Nanaimo has some legal options if it wants to stop a garbage-burning incinerator from being established at Duke Point, but it would have to act fast, a Victoria lawyer said Thursday.
“If that activity has not yet commenced, and the community is dead set against it commencing, zoning changes could be implemented with a fair degree of swiftness,” said John Alexander, who has represented municipalities in court a number of times.
The advice followed reports Wednesday that Metro Vancouver is looking to Vancouver Island to establish a waste-to-energy facility that would process 700,000 tonnes of Lower Mainland waste annually.
Regional District of Nanaimo director Alec McPherson raised concerns about the incinerator being built on Duke Point, which is zoned industrial and wouldn’t require input from the public.
McPherson said that the area, on land owned by B.C. Ferries, is one of the sites the Metro Vancouver regional district is looking at for an incinerator.
But B.C. Ferries spokeswoman Deborah Marshall said Thursday that no one has approached the company about siting an incinerator on its 13-hectare Duke Point terminal property.
Another location in the area could be land owned by Seaspan International, which has nine hectares of largely vacant properties on Jackson Road that includes docks, wharves and a leased foreshore.
Any community that wants to stop a particular activity, such as the incineration of garbage, can craft zoning bylaws in a way that stops a proposed facility from being built, Alexander said.
But swiftness is key, he said.
Duke Point is within the City of Nanaimo but the RDN has authority over solid waste and would have regulations that apply to waste-to-energy incinerators, Alexander said.
“They can certainly have some very, very stringent licensing requirements,” he said.
The region’s liquid-waste management regulations may stipulate that the regional district must agree before waste from another jurisdiction is accepted, the RDN board said Thursday.
Zoning could also be crafted to prohibit an incinerator on a particular parcel of land, Alexander said.
If a project has put shovels in the ground before the zoning change is approved, the development can continue, he said.
“The courts have traditionally said the race is to the swift, and if they can get the zoning through before the building permit stage, then it applies,” Alexander said.
