10 - Sunday, February 2, 1992 - North Shore News Council rejects latest Garrow Bay proposal ALL THE efforts of municipal staff, all the neighborhood discussions and petitions and all the plans and wranglings of lawyers and homeowners, could not bring the com- munity of Garrow Bay together again at Monday night’s West Vancouver District Council meeting. Council’s subsequent decision at the meeting left the issues at the heart of the Garrow Bay con- troversy largely unresolved. Declaring that they were uncer- tain of the public benefit of the most recent proposal to turn two residential lots and a = miarina- zoned lot into three residential lots, council members voted against the latest proposal for Garrow Bay. “} personally am in a quandary as to where the public is coming from and what the public benefit might be,’’ said Ald. Ron Wood. Ald. Diana Hutchinson spoke against closing the recciavened public hearing and suggested con- tinuing discussions, but the rest of council did not want to invest any more time in an issue that has dominated council meetings and staff time over much of the past year. “My concern is that we have spent an inordinate amount of time on this...if we are still un- sure, then we have no choice but to turn it down... think council Journalist protection called for by council B.C. PRESS Council directors are calling for legislative action ad- dressing the use of journalists as witnesses and the protection of news sources and journalistic in- formation. The press council has proposed to the Law Reform Commission of Canada that a court should have to comply with three condi- tions prior to requiring a reporter to reveal names and conversations with news sources: @ the information is essential to the judicial proceedings; @ the disclosure of the informa- tion would serve a necessary pur- pose; @ the information cannot be ob- tained elsewhere. The press council is also asking that semi-judicial bodies such as the CRTC and labor boards should not have the right to com- pel journalists to divulge sources. Many states ‘in the U.S. have passed ‘“‘shield’’ laws that limit the Situations in which journalists can be ordered to disclose their sources. By Maureen Curtis Contributing Writer should get out of it and let the people go home and rest,”’ said Ald. Don Griffiths. Ald. Andy Danyliu thanked the various ‘community groups for their interest and involvement; he also complimented rezoning appli- cant, Marilyn Diligenti, for her grit and forthrightness. Mayor Mark Sager noted that the community and the municipality have established some common ground in that everyone wants to see the marina land zoned residential. “The greatest area of dissention is over the public fill on the beach, which has been a concern to the community ever since it was put in,’” said Sager. WEST VANCOUVER DISTRICT COUNCIL Under the fatest proposal, property owner Marilyn Diligenti would give up some of the water- front land she already owns for use as public park, in exchange for another piece of public land that would make all three of her lots waterfront. But the various community groups took divided stands on the loss of the public land, while resi- dents adjacent to the Diligenti property were also concerned about the relocation of her boat- house into their viewscapes and problems that might be associated with improved beach access. Rival petitions and question- naires became the points of fur- ther contention between these groups. Only the Garrow Bay Com- munity Association supported the proposal, which, as representative Mark Jarvis pointed out, would have established better boundaries between public and private land on the beach and enabled future beach improvements. As of Monday night, however, the problems with steep public beach access, the uncertain legiti- macy of the filled foreshore and the presence of a commercial ele- ment remain. Diligenti is still stuck with her marina-zoned lot, but was unwill- ing to go for the two options staff offered two weeks previously. One option was unworkable fi- nancially because it gave her “beachfront’’ instead of water- front lots; the fall-back option would have given council the op- tion of leaving her with the zoning she’s presently got, while remov- ing her ability to continue her commercial activities. “It is reasonable to assume that if someone were to take away the uses of the property, the owner.....might look to the courts for protection. it has already been demonstrated that there can be commercial uses on that proper- ty,”’ said Diligent. She was referring to council’s unsuccessful legal challenge of her operation of a clothing business through the marina-zoned boat- house a few years ago. Diligenti’ resented the ridicule she said she has endured because of the financial concerns she had had over some of the options sug- gested to her; she took exception to the suggestion that her acquisi- tion of residential zoning for the marina lot constituted a ‘‘mil- lion-dollar giveaway."’ ‘“‘The property I have has been taxed and treated as waterfront property,”’ she said. As she has pointed out, she has three lots now and will continue to have three lots, no matter what the zoning. While Ald. Pat Boname said she thought the community was “getting close’’ to a solution for Garrow Bay, Sager said it was up to the owner of the property to decide whether she wished to present a future application con- cerning her three lots. ‘““We might suggest that if the item is to come back that it be presented in the form of a restric- tive covenant so that there would be no confusion as to what the tots would look like,’’ said Sager. 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