No place for chaos in planning process

If this is what local government in Kings County is coming to, it’s a sad state of affairs. Many in attendance at a public information meeting on planning matters at the Greenwich Community Hall Wednesday evening, Nov. 28 left flabbergasted after emotions ran high and a couple of people were told by the chairman to sit down and shut up or leave when he felt they spoke out of turn.

In some ways, people went to a planning meeting and a hockey game broke out.

As indicated in our coverage in this edition, the meeting began with chairman John Morrison of Kentville providing an introduction and the area councillor, who arranged the meeting, Chris Parker, giving a presentation on the history of planning matters in Greenwich. He drew attention to the fact that, nearly three decades ago, the provincial Utilities and Review Board and the county itself indicated that the community should be developed as part of an urban corridor.

Some members of the public didn’t appreciate Parker’s presentation and one expressed the opinion following the meeting that several points were misleading or inaccurate.

The whole issue stems from a 2005 application from four Greenwich landowners and farm market business operators to have the hamlet boundary extended to facilitate a municipal service extension and to have approximately 400 acres rezoned.

However, this application has not been dealt with because the county instead invested in a consultant’s report on planning matters in the community. This led eventually to a recommendation from the planning advisory committee that the farm market operations be rezoned to C13 commercial zoning with no other changes.

There appear to be several issues surrounding the meeting. First, Kings County council referred first reading of the C13 rezoning for farm markets for a month to allow Parker a chance to facilitate one more community meeting, as he had promised. However, other councillors felt first reading should proceed.

Councillors passed a motion to provide funding - municipal tax dollars - to rent the hall for the meeting. In our view, that means the county sanctioned or at least endorsed the meeting. Thus, there should have been a presentation from the county planning department on the situation in Greenwich. There wasn’t. In fact, no one from the planning department was in attendance.

Another question is why Morrison chaired the meeting? He’s not a resident of Greenwich or the municipality and is not an elected official or employed by the county.

Parker said he thought Morrison was fair up to the point he demanded that a person whom Morrison felt was speaking out of order either shut up and sit down or leave. Another woman took exception to Morrison pointing his finger at her and was told by Morrison to sit down and shut up or leave. She refused and Morrison placed his hands on her in an apparent attempt to remove her. At this point, Parker took Morrison aside, residents had seen enough and left without the meeting being adjourned.

We believe there’s no place for this sort of thing in any public forum or planning process and the county needs to take a long, hard look at what transpired at this meeting. Tax dollars needn’t be spent on fiascoes the likes of which happened in Greenwich and we demand accountability from council and the municipality.