Chilliwack to host series of Rural Community town halls

If you live in Yarrow, tonight is the first of a series of Rural Community Open Houses being hosted by the City of Chilliwack. Councillor Sam Waddington will be chairing the meetings, and says he hopes to see a lot of residents show up and ask questions or give some feedback.

“It’s a neat place, where we have open dialogue.  It’s a really casual format…we just encourage the community, whether you’re from a rural area or not, to come out and grab a cup of coffee.  You can ask questions, or just sit in and listen.  It’s a really good opportunity to connect with the folks at city hall.”

We told you last week about a bylaw being considered by council that would restrict the size and location of houses on valuable agricultural land. Waddington says if the feedback so far is any indication, this is going to be an interesting part of the discussion.

“Certainly a lot of the farming community has come out in support of the general direction council is going with this…obviously no major decisions will be made until we’ve gone to the community and consulted properly.  But there are also a lot of land owners who want to build their dream home in a farm setting on a rural property, so they’re not in favour of the direction we’re taking.”

He expects that the growing of medicinal marijuana on farm land will also be a topic of discussion, but this is by no means limited to farm talk….he says they also expect people to bring up topics like roads and street signs, sewer connections, and any other issue that might affect someone in these communities.

The first meeting is tonight at Yarrow Community Hall.  There will be one this Thursday at Ryder Lake Community Hall, one on the 27th at Rosedale Community School and one on the 29th at the Greendale Fire Hall.  All the meetings start at 7pm.