Photo: City of Kelowna
The owners of the property known as Thomson Flats in Kelowna’s Upper Mission filed a lawsuit against the city and planner Dean Strachan after a petition to subdivide two properties was denied.
The subdivision request was made on May 28, three months after the city council rejected Canadian Horizons’ proposal to build 250-300 homes on the property and more on three adjacent lots.
As part of the initial rejection, the council also instructed staff to “exclude the plots in question from the permanent growth limit in the draft Official Community Plan 2040”.
Canadian Horizons then filed on May 28 to divide the 65-acre property into 14 lots.
According to court documents recently filed with the BC Supreme Court in Kelowna, Canadian Horizons says the property in question is agriculturally zoned but not part of the ALR.
Single-family houses with a minimum plot size of four hectares are allowed.
“(We) met all of the criteria for a subdivision, so there was no valid basis for respondents to refuse to subdivide,” said court documents.
They state that the approving officer (Strachan) can reject applications, but “must justify”.
The action claims that the application was rejected against the public interest.
Strachan’s reasons for rejecting the application were justified “in bad faith, deceitful (superficially plausible, but actually wrong) and on a completely inadequate factual basis”.
They further allege the city acted in bad faith in denying the request, saying the denial was in order to “halt proposed subdivision and other lawful development of property” as it may be included in the city’s permanent growth limit became.
Canadian Horizons also says they were told that “multiple guidelines” did not support the motion and that “upper management was unimpressed” when their plans were first discussed in April.
“The approving official, Mr Strachan, actually wrote to the petitioners on May 4, 2021 that we would not support the motion, indicating that he was acting in concert with Kelowna rather than exercising his own discretion,” the documents read .
“Apparently, Mr Strachan was told to reject the petitioners’ request for subdivision, probably before it was even formally submitted and did what was said. An illegal act. “
Canadian Horizons is calling on the court to overturn the decision to reject the subdivision request and force the city and Strachan to grant the request.
The city has not yet responded to the lawsuit.
None of the allegations raised have been examined in court.
