MACKENZIE — The board of directors for the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George decided to temporarily hold off on moving forward with removing a restrictive covenant to allow for the future construction of a general store at the corner of Ness Lake Road and Chief Lake Road at its Thursday, June 19 meeting.
Applicants Myrna and Howard Thiessen are looking for a 0.58-hectare portion of the property at the northeast corner of the intersection to be rezoned to allow for general store use.
“Our goal would be to provide a service of household basics and necessities at our general store,” a letter from the Thiessens about the rezoning application said.
“In addition, we would like to offer animal feed, farm suppliers and have a small snack and coffee bar … a future addition would be to add a tack store in the upstairs of the building. The building would be roughly 2,000 square feet with an upper floor to allow more space.”
This parcel was once home to Mud River School.
Directors were given four options for the rezoning: hold a public hearing, proceed without a public hearing, postpone consideration of the zoning bylaw until further information is received and not proceed with the application by defeating first reading of the bylaw.
Information on the rezoning application was accepted for consideration, but no decisions were made regarding the proposed changes.
In addition, there’s a section 219 restrictive covenant established in 1985 ties both that parcel and an adjacent 45.37-hectare parcel used for residence and agricultural activities together. However, the parcels are on separate property titles.
The Thiessens want that covenant dissolved so that the business won’t be attached to a mortgage on the other parcel, they said in a letter to the regional district.
“We are looking into the possibility of using this property commercially as a general store,” the letter said.
“In the event that this goes forward, we feel like it would be necessary if we ever wanted to sell our residence or the business separately. A second reason is that we have had difficult using our property as collateral in purchasing other properties due to the fact that financial institutions wouldn’t be able to foreclose on the property as they have to stay together.”
Though the property is within the Agricultural Land Reserve, a backgrounder document states that the applicants have confirmed with the Agricultural Land Commission that the property is exempt from restrictions because the property was subdivided before Dec. 21, 1972.
A letter from the Ministry of Transportation and Transit attached to the backgrounder said that because of the property’s proximity to Chief Lake Road, access to the proposed general store would have to be through the owners’ adjacent property.
While discussing the covenant discharge application, Vice-chair Art Kaehn (Woodpecker-Hixon) said that if it was removed, the property owners could end up building something other than a store or just selling the lot. He wondered if the regional district could place any conditions to ensure that a store would be built.
Director Victor Mobley (Salmon River-Lakes) said he thought it might be premature to remove the covenant before the public process for the rezoning has completed
Ultimately, directors voted to postpone consideration of discharging the covenant.
