So much for the legal precedent.
On the surface, it appeared the opponents of the proposed women's addiction recovery centre in Prince George had set a new standard when they convinced a judge to throw out Prince George city council's decision to go ahead with the project because it was inconsistent with the Official Community Plan.
That notion got blown to smithereens last month after a B.C. Supreme Court Justice upheld the vote of Quesnel city council approving a zoning amendment bylaw. Three Quesnel residents took the community to court, arguing the decision was inconsistent with Quesnel's OCP and using the Haldi Road neighbourhood decision from Prince George as precedent.
In his ruling on the Quenel case, Justice Terence Schultes stated the obvious.
""If that is the petitioners' view then their remedy, as in the case of all contentious political decisions within a community, is at the ballot box," he wrote in his reasons for judgment. "However unpopular it may be in certain circles, this decision was reasonably open to council to make and in such a case a reviewing court will not invalidate the bylaw that resulted."
In Biblical terms, this is the classic "give onto Caesar what is Caesar's" argument. Politicians are entitled to make political decisions and it is voters who decide on the validity of those decisions at election time. The courts are the venue to hear disagreements on legal matters and are not an appeal avenue for those upset with decisions made by elected representatives.
The jurisdictions are clear.
And so is the ruling by Justice Schultes.
Anyone who thought the Haldi Road ruling somehow gave local residents in Prince George and everywhere else in B.C. a free pass to legally overturn all land-use decisions made by a municipal council on the grounds that it may or may not violate a community plan is in for a big surprise.
So long as these land-use decisions don't violate pre-existing laws, the decision of municipal councils must stand. The OCP is not a law, nor is it designed to serve as one. It is merely a strategic plan with stated objectives but no authority to bind present or future city councils to its vision.
While Justice Schultes was careful not to disparage the previous Haldi Road ruling, he ignored its arguments by saying that case was based on its own facts and that the judge in that case found a "direct incompatibility" with Prince George's OCP.
Schultes then found there was nothing in Quesnel's OCP that warranted a rejection of Quesnel city council's decision, dismissing the rationale made in opposition as "just different ways of arguing that council should not have reached the decision...on its merits."
Was the Haldi Road case any different?
Not at all.
The legal case made by many of the neighbourhood's residents was about the OCP but that was simply the means to an end, namely stopping Prince George city council's decision for taking effect.
Prince George city council got what it wanted in the end, anyhow, by changing the OCP and then approving the facility.
Haldi Road residents have never lost the proper venue to make their feelings known loud and clear during next fall's municipal election.
On voting day, the electorate gets to give onto the politicians what they have coming to them, one way or the other.
