rearmongers

Northern poet

Is it right to call those opposed to
landclaims racists and
extremists?\NEWS AQ

B1

He's famous around the world and
he lives in the Nass\COMMUNITY

Terrace teen wins a mountain bike
race that was held in -
Kitimat\SPORTS B5

WEDNESDAY _
OCTOBER 9, 1996

TAN DARD cnet

Psych service changes coming

LOCAL HEALTH officials are working
on a plan that’li dramatically change the
Shape and size of psychiatric care ser-
vices here.

What’s involved is a bringing together
of the services now here to improve ef-
ficiency and to cut administrative costs.

But it also involves building three
cottage-style structures at Mills
Memorial Hospilal for psychiatric care
patients,

Each cottage will be sufficient to ac-
commodate six people and they’l) be
built on Jand owned by the hospital, says
Neil Taylor who is in charge of north-
western mental health services.

The cottages are also intended to re-

- place the aging Osborne home that now

contains nine people, he said,

In effect that means an increase of nine
psychiatric beds for the area.

Cottage construction is to be ac-
companied by renovations to the existing

.10-bed psychiatric care unit already at

Mills Memorial Hospital,

Taken together, the plan is to provide a
broader range of differing levels of in-
patient pyschiatric care and to bring out
improvements lo out-patient service,

A good portion of the money for all of
the above comes from dismantling the
Riverview hospital structure in favour of
regional services.

*'The foundation’s in place and we’re

now waiting for the go ahead,” said
Taylor of the plan,

Radical changes have been at least six
years in the making, halted at various
limes by changes in government policy
and direction.

The intent of the changes is to provide
for a common administrative structure
with a wide level of services.

Patients with more serious needs, for
instance, will stay at the revamped psych
unit at Mills Memorial.

Those with less serious needs will be
housed in the three cottages,

The advantage of basing the services
adjacent to each other is the ease of
transferring patients back and forth as

the need arises, noted Taylor.

‘All this may be hard to do but it is
going to be done,’” he said of the plan.

“There aren’t going to be any new
resources unless you can rationalize who
youve done.”

One step along the away to bringing in
the new-look psychiatric service level
happened earlicr this year when respon-
sibility for Osbome home shifted from
the Ksan House Society to Mills
Memorial Hospital.

Mental health officials have taken
other steps to assist people who need a
certain level of care but who do not
necessarily require lengthy and ex-

pensive hospitalization.

Monies have gone to the transition
house here, to the emergency shelter and
to the Sleeping Beauty Lodge.

That latter facility, located on the
grounds of Mills Memorial, is for people
from out of town who may only need the
hospital for out patient services.

There have been other recent improve-
ments to psychiatric services with the
moving here of two psychiatrists,
making for three now based in Terrace.

Taylor says increased training might
also be available for general practioners
and he’s encouraged that some are al-
ready acquiring more skills.

& This old house

VOLUNTEER KATIE LAW takes a turn on the belt sander, as she
tries to strip the paint from the deck of the Terrace emergency
shelter, located on Hall St. Staff at the shelter wanted to replace
the aging deck, but in the process ended up having to remove

many layers of paint from the front of the building. Now they're as-
king anyone in the community who has a belt sander, extension

cord, and some spare time to come and lend a hand to the project,
The staff is hoping to get the deck and the front of the house
painted before freezing weather sets in. Clients at the shelter,
which has ten beds for those in need of tamporary shelter, have
alsa been helping with the renovation. If you can help call the
shelter at 635-5890.

Rural area plan
back on track

THE PLAN under which the rural atea is to grow and how
it is to develop should be ready for a public look-see some-
time next year, Lo.

It’s called the Greater Terrace Official Community Flan
(OCP) and has been held up by regional district staff
shortages and the uncertainty over the governing future of
the mura] area surrounding Terrace,

Andrew Webber, the Kitimat-Stikine regional district’s

Manager of development services says a draft is now
ready, yo vee ene
“'The OCP is a vision statement — a desired develop-
ment objective,’ Webber says, That means the plan gives
direction as to where growth should be and what kind of
development should take place in areas outside the Terrace
city limits, ; ,

The plan covers areas to the east of Terrace, along High-
way 16, along with areas north of the city, and south — to
Jackpine Flats and Lakelse Lake.

An earlier draft.of the OCP was written back at the be-
ginning of the ’80s. That one went to public meetings and
ended up being set aside. m ,

Three years ago, the plan was resurrected and regional
district project planner Bruce Lennox began work on a
new draft. But Lennox left cartier this year, and work on
the project slowed considerably,

The project fell further to the wayside when the pos-
sibility of an amalgamated Terrace and Thornhill loomed
on the horizon.

