can be placed into two broad categories; pollution and natural lands fragmentation and loss. In the North Okanagan, these two categories are inter-related, as land use patterns can result in increased air, water, and land pollution, while reducing our natural land area and potentially eliminating environmentally sensitive areas.
Affordable Housing
The rapid increase in housing value over the last five years has impacted affordability, as well as reduced the limited number of rental properties (per capita) within the Region. The Regional District’s low diversity in housing stock, high median ownership prices, and very low rental availability have increased the severity of the housing affordability issue.
Governance and Service Delivery
It is obviously more expensive to lay sewer, water and gas pipes, and build roads and electric grids over longer distances than shorter ones. The capital costs of building road and developing other public infrastructure dramatically increase when servicing low density or remote new communities, as do the long-term costs associated with maintenance of that infrastructure. Inefficient infrastructure provision is a leading cause of rising municipal taxes.
Water
Water is arguably the most important natural asset found in the North Okanagan. It is essential for crop irrigation, household use, industrial, commercial and recreational uses. The large lakes provide the scenic backdrop essential to the beauty of our landscapes that continue to draw tourists to the region year after year. Lakes, community watersheds and groundwater provide for the bulk of the water needs in the North Okanagan.
Urban Containment
Sprawling, land-consumptive development is increasingly recognized as a growing problem that entails a wide range of social and environmental costs. The social costs of this type of development include higher costs for the provision of public infrastructure, more vehicle kilometers traveled, less cost-efficient transit, loss of agricultural and natural lands and a variety of negative quality of life impacts.
Transportation
Transportation options provide the linkages between our homes, our neighbourhoods, our employment, our recreation, our social lives and our commercial activity. The way we experience and interact with our communities and our Region are influenced by our transportation possibilities. Although other modes of transportation, such as public transit, walking and cycling, are becoming more prevalent, the vast majority of trips within the Region are by single-occupancy vehicle. As a result, road infrastructure and parking space must be continually expanded to respond to the increasing demand.
Agriculture and Food Systems
The North Okanagan has always had a strong identity based in agricultural production and pride. The land base that is capable of producing food, (Agricultural Land Reserve), particularly adjacent to urban areas in the North Okanagan is under pressure by market forces to be converted to other uses because of its proximity to infrastructure and services, and because of its low cost relative to urban development values.
Next Section: Regional Growth Strategies and Green House Gas Emission Reduction
