Castanet

LANDM wrote: There are many situations in kelowna where the lots are leased with the option, held by the lessee, to purchase the land from the lessor.

Not native land though, and I believe that was the OP's question. This is where the OP must do the research.

I would not touch leasehold land in Lake Country with a ten foot pole. Your own Mayor (Baker) is presently spending thousands of dollars of taxpayer money in his self initiated attempt to evict a small number of legal renters from their lots on a small lake south of Lake Country .... Dee? Long? Crooked? One Island? The paper regarding his appeal now has to be sent from one involved party to another in cardboard boxes. He seems to be the only 'Mayor' so involved so renting in areas outside of Lake Country or the Lake Regional District may be a bit less 'chancy'.

zookeeper wrote:quote="LANDM"] There are many situations in kelowna where the lots are leased with the option, held by the lessee, to purchase the land from the lessor.
[/quote

Not native land though, and I believe that was the OP's question. This is where the OP must do the research.

Why would you bother to respond in this way and cut only one part of my post when:

A) I was clearly responding to a post on non native land
And
B) I clearly commented on the native land issue
??????
Strange.

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quote="zookeeper" While trust (with native land) is a huge deterrent the "bad scenarios" can also happen on non-native leased land. You do not, or ever will "own" the land.[/quote
This is not true. There are many situations in kelowna where the lots are leased with the option, held by the lessee, to purchase the land from the lessor.
I do agree with your comments on native land.
In lake country, there are examples of better and "not so good" leased land.
************

I apologize, I thought my thoughts were clear I was talking about native land, that is why I "cut" to respond to thoughts on native land, and aside from your post I still do not see another referring to non native leased land. It could be also, that my opinion is rather biased because of a bad experience. We thought we had researched well, and even in hindsight firmly believe that a lease is just a lease and would never feel secure having a home on land that is not owned by us. Even if we were given the option to purchase the land under our home our trust has been broken to the point where we would never chance the scenario of what if, or maybe, or possibly at some time in the future. This is my experience, and therefore my opinion only.

zookeeper wrote:I apologize, I thought my thoughts were clear I was talking about native land, that is why I "cut" to respond to thoughts on native land, and aside from your post I still do not see another referring to non native leased land. It could be also, that my opinion is rather biased because of a bad experience. We thought we had researched well, and even in hindsight firmly believe that a lease is just a lease and would never feel secure having a home on land that is not owned by us. Even if we were given the option to purchase the land under our home our trust has been broken to the point where we would never chance the scenario of what if, or maybe, or possibly at some time in the future. This is my experience, and therefore my opinion only.

No problem. I totally agree with your opinion on native land leases. The non native part was in your post where you said about things happening on non native land and that you cannot ever own the land. I merely brought up instances where this is not true, for example on a couple of Bennett and Stewart developments in kelowna.

While trust (with native land) is a huge deterrent the "bad scenarios" can also happen on non-native leased land. You do not, or ever will "own" the land.

Allow me to re-quote:

While trust (with native land) is a huge deterrent, because of our experience we would not trust an "option to purchase" on non native leased land either. As for native land, you do not, or ever will "own" the land.

Does anyone in Lake Country know the real reason that Mayor Baker is spending so much money trying to evict the legal long term renters from their provincial lake shore leases on the small lakes south of Lake Country? Is it true that out of province money wants to develop the lake shore land if a way can be found to break the leases? Does that mean that effort will also be made to cancel the cattle grazing leases in the same area? Is all of the legal effort on the part of the Mayor (Baker) being done in a effort to push the renters out, rather than have to spend money to buy them out? If successful, is there any guarantee that he (Mayor Baker) will not follow the same route regarding other lake shore lots presently being legally rented on other lakes in the area? The more I think about what he is attempting to do the more nervous I become.

At what point does the personal wishes and efforts to bring about (unknown) change become an abuse of political power?

Donald G wrote:Does anyone in Lake Country know the real reason that Mayor Baker is spending so much money trying to evict the legal long term renters from their provincial lake shore leases on the small lakes south of Lake Country? Is it true that out of province money wants to develop the lake shore land if a way can be found to break the leases? Does that mean that effort will also be made to cancel the cattle grazing leases in the same area? Is all of the legal effort on the part of the Mayor (Baker) being done in a effort to push the renters out, rather than have to spend money to buy them out? If successful, is there any guarantee that he (Mayor Baker) will not follow the same route regarding other lake shore lots presently being legally rented on other lakes in the area? The more I think about what he is attempting to do the more nervous I become. At what point does the personal wishes and efforts to bring about (unknown) change become an abuse of political power?

Hi Donald,

While I agree that what the DOLC has been doing is downright shady, I don't think you're helping the cause with all of this speculation.

These lots/lakes are all outside of the DOLC's municiple boundaries. The DOLC has no ability to approve development nor any way to gain funds or other incentives from allowing development in these locations. All the DOLC can do is try to influence the provincial government when it comes to this land. The leases belong to the province, not the district.

To Kalvin K ...

