Faced with its first major decision, whether to give third reading to the TCUP (Temporary Commercial Use Permit) bylaw, Council voted 5-1 against the staff recommendation. The only vote in favour was that of the mayor, who characterized Council’s decision as “silly.” If there has been a rejection of a senior staff recommendation in the past on this scale, I don’t recall it.

Let me set the scene. The most significant temporary use in its history arrives in Whistler in February 2010. Staging the Olympics will require a relaxation of regulations. The hundreds of buses need to be washed somewhere, the billion-dollar security force has to be housed and, if VANOC prevails, the superstore will be unveiled.

So the staff recommended temporary commercial use permits (TCUPs). This first came up more than two years ago. At the time, a staff report estimated that VANOC would require more than 1 million square feet of temporary space, although the uses of that space were not identified. Council passed a bylaw permitting TCUPs in Function Junction only. The idea was that staff would then work out a protocol so that if more TCUPs in other zones were necessary, there would be clear guidelines in place for handing them out. To my knowledge, only one TCUP was subsequently issued in Function Junction.

In November 2008, the first two readings of a new TCUP bylaw were passed. This time the entire municipality was in play. The bylaw identified 12 potential temporary uses. However, with the introductory language that the temporary uses “include but are not limited to…” pretty much anything goes, anywhere in town, despite the representations made at various meetings and in the press. A superstore on the Whistler Golf Club driving range is now a distinct possibility, even though just about everyone who went to Torino agreed it would not be good thing for Whistler. And, if protocols for handing out TCUPs have been developed, no one outside Municipal Hall knows what they are.

This is where it gets interesting. Two days before Christmas, Council held a special meeting. It wasn’t advertised in the media. The only notification of it was on the municipal website, which probably wasn’t on the must-read list of most people the Friday before Christmas. The sole purpose of the meeting was to give third reading to the TCUP bylaw.

Staff itself anticipated few members of the public would attend as they arranged the meeting in the small Flute Room in the Hall instead of Millennium Place. A call to the Hall that afternoon revealed that even the receptionist didn’t know there was a special council meeting scheduled that day. In fact, only two members of the public attended. The meeting wasn’t televised.

At the meeting, Council was urged to pass third reading. They were told VANOC needed assurances of temporary commercial use permits to get on with securing accommodation in Whistler. Housing the Olympic family, volunteers and workers has been an issue for the past two years. Why the rush to pass this bylaw in a hastily convened meeting two days before Christmas?

VANOC says its operating budget is not ready for prime time. It’s reviewing its budget, including its promises to contribute to the cost of Celebration Plaza and to hold medal ceremonies in Whistler, among other things. Another way for it to maximize revenues and reduce costs is to erect temporary facilities at choice locations to capture as much of the spending as possible. Perhaps the real assurance it needed before publishing its operating budget in January was the knowledge that such ventures will be possible in Whistler. Therefore, a meeting of the Whistler Council had to be called.

Everyone on Council, with the exception of the mayor, was having none of it. They tabled the vote on TCUPs until after they hear from VANOC about its commitments to Whistler. A silly decision? Not in my view.