All the delay has frustrated some developers keen on
changing zoning-or removing land from the Agricultural
Land Reserve. The regional district has delayed removing
some lands from the ALR until the plan has been imple-
mented,

“I's not like we don’t have regulations already in
place,’’ says Webber, ‘'And we can’t just look at the needs
of developers. We have to look at the concerns of the
people who live in the areas,"’

But with the boundaries of a potential amalgamated
greater Terrace now defined, the OCP is once again back
on the regional district's plate. Although, there will be
some overlap in the airport lands.

City targets illegal suites
by seeking court injunction

A HALF DOZEN property owners who
‘rent out illegal suites in direct contravention
of Ri zoning rules are about to be the sub-
jects of a court injunction.

City council has decided to take on the
renegade landlords on two fronts.

They’re going to register a notice on the prop-
erty title of those homes that states the property
isn't conforming to zoning rules,

And they're going to seek an injunction re-
quiring that those suites not be occupied until
they meet zoning and other rules.

“We're hoping these people will back
down,”’ senior building inspectar Payl Gipps
told councillors last week,

The councillors appear to be in agreement,
and the plan will likely be up for approval by
the full council at the Oct. 15 meeting.

IE we don’t deal with it now it just en-
courages niore peuple to try to get away with
it,”’ councillor Val George noted,

“We've got to quit being patsies and start to
get serious about it,’’ councillor Gordon Hull
added,

The property notation is expected to make it
more difficult for the current owners to sell the

property, or even carry out renovations or mort-. .

gage refinancing.

“We've got to be flexible and
reasonable about this inlaw thing
but we’ve got to have some con-
tro! over it as well,” says council
for Val George.

The Injunction will force the owners to elther
respond ‘in court, or demonstrate to the city that
the suites are no longer occupied.

City councillors say it’s not fair to people who
build homes in Ri zones expecting the lower
density and single-family character of the
neighbourhood.

And it’s also argued that lax rules on
secondary suites also discourage developers
from building new apartment buildings.

“Nobody is going to commit money to put up

‘apartments until this is resolved,’? said city

bylaw enforcement officer Frank Bowsher.

‘The city last month moved to tighten up some
of the definitions dealing with sultes in its
zoning bylaw. — setilng the stage for the com-
‘ing crackdown,

It’s only relatively new secondary suites —

built within the last five years — and oaly the
ones in R1 single-family residential zones that
the city is targetting.

Other types of secondary suites aren't affected
by the city action.

Hlegal suites built prior to Jan. 1, 1991 are

“grandfathered in’’ and won't be targetted un- —

Jess there are serious health or safety concerns,

Owners of secondary suites that meet zoning
rules and the building code have nothing to
worry about, (Suites are allowed in all residen-
tial zones except R1),

But the city going to investigate what to do
about another kind of suite — the so-called in-
law suites,

The city docsn’t enforce against people who
have a suite in which an older parent or other
relative can live nearby but with some indepen-
dence,

The cily doesn’t object to the use of those
suites by family members, but councillors noted
they tend to turn into illegal suites as soon as
that family sells the house and moves on.

Options Gipps will explore include some kind
of registration system or deposit system to keep
tabs on the inlaw suites,

“We've got to be flexible and reasonable
about this inlaw thing but we've pot to have
some control over it as well,’’ George said,

Customs post
serenaded

IF ONLY Johany Horton knew what was going on ia
Hyder, Alaska.

The popular crooner from the 1950s has had his most
famous song, “‘North to Alaska,” blasting at high
volume right on the border between Hyder and Stewart.
. Is a project of the Hyder Development Corporation
and the intent is to let Canadians and tourists know the
liny hamlet is still there, despite last month’s opening
of a Canada Customs post at the border.

A Hyder Development Corporation official says
tourist, business and regular traffic from Stewart
dropped off dramatically when the post opened up.

“A lot of people find it a detriment,”’ said the official .
who didn't want to be named. ‘‘They used to come
over for a hot dog, a hamburger, a cup of coffee. And
now they don't,”

So the corporation responded by setting wp a sound
syslem and playing ‘‘North to Alaska’? over and over
and over again, 24 hours a day, at a high volume.

The music stopped the middle of last month, after the
traditional summer tourist traffic slowed down. ‘‘We'll
be back next summer ~~ and louder,”’ said the corpora-
tion official.

And he denied suggestions the music is also intended
io send a strong message to Canada Customs officials
on duty at the border. ‘Ob by God, if it happens to
drive them nuts, that’s too bad,”’ said the official,

Canada Customs official Dan McGrath said border
officials weren’t that bothered by the continuous
serenade. ‘We got to hear it a lot,’” he said.

The song comes from a John Wayne movie of the
same name. McGrath declined the opportunity to belt
out (he lyrics,