Spending our childrens savings

So the bright lights in power, have decided to have a huge land sale of OUR Burke Mountain lands, to "balance" the books.  My money says that this will be more of a give-away, and that our return on our lands will be negligible, as usual whenever the government gets involved in land sales.  A long, long history of this type of thing in this Province, Country for that matter.  As usual it will get sold, then we will buy lots back, because we need places for schools, firehalls, etc. and the developers, will have made back their money, and the rest is gravy.

         Having been one of the few people who have actually traversed ALL of the lands in question; I have to ask, why the lands were not properly surveyed in the first place, and areas of concern not sold. There are large areas of these lands, that have a history of wanting to be level. AKA slides; but wait, these days there is large developments downhill of these properties.

Sell it and let the developer find someone to sign off on it; typical.

Have a peek at the Colliers International real estate folks website
Download the glossy little brochure, and buy a piece of the action.

Tri-City News:  Province is selling 584 acres on Burke
have a peek at the comments, I am sure that many potential problems will be written down there.

This land sale will be controversial to say the least. With some difficult obstacles to overcome in developing the sites too.

And the "Tireless" town Parliament is on the bandwagon already proposing  yet another plan:
Northwest Burke Vision - Scope and Process   (PDF)

Also word is that Pinecone Burke Provincial Park, will finally have a Master Management Plan, started this year, long overdue.  Keep an eye on the Parks website, to provide your thoughts on the matter. which will be just in time, because a few of the tracts of land included in the Province's land give-away, adjoin the park.

UPDATE: created a Google Earth file, that shows the boundary's of the land sale; gives an idea of the sight-lines that will be greatly impacted. Suddenly Minnekhada Park, will not look at rural as it is today.

 A shortsighted sale?   Newspaper article, remembering how the taxpayer was robbed with the selling of lands that encompass todays Westwood Plateau. The present "government" wants to repeat the mistakes made with Westwood Plateau; where we had to but back from the developer all the school sites that we needed, and guess what? We paid more for those small properties, than what the entire site was sold for to the developer.  Remember we owned the land previous to selling, paid nothing for it.

 The City of Coquitlam released this:
Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Provincial Land Sales in Coquitlam,    Burke Mountain Land Sales

The Province of British Columbia is currently offering for sale 236 hectares (584 acres) of undeveloped Crown land located on Burke Mountain in Coquitlam.  The intent of this Notice is to make potential purchasers of these Provincial lands aware of the City of Coquitlam’s community planning policies contained in the Citywide Official Community Plan (CWOCP) and the Northeast Coquitlam Area Plan (NECAP) (and the supporting Neighbourhood Plans) that pertain to these lands. The City’s policies in this regard are intended to guide future land use and development of these lands and highlight the potential environmental and other challenges relating to these lands being offered for sale.


The Province has organized these Crown lands into three Property Groups (see attached map). Information regarding the City’s various plans, land use and environmental considerations has been summarized under each of the three Property Groups below:



Crown Property Groups

 Group 1

 The majority of Property Group 1 is located in the Partington Creek Neighbourhood Plan (PNCP), with small portions situated in the Smiling Creek Neighbourhood Plan (SCNP) and the future Northwest Burke Vision area (see below for website links to these neighbourhood plans).  City Council has approved these Neighbourhood Plans and some of the parcels offered for sale are accordingly planned to be developed as either single family homes or townhouses. Two of the parcels are also planned to potentially accommodate school sites; future development of these two parcels will require consultation with School District # 43 regarding school site needs, location and configuration. To ensure that future school site needs are addressed, the PNCP also includes policies that call for input and verification of School District #43 needs (see PNCP Policy 3.3.1). Three of the other Crown parcels in Group 1 are also planned to include, in part, a future water reservoir and parks, which the City will undertake to secure, as required, or when development proceeds.

About a quarter of this Property Group is primarily located outside the PCNP and SCNP areas and are identified as environmentally sensitive due to watercourses and very steep slopes (over 36%), which will limit development potential.

Group 2

Property Group 2 is located north of the Upper Hyde Creek and Smiling Creek Neighbourhood Plan areas, and is within the Metro Vancouver Regional Growth Strategy Urban Containment Boundary. The potential developable lands outside of existing neighbourhood plan areas will be confirmed through the Northwest Burke Vision (NBV) process, including the anticipated timing of development. The NBV is scheduled to start in spring 2014, and, once complete, the NBV will include a high-level land use and servicing concept as well as a generalized development phasing plan that will guide future planning and development over the long term (30 +years) for this vision area.


This Property Group also contains areas with very steep slopes as well as a number of watercourses as identified in the City’s CWOCP.

Group 3

 The majority of lands within Property Group 3 are outside the Metro Vancouver Urban Containment Boundary and, as a result, have no urban development potential at this time under the City’s CWOCP. It should be noted that prior to development being planned for this area, Metro Vancouver agreement to amend the Regional Growth Strategy and extend the Urban Containment Boundary would be necessary (i.e., A Type 2 Regional Growth Strategy  amendment would be required.)



As well, these lands are either designated environmentally sensitive or for rural residential and resource uses.  There is a small portion of these lands located within the Urban Containment Boundary, but currently outside any plan area, and are designated as suburban residential.  Another portion of this Property Group is within the PCNP and is planned for single family homes. At this time, there is no land use planning process anticipated by the City to further study these lands (outside of the PCNP) and determine their potential developability.

 For more information, contact: City of Coquitlam Planning and Development Department at 604-927-3430 or planninganddevelopment@coquitlam.ca.

 Quick Links

Citywide Official Community Plans

Northeast Coquitlam Area Plan

Upper Hyde Creek Neighbourhood Plan

Smiling Creek Neighbourhood Plan

Partington Creek Neighbourhood Plan

Report to Council on the Northwest Burke Vision Proposed Scope and Process – December 9, 2013

Crown Land Sale Map   poor quality PDF of the land give-away