Vernon resident Lisa Fogel and daughter Pearl, age six, look at a map of Kalamalka Lake Provincial Park during a Ministry of Transportation open house Aug. 27 at the Prestige Hotel.
(CHARLOTTE HELSTON / iNFOnews.ca)
September 10, 2014 - 2:57 PM
VERNON - The Ministry of Transportation is getting no support from the District of Coldstream regarding proposed changes to Cosens Bay Road.
Coldstream council voted unanimously to send a letter to the Ministry stating its opposition to land being removed from Kalamalka Lake Provincial Park so improvements can be made to Cosens Bay Road.
Coldstream mayor Jim Garlick says council has a lot of unanswered questions about the project.
“(Our position) isn’t conditional on those being answered but on what those answers are,” Garlick says.
Currently, the right-of-way is maintained by the Ministry, but is under the jurisdiction of B.C. Parks. If removed from the park, the Ministry wants to upgrade the road by improving sight lines, replacing culverts and adding ditches, among other initiatives. The road leads to approximately 68 residences, of which three to five are year-round homes and the rest are seasonal. Property owners have come out in support of the project, stating they feel entitled to a safe, well maintained road.
“How will this affect animals and users in the park?” Garlick says. “The park has developed as a place people walk, cycle and horseback ride and (this) would introduce larger numbers of vehicles.”
He says the original subdivision plan for the residential properties down Cosens Bay Road featured boat access only, so it’s hard to sympathize with owners wanting an upgraded road.
“All these people bought with that knowledge,” Garlick says. “We’ve gone from boat access, to road access, to ‘Now we want a better road.’”
The Ministry plans to submit the final stage of its proposal to B.C. Parks in the summer of 2015.
To contact the reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston at chelston@infotelnews.ca or call 250-309-5230. To contact the editor, email mjones@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
News from © iNFOnews, 2014