I'm not clear what 'cause' your are referring to in your comments. Since I do not know the purpose of the Mayor Baker initiative I am neither for nor against whatever outcome evolves from the ongoing legal situation ... if that is what you mean. I recently became caught up in the matter when I was shown one set of the foot and a half high set of paper that has accumulated regarding the matter. My distrust of political figures and assessment of the 'per page' (legal) cost of the Mayor's initiative led me to start making inquiries. Having been given the opportunity and had the time to scan through about half of the stack of paper and driven up into the area, I came to the conclusion that there is as much NOT being said as to the (real?) reason for the appeal is there is being identified in the documents. Perhaps I am indeed sticking my nose into something that does not concern me. On the other hand I firmly believe that any Canadian citizen has the right and obligation to satisfy themselves that the actions (often unstated) of elected politicians and spending of tax payer money is made clear to the electorate. If everything is on the up and up there should be no reason for the Mayor to NOT clarify and publish what his intentions are and what the cost to date has been.

OK, thanks for clarifying.

I too am at a loss as to what the motivation is. I can say that DOLC wanting to re-purpose the land is not something that I think is likely. They do not have jurisdiction in these areas - they couldn't do it even if there were no leaseholders.

What should have stopped with an iquiry and studies into the potential impact to DOLC's watersheds has turned into what I can only describe as a vendetta against the leaseholders. All of DOLC's concerns have either been addressed or dismissed yet the battle continues.

The only motivators I can see are political posturing (these are small time politicians trying to make it into the big leagues) or just plain old jelousy. I try to have faith and believe that it's not jelousy - so my best theory is that we've got a few key people who are trying to add something to their political resume. They want to be seen as the heros who saved the community's drinking water - regardless of the cost to the taxpayers or lack of an actual threat/problem.

To Kalvin K ... (New Thread ... See: Your taxpayer dollars at work)

Your information, to me, is completely consistent with the tentative conclusions that I reached based on what I was able to glean from the copious amounts of information in the 'cardboard box size memo' that I had the opportunity to peruse. I especially find the strong possibility of 'political posturing' and 'jealousy' extremely offensive to our Canadian way of life, given the amount of tax payers money that appears to have been spent.

Self evident factors that directly affect the water situation are not mentioned anywhere in the process. Fish routinely spawn, live and die in the lakes. Cattle grazing on the adjoining grazing leases and wild animals must consume far more water and contribute far more risk of disease and/or pollution than the (summer only) people in the few cabins could ever use or cause ... even if they were to stay year round.

As per your request, I will refrain from further comment on the matter until after the most recently rescheduled, rescheduled, rescheduled appeal has been heard. But I will continue to wonder why an elected official would insist on pursuing an expensive process that was fairly assessed and decided by the courts years ago several times now. The reasons given in the "cardboard box size memo" that I perused are not, in my opinion, completely honest and do not at all describe the obviously politically secret 'true' purpose of the reason for the continuing unwarranted outflow of taxpayers' money.

Does anyone know when and where the next hearing regarding the Provincially owned lease lots on the chain of lakes south of Lake Country is scheduled to be held? And who is permitted to attend?

Anyone can attend unless an in camera meeting

There is a very interesting thread on the West Kelowna Discussion Forum regarding the opinion of numerous people to building or buying a house on lease land ... some of them to do with the reaction of people to the security of having property on Lease Land. They are talking about First Nations Land and apparently have little or no knowledge regarding what the Lake Country Mayor is attempting to pull off regarding Legally Leased Provincial Government Land in the area on the small lakes south of Lake Country.

Donald G give it a rest.... this is not Mayor Bakers personal vendetta anymore than it was McCoubrey or Hein's personal vendettas.

[url]http://www.obwb.ca/99/?tx_ttnews[pointer]=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=89&tx_ttnews[backPid]=97&cHash=5a56942772[/url]

It have been going on for years and it has to do with water ...

The district is growing and those lakes are more to the east than south and on provincial lands. Until the change in the provincial government land use rules it used to be difficult to obtain a lease let alone built a humungous home for permanent residence. Today it is not. And with that come the problems that contaminate water sources. Sewage, waste water, motorized equipment on the water just to name a few.

Just as they save other areas for the use of all these small recreational lakes should have the same protection.

The district is scrambling for any and all grants as are all small tax base municipalities to keep up with aging infrastructure and when you are in a rather new municipality that can be substantial when taking over private purveyor licenses or old irrigation districts.

Why should any municipality have to pay for expensive extra treatment just because the province allows excessive use or the possibility of a failed septic to contaminate a towns water?

Good on DLC if they are still fighting it... hope they are also still fighting to have non motorized only craft on the lakes cause this type of development is just plain wrong and unwanted by more than a hand full of old cabin owners.....

It also interests me when people keep repeating that they have seen a box full of papers and have gleaned or perused them and from that draw a conclusion that it is the Mayor's personal agenda. Mayor's take their mandates from the taxpayer and they have mega 'help' from staff, associations, organizations, lobby groups, and other council members to name but a few.

And there is no comparison to leases on FN land so maybe this crossing between threads to West Kelowna is not such a good thing. Not quite sure what your point is but alas you can rest assured that the District has been at this for well beyond the term of Mayor Baker and will continue as they should to protect the ranch lands and recreational lands around them. It is not a negative but a positive in anyone's eyes.