Denman resident Mr. Tony Aly has created an online petition to add a layer of municipal government to Denman Island, based on the Bowen Island model that still exists within the Islands Trust. He has also created petitions to abolish both the Islands Trust and the Province’s Agricultural Land Reserve.
Camp Denman’s owners cite the former Elkhaven free summer camp for under-privileged kids as the precedent for their “grandfathering” claim or prior use of ALR zoned land. The problem is that the purchase of the 37 acre parcel of farmland did not come with a right to change the non-farming use into a year round business school, “creative campus and campsite.”
Mr. Aly says he will fight for the right to develop a school on ALR zoned land, despite the legal restrictions, and in contravention of ALR and Islands Trust zoning and bylaws. The free summer camp had been for underprivileged kids. The Agricultural Land Reserve and the Islands Trust were created in 1974.
If Mr. Aly is motivated by his concern for the Denman community, he would have applied for variances from the ALR and Trust authorities. Instead, he has called for the abolition of the Islands Trust and ALR. What could be more divisive?
While petitioning for the abolition of the Islands Trust, Mr. Aly has cherry-picked a criticism from the independent governance review of The Trust Area, some 13 unique major islands with 25,000 residents. The recommendations that emerged from that review were to pay the elected Local Trustees a living wage and to provide them the resources to properly engage the Islands Trust mandate.
Mr. Aly’s petition and proposal for “Denman Town”, a truly AI inspired name, based on the duplicate planning and taxation model of Bowen Island municipality within Islands Trust, while at the same time petitioning for the abolition of the Islands Trust and the Agricultural Land Commission, is not only incoherent, it is evidence that he is primarily motivated by his own business interests.
