This excavation makes it unsafe for Kelly Blair to access the back of his Big White property and he worries about snow crashing down on his home after the new building goes up.

Image Credit: Submitted/Kelly Blair

Kelly Blair first moved into The Rock at Big White Ski Resort near Kelowna 40 years ago and now owns, and at times rents out, the classic structure with real climbing rocks indoors.

His view and his access to the back of his property are being destroyed by a massive new condo being built right next door.

“Now I’m going to look out at a wall,” Blair told iNFOnews.ca. “I won’t see any of the trees and forest and the view behind. It’s only two metres on the other side of my property line. They better have 100% snow containment where you get no sliding off of the snow because it’s going to slam into my place and into my two windows.”

Blair has had a number of conflicts with the builder and its crews since excavation started last summer, such as concrete footings for bracing installed on his land, trees along the property line being removed and his cat cemetery being bulldozed. Although, he admits it may have been on his neighbour’s property.

Blair is not just angry about some of the actions of that individual builder but also about regulations that allowed the structure to go just two metres from his property line and the fact that he was not informed about it nor had any input in its snow management plan.

“It’s bigger picture,” Blair said. “The regional district is so out of touch with the situation. We get six to seven metres of snow each winter. You have to factor stuff like that in.”

And he’s not alone.

Last month, the Big White Chamber of Commerce lashed out about how the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary planned to change how it handled garbage collection. That built into a larger attack on the insensitivity of regional district staff who administer the resort community near Kelowna from its distant headquarters in Trail.

READ MORE: Big White residents at 'breaking point' in fight with Kootenay Boundary regional district

Now is the time when Blair, the chamber and all other concerned residents and owners at Big White need to get involved as the regional district rewrites the mountain’s Official Community Plan.

While such planning processes can be long and dry, having a say has never been more important now that the province has brought in new regulations that make such plans way more powerful.

Under the new rules, public hearings – and therefore the most visible way for people to have their say about new developments – are banned in most cases if the proposed use for the land fits into the Official Community Plan.

So, if they want to control how close buildings can go to a neighbour’s property line or how they manage the snow sliding off their roofs, they need to speak up now because it could be many years before they have another chance.

Big White’s current Official Community Plan was adopted in 2001. Work on the new plan started last year with the formation of a community advisory committee but the plan won’t be finished until well into 2025.

“The time line is a little bit organic, to explore issues and things that come up,” James Chandler, the regional district’s general manager of operations told iNFOnews.ca.

Being a seasonal resort community complicates when meetings can be held.

One of the things that may change in the plan is snow management as building code standards change over the years, Chandler said.

The other thing that may be of concern to current owners is the need for development permits and whether they have a say, or even notification, that a new project is being built.

In Blair’s case, the builder is following the regional district’s rules so the neighbours didn’t have to be notified.

Chandler doesn’t see infill development as being much of an issue going forward as most of the older areas of housing on the mountain are fairly high density already.

One of the biggest issues will be the connection between different parts of the mountain in what is designed as a ski-in-ski-out community that doesn’t necessarily have other kinds of connections.

“One of the other challenges that arises is the infrastructure,” Chandler said. “Big White owns so much of the infrastructure, things like water and sewer and the land is generally under Big White’s purview, so it becomes just a little bit more tricky.”

For example, developments that normally require parks or green space are different at a ski hill where the green spaces are the massive ski runs.

Affordable housing on the mountain is also an issue that needs to be addressed, Chandler said.

At the same time as the regional district is rewriting the Official Community Plan, Big White is working on its own master plan, which calls for the doubling of the number of runs, lifts and rooms in the coming decades.

READ MORE: Zip lines, alpine coaster, winter camping in Big White’s big plans for expansion

“In some ways there are benefits that both are doing it at the same time and kind of align things a little bit, although they’re not exactly two documents that always work together perfectly,” Chandler said.

Public input on that plan closed in February 2021.

The Official Community Plan steering committee is made up of the regional district director, members of the Big White Advisory Planning Commission and other members of the community.

There is information on the Official Community Plan process here.

The existing Official Community Plan can be seen here.

The draft Big White Master Plan can be seen here.

Given that by the time it will be adopted the existing Official Community Plan will be 25 years old and, given that public input on developments going forward will be severely curtailed under new provincial rules, now is the time for owners and residents at Big White to have their say.

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