The McLean Lake Residents’ Association is continuing its fight to prevent the construction of a concrete batch plant in the area.
A petition to transform the lake’s borders into a park was submitted a month ago with well over the necessary 2,000 signatures.
And last week, the residents gave notice they would appeal Supreme Court Justice Leigh Gower’s decision to let the development continue.
“We feel we have grounds for an appeal on the two matters that we argued before the court,” Skeeter Miller-Wright said on Friday.
“That the council did not represent the interests of city residents and the zoning, we feel that