Judging by the recent conclusion of the Village of Pemberton’s alternative approval process (AAP) for the boundary extension proposal involving the Hillside area, few Village voters are concerned about the prospect of bringing those lands into Pemberton.

When the process closed Monday (July 12) at 4:30 p.m., the Village had received just 10 signatures on seven forms opposing the idea of the boundary expansion involving the Hillside lands, Manager of Administrative Services Lonny Miller said Tuesday (July 13).

One more signature was submitted Tuesday morning, after the final deadline of Monday at 4:30 p.m., he added.

The total figure is well short of the mark of 161 voters, or 10 per cent of the estimated 1,600 eligible Village voters, that would have forced the Village to hold a referendum on the issue. The Village is “accepting (the result) as support,” Miller said.

“The public input has been received, and consent of the electors has been granted through the alternative approval process,” he said.

Instead of asking all voters to cast ballots in a referendum about the proposal, AAP, only Village voters who had objections to the idea were asked to submit a response form.

Pemberton Mayor Jordan Sturdy said the next step is a resolution by Council to advance the proposal for the extension.

“I was glad to see the community was comfortable with where we’re going,” Sturdy said on Tuesday.

In May, the Village’s council voted to move ahead with the portion of the boundary expansion proposal to include the Hillside area, after the Lil’wat Nation indicated a lack of opposition to the idea provided certain conditions are met.

The initial boundary expansion proposal involved four areas: the Hillside, the Pemberton Creek watershed, the Airport Road area and the southern highway corridor around Rutherford Creek. Sturdy stressed that the Village hasn’t dropped the other three parts, and the “intention is to move ahead” with those areas too.

Sturdy said he contacted some of the 11 people who registered their opposition to the Hillside extension, and found that one of them was voting against the proposal because the person felt the Village wasn’t moving forward with the other parts.

Sturdy said he’s hopeful the Lil’wat Nation leaders will soon consider the Village’s request for support of the other three parts of the proposed extension. He still has hopes of having all four areas ready to present to the B.C. cabinet in the fall.

Lands in the Hillside area, east of Pemberton’s current boundary, have most recently been involved in the Sunstone Ridge neighbourhood development proposal, which has been a hotly debated topic for the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District’s board. Sturdy said the intention in bringing the Hillside lands into the Village would be to complete the neighbourhood planning process for the area, and bring a vision forward for public comments.

“I think we need to have some plans for people to talk about,” he said.

Since the development would be “one of the biggest… that Pemberton will ever see,” and since Pemberton has a limited land base for development, Sturdy said, he thinks it’s in the community’s best interest to ensure a quality, phased project and talk about the plans and priorities.

Village voters cast ballots about the question of boundary expansion in the November 2008 municipal elections. The referendum produced votes of 611 for and 145 against the proposal to bring all four of the proposed nodes into the Village.

But the Province’s Ministry of Rural and Community Development, which is handling the proposal, regarded that vote as an opinion poll instead of an official means of electoral approval, necessitating the use of the AAP or a referendum, Village Chief Administrative Officer Daniel Sailland said last month.

Ministry staff also suggested the Village could move forward each section of the proposal separately, believing some areas could be advanced more quickly than others.