In the Star Trek episode The Trouble with Tribbles Mr. Spock said to Cyrano Jones, “By removing the tribbles from their natural habitat, you have, so to speak, removed the cork from the bottle and allowed the genie to escape.”
What Mr. Spock is referring to is a situation where a tribble, an inoffensive fuzzy animal with no teeth, basically overruns a space station due to not putting sufficient safeguards to control the number of offspring it produces.
And the more I think about it I think the analogy is a good one to explain what has happened at Thunder Lake. Over the years, multiple councils, peace officers, have allowed property owners, due to lack of enforcement, to use the municipal public reserve (MPR) as an extension of their own property.
And know they have a problem. In a recent tour of the municipal public reserve land around Thunder Lake, staff documented more than 400 violations of its Public Reserves Bylaw. Basically, the bylaw prohibits people from landscaping, removing trees, installing, building, storing items of the land, et cetera without the prior permission of the county. In a few cases, the infractions are minor and with minimum effort could be brought back into compliance.
However, more often than not, it is a situation where a resident blatantly and willingly decided to break the bylaw.
County manager Debbie Oyarzun said part of the problem was they did not realize they were violating the bylaw so last summer the county embarked on a public awareness campaign and delivered an informational brochure to Thunder Lake residents.
From the number of violations they found, it would seem their campaign wasn’t successful. I for one don’t believe that is the reason, people very well know they were violating the bylaw and didn’t care. I find it hard to believe that a property owner doesn’t know the borders of the land and for the majority of improvements, regardless if it is on or off their property, that they need to have the appropriate permits in place.
Currently, county staff are in the process of cross-checking any perceived violations to see if they were approved.
Once that is done, staff will condense the information into a report categorizing the types and number of non-compliant issues as well as any challenges to public access.
Oyarzun said in all likelihood the county will schedule a series of public meetings in Thunder Lake to see what residents find an acceptable use of the public land is and make a plan to accommodate that best accommodate their wishes taking provincial legislation into account.
I don’t believe this is the best course of action. I for one don’t put a lot of faith in the community’s ability to come up with their own set of rules. If they could, it would have already happened, albeit in an unofficial manner.
The best option is to keep it simple — keep your belongings on your own property. For those who choose not to, the county should enforce its bylaw and start issuing tickets and/or removal orders.
