The Vancouver Island Motorsport Circuit has requested a judicial review regarding North Cowichan council upholding a decision by staff.
In 2018, the circuit came to the municipality, requesting a development permit, council said no, suggesting a comprehensive rezoning of phase one and two, which led to two public hearings.
Council denied that zoning because it didn’t match the I-2 zoning.
“When that expansion was turned down under the rezone, they said, ‘we’re going to go right back to the beginning and we’re just going to ask for the development permit like we did in the first place,’ ” said Siebring.
Director of Planning, Rob Conway denied VIMC’s request, the racetrack appealed that decision and on December 4, council upheld Conway’s decision.
That’s the decision VIMC is requesting a judge to review and Mayor Al Siebring said if the judicial review sides with VIMC, council will have to revisit that decision.
“The normal process would be for the judge to say to us, (as council), ‘I have found irregularities in your first decision, make your decision again.’ It doesn’t force us to say yes, it just forces us to look at it again,” said Siebring.
Siebring said, “Whatever procedural problems the judge may have found, I don’t think he’ll find any, but if he does we have to resolve those procedural processes before we make the vote again.”
The judicial review is not about the expansion of the track or the public hearings.
VIMC is seeking $60 million dollars in damages, now that North Cowichan council has rejected phase two, the expansion of the track.
