The Parks and Trails Service Establishment bylaw has been adopted by the Regional District of Bulkley Nechako (RDBN) for four municipalities or service areas.
The four service areas are Houston-Granisle and Electoral Area G, Burns Lake and Electoral Area B, Smithers and Electoral Area A and Fort St. James and Electoral Area C.
According to the bylaw, the RDBN would now be able to operate any service as identified by the board as necessary for the four regions. The regional district has identified a few projects as being important or urgent to start with.
In the first year, for Burns Lake, Electoral Area B and Electoral Area E the focus would be on acquisition of Imerson’s Beach and Hospital Point properties. For Smithers and Electoral Area A, the focus would be on the purchase and development of Trout Creek and for costs associated with Cycle 16 commuter trail. No specific project has been identified yet for Houston, Granisle and Electoral Area G service area.
Under the Park and Trail Service, the staff has put forth a work plan for the years 2021 to 2023. According to the plan, in 2021, after the regional district develops a Parks Bylaw to put in place regulations for usage of the RDBN trails and parks around camping, fires, littering, smoking and even hours of operation, they would work on developing a maintenance policy and a special events policy.
Between 2022-2023 the RDBN is then hoping to establish a local government ticketing bylaw to help maintain law and order within the RDBN parks and trails and to develop an implementation strategy for collection and distribution of funds to societies providing recreation services.
Grant-in-aid allocation have also been made to establish the services. For Smithers and Electoral Area A, $4,184.30 have been allocated towards the Trout Creek project while $3,025.15 has been allocated for the Cycling 16 project. For Burns Lake, Electoral Area B and Electoral E $2,210.87 have been allocated for costs associated with the acquisition of Imerson’s Beach while $3,817.87 have been allocated for costs associated with the acquisition of Hospital Point.
”The purpose of the grant in aid allocation to the service areas was to cover parks and trails related expenses incurred in 2021. With the adoption of the Parks and Trails Service Establishment bylaws the actual costs of the service will be allocated to the appropriate service area,” said Wendy Wainwright, executive assistant with the RDBN.
What this means is that each service area would further be responsbile for recovering costs associated with the services through either property value taxes, fees and charges, through agreements or enterprise or gifts or grants or through revenue raised by any other means that would be in accordance with the Local Government Act.
”The costs allocated to each service area are recovered as taxes from that service area, including the participating municipalities. The estimated combined cost for the Village of Burns Lake, Electoral Area A, and Electoral Area B for 2021 is $28,900,” said Director of Planning for the RDBN, Jason Llewellyn.
The RDBN plans to continue to working on identifying new projects, establish parks and trails priorities and discuss how best to support societies providing recreation services in the service area over spring and summer this year.