About 40 people showed up at the Seaside Centre Wednesday night to express their concerns about a proposed bylaw text amendment that would allow Target Marine to process white sturgeon roe at their current hatchery site in Tuwanek.
The public information meeting was a pre-public hearing aimed at providing information and clarification about the proposed text change and to get more feedback from the residents in the area who feel they could be affected by the suggested changes.
District of Sechelt director of planning Ray Parfitt, planner Angela Letman and Target Marine manger Justin Henry were on hand to answer questions from the audience after a brief presentation on why Target Marine is changing from salmon to sturgeon. Henry said the current site has been zoned Marine 3 (M3) since the mid-1980s, with salmon being the prime product raised. Target is moving to white sturgeon because it is economically beneficial to them and the community, is sustainable and, in the long-run, it will help save rapidly depleting sturgeon stocks that some specialist say will be pretty much extinct by 2021, Henry said.
Letman said the M3 zone already specifies that it is to "provide for fish hatcheries." What is being proposed is an addition to that, which reads " and fish and caviar processing of fish grown on-site."
Participants voiced a main concern over this in terms of the breadth of interpretation fish processing could have. Henry addressed that concern by explaining the current limitations of the site and that large scale processing isn't in any of Target's plans. However, through a number of questions and comments from the audience, the general consensus seemed to be that residents wanted the wording tightened up so there wasn't an apparent loop-hole that could be used in the future to expand fish processing to something on a much larger scale.
Under the M3 zoning, the current permitted uses are: a) hatcheryb) "aquaculture processing" of fish grown on-sitec) sturgeon education and interpretive centred) one dwelling unit per lot in conjunction with the permitted usee) uses, building and structures accessory to the above permitted uses but subject to the provisions of Section 305 of the bylaw (Accessory Buildings and Structures). The proposed text amendment would include items b) and c).Other concerns included increased composting, traffic, noise, fears over future development expansion and industrial activities in a primarily residential area.
Henry said once in full production, there wouldn't be much of an increase in traffic beyond a couple of trucks a week to take processed fish off site. He said there would be a considerable increase in traffic if they have to process the fish off site because that would mean transporting the fish and the fish water to a different location.
Letman and Parfitt said they would take the communities input and look at reworking and tightening the language. The next step in the process is for the planning department to present the bylaw text amendment to council for first reading.
