First reading of the town's Community Standards Bylaw, which deals with the location of recreational vehicles, among other things, will now be held in January, instead of this month, as originally planned.
That's the word from Mayor Judy Dahl.
“We'll start a whole new process in January with first reading so we can open it back up to the public and tell them, ‘this is a decision we've come to, so prepare yourself' and then hear more feedback,” Dahl told the Albertan.
The bylaw amalgamates several existing bylaws into one. In addition to dealing with the location of recreational vehicles, it covers public behaviours, traffic, parking, dogs and cats and the care of properties.
The town began working on the bylaw back in October 2013. Its initial launch to get feedback from the public, occurred earlier this year.
Now, Dahl says, they want to get more feedback from the public with a goal to begin passing it in the fall of 2016.
The most controversial section of the bylaw seems to be the part governing where recreational vehicles can be located.
Dahl says years ago, the Town of Olds won awards through Communities in Bloom for the attractiveness of the community. She says the community is less attractive now with recreational vehicles parked in residents' properties.
“It's become a recreation haven now, where people just pull their motorhomes, trailers, whatever – recreation vehicles – whatever that means, as far as a definition – in the front of their homes,” Dahl says.
“A lot of times they'll pull them up on a side yard, which is typically just supposed to be their grass yard. Having it on that side yard takes off free parking that belongs to everyone on the street.
“If you have your trailer parked there – this is the street and somebody wants to come and park there, they're going to say, ‘well I can't park here because there's a trailer there,' but that's an illegal trailer, and this is a free space that you, as a citizen and taxpayer or a renter in town pay for. So you have all the right to park in front of that trailer. So people are losing their rights of where they can park.
“There are many, many issues. Most of it is aesthetic, for sure, because people can start to bring too many toys in their yard and it's not acceptable,” she adds.
“What we're trying to do is work towards having them in the rear of the property and/or side yard behind the house.”
However, Dahl says it's proving to be a struggle to define exactly what a recreational vehicle is.
“We haven't got a clear definition of what that means, because when you drive around town and you look at the recreation vehicles, they could be motorhomes, they could be tent trailers – there's such a variety,” she says.
Town officials are also having difficulty defining what “unsightly” is.
“All of a sudden it becomes an unsightly property. But what does that mean? Unsightly for me might mean something different for you, right? So we have to bind it by bylaw,” Dahl says.
“We want people to understand that promotion of this is going to be done through integrity and education, because it's not that I'm going to say, ‘geez, that's the most ugly trailer you have in your yard.' And you're going to say, ‘well that's my most prized possession.'
“I have no right to judge your prized possession, you know? But I do have the right to keep the town aesthetically pleasing for people to move and relocate here and live here.
“We as council have taken a couple of bus trips around town to try and figure out how we're going to deal with it.”
Dahl says the goal is to enforce the bylaw but to do so with “respect.”
So offenders will first get a gentle reminder.
“We have a colour code now. I think it's yellow, blue, red or something like that. So you'll get one warning with a colour that tells you that ‘this does not conform to the bylaw,'” Dahl says.
“Then, if nothing's done, you'll get another one that says, ‘you now have 60 days or 30 days to remove this' – whatever the outcome is. And if that's not done, then we'll have to deal with it ourselves and put it on their taxes.”
However, Dahl stresses that's not set in stone – at least, not yet.
“That's in negotiations right now, but it's just a little bit of what it would look like,” she says. “Those are the kinds of things we're trying to finalize.”
Dahl also says council and administrative staff are aware that different parts of the town were developed under different laws and regulations over the years. That too is being taken into consideration in the drafting of the bylaw.
“In my opinion as mayor, in talking to my council, this is going to be a very good bylaw, but it needs to be grandfathered in,” she says.
“There are some areas of town where we're just strictly going to have to say, ‘OK, there's a grace period,' or, ‘if you sell your house, the person who buys it has to conform to this or you're not going to be able to do it.'”
She says one example of where grandfathering would apply would be older areas like East Olds.
"I have no right to judge your prized possession, you know? But I do have the right to keep the town aesthetically pleasing for people to move and relocate here and live here."JUDY DAHLMAYOR TOWN OF OLDS
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