"Those who believe their interest in land is affected by the proposed land use bylaw shall be given a reasonable opportunity to be heard," the Local Government Act states.
It sounds so straight forward but the whole sentence hinges on the word "reasonable."
Is it unreasonable to only give 24-hours notice of the meeting and the notice is only on the city's website? Is giving each speaker 10 minutes to speak and not one second longer reasonable? If that's unreasonable, is 15 minutes reasonable? Is it reasonable to ask for input in writing only?
Enter the lawyers.
The purpose of the clause is to ensure that city councils across B.C. give every opportunity for residents to speak about proposed land-use changes.
Most of the time there is no need to define reasonable because there is little or no opposition to a change. Once in a while, however, many residents want to speak for many minutes in opposition to a land-use bylaw and the individuals in support of the change want plenty of time and multiple opportunities to defend their request.
Three years ago, it was the Northern Supportive Recovery Centre for Women in the former Haldi Road elementary school building.
Now it's the proposal to convert a 12-hectare parcel of land on Otway Road along the Nechako River to a light industrial property to house Timber West Mill Construction and CIF Construction Ltd.
Shari Green, the previous mayor, decided reasonable could be defined by a time limit. In 2013, she imposed a five-minute time-limit on anyone - for or against - speaking at the public hearing about rezoning the property for the proposed women's recovery centre. On one hand, it's reasonable because the rule applies to both sides equally. On the other hand, it infringes on the ability of individuals to thoroughly state their case, to be completely heard.
Lyn Hall, the current mayor, has taken a different approach to reasonable, one he used when he was the school board chair. The Hall method is the public, not the politicians, decide what is reasonable. If it takes each speaker one minute or one hour each to be heard, that is reasonable. If it takes one meeting or 10 meetings to hear from everyone who wants to speak to the matter, that is also reasonable.
The Hall method is messy, time-consuming and open to filibustering, a well-known parliamentary protest tactic where one or more individuals attempt to speak indefinitely on a subject in the hopes of preventing the vote from ever happening.
Despite its obvious shortcomings, the Hall method is also excruciatingly democratic and fair to a fault.
As chair of the city council meeting, one of the mayor's most important tasks is to make sure speakers stay on task. Hall rightly interrupted one speaker Monday night for lecturing those in the gallery who disagreed with his viewpoints. City council is there to listen to speakers and their reasons to support or oppose the issue at hand, not to provide a venue for residents to berate one another.
That is why the MPs in the House of Commons and the MLAs in the provincial legislature are not permitted to speak directly to one another when debating. Instead, they may only rise to address the meeting when the Speaker of the House grants them the privilege to do and their comments must be directed only to the Speaker. At city council, the mayor grants the floor to those who wish to speak at the meeting, whether they are residents, city staff or elected city councillors. Under the formal rules, those individuals must address the mayor - and only the mayor - in their comments.
Whatever Hall and the rest of city council decide on the Otway proposal, they will not be open to criticism that they weren't willing to listen or that they didn't have enough information.
No one could claim parents weren't heard by the school board when the trustees, led by Hall at the time, were struggling with which schools to close.
No one will be able to claim residents weren't heard by city council when the councillors, led by Hall, finally cast their votes for or against the proposed Otway rezoning.
Of course, no matter what happens, they will be criticized for what some will say is the wrong decision but at least with the Hall method, they'll have reached their conclusion the right way.
