Tsawwassen Area Plan Public Hearing October 26 & 27

Tsawwassen Area Plan Hearing Begins Tomorrow

The new Tsawwassen Area Plan (TAP) will be presented and discussed at a public meeting on October 26 & 27, 7:00 pm at South Delta Recreation Center. The public will be given an opportunity to provide feedback to Delta Council regarding the bylaw outlining the future direction of Tsawwassen. The proposed TAP recommends maintaining of the agricultural land use Designation for the Southlands.

This follows an 8-1 vote in favour of agricultural designation from the final TAPC meeting, an Ipsos Reid survey showing clear majority support (62%) for maintaining the designation of the land as agricultural, and an earlier staff recommendation from Delta’s Chief Administrative Officer in June to maintain the agricultural designation.

“I’m glad that Council is respecting the will of the public,” stated Dana Maslovat, one of the organizers of Southlands the Facts, “We hope this will be the last step to ensure the agricultural designation of the Southlands is maintained in Tsawwassen’s new Official Community Plan this fall.”

The potential re-designation of the Southlands agricultural land to accommodate a housing development is by far the most contentious component of the process undertaken to revise the existing Tsawwassen Area Plan. Any re-designation will change the Official Community Plan and open up the Southlands for a 1900 unit housing development by Century Holdings. This piece of farmland was the cause of the longest public hearing in Commonwealth history and a resident run plebiscite in 1989, which prevented a 2000 unit development that was proposed for the same property.