By Tiffany Goodwein

Council approves third reading for property near Heron rookery

Jul 9, 2019 | 6:00 AM

A petition garnering over 1,400 signatures was not enough to sway Vernon city council’s decision to approve third reading for a rezoning application along 20^th Street.

During a public hearing on Monday, dozens of people packed council chambers to argue that the applicant’s desire to rezone the property at 5000 20th Street, to low-rise apartment residential would negatively impact the at-risk Blue Heron species.

A restricted covenant was signed in 1992 by the Regional District of the North Okanagan and Jan Bos to protect the local heron population, and critics such as the Vernon Heronry Protection Society argued the project would impact the bird’s nesting abilities and overall well-being.

“It would be totally threatening, and it would chase them away,” Rita Bos, senior director of the Vernon Heronry Protection Society, said.

“Human beings are their greatest threat,” added one woman. “The B.C. Wildlife Act, section 34 states that walking near the nests or noises or loud equipment may be considered as molestation if this causes the birds to abandon active nests.”

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A senior biologist, who wrote the subject mitigation letter, took to the podium and argued the project does meet provincial protection regulations. The biologist also stated there is the ability to impose construction measures that reduce harms such as noise during sensitive nesting periods between March and August.

“With a proper construction environmental management plan we can really mitigate for any impacts on the herons,” Biologist Carrie Nadeau said.

“Blue Herons are a native blue listed species. They don’t follow dates and timelines and guidelines obviously, and part of my mitigation letter recommendations is to make sure that the herons are not nesting at the time during extended noise periods, and so the goal being that all the construction be completed when the herons are not there.”

She also told council chambers the birds in question are already used to certain background sounds in the environment.

“They are habituated to this urban noise and so these adults they come back and they breed, and the fledglings are also habituated to the noise because that’s what they grew up in,” Nadeau said.

A notice of development is posted along 5000 20 Street Vernon (Tiffany Goodwein/VernonMatters Staff)

The applicants for the rezoning, Brennan Scott and Melissa Wetteland of Scotland Constructors Ltd., took the podium and said they don’t want to cause friction with people in the community and they too, want to do their part to protect the herons that reside nearby.

“We would like to emphasize that our property is outside of the heronry buffer area and the mitigation letter takes into consideration the heron’s nesting period and we fully plan on following the recommendations that were made,” Wetteland said.

The owners of the property said no blasting will take place, and while nothing has been set in stone as to the purpose of the property, Wetteland and Scott said they are thinking about turning the property into an affordable housing complex.

Before coming to a unanimous vote, council agreed the project is in line with regulations noting other properties have been built near the regions where the birds have been nesting for some time.

“We had Wal-Mart developed, we had Rona developed. In 2004 we had homes developed in that same area and in 2010 again, which are a lot closer than the subject property. Nor-Val Rentals operates probably 100 meters from the nest. There’s heavy trucks going in and out of there all the time,” Coun. Akbal Mund said.

Watch: Vernon Mayor Victor Cumming shares his thoughts on the public hearing