The Editor:
The controversial inclusion of “unceded landback rights” has appeared in the latest, government-mandated Whatcom County Comprehensive Plan Update.
Why were staff planners instructed to include this language in the comprehensive plan draft, when none existed before?
Why didn’t planners and local politicians look closer at British Columbia governments, which have been wrestling with the exact same set of circumstances regarding Indigenous land claims and their recent inclusion into their own comprehensive plans?
What are the unforeseen consequences of this proposed legislation?
Once these Indigenous landback policies are enshrined into a County Comprehensive Plan, they are nearly impossible to remove.
Example:
The Washington Growth Management Act was passed in 1990 to address the downside of unmanaged growth, preserve farmland and curb urban sprawl.
But the inevitable result was that developers and their legions of attorneys continued to challenge and offer amendments that continue to change the legislative intent into what environmental critics nicknamed the “Growth Mandate Act.”
Unfortunately, we don’t have representative citizen Planning Commissions in British Columbia, only highly paid “planning directors” and staff.
There is no real citizen input into major land use decisions — only professional bureaucrats informing and directing their official community plans, which are always “pro-growth.”
The addition of “unceded” and related verbiage will guarantee further ongoing conflicts between individual First Nations as to which overlapping tribal interests take precedence over other tribes.
It is going on right now. It will never end.
It is a recipe for division and conflict in perpetuity, something County Council could avoid by taking a short look north at the experience in British Columbia and completely eliminating landback plans from any prospective comp plan revisions.
John Lesow
North Vancouver
(John Lesow served as a Whatcom County Planning commissioner from 2004-2013, representing District 3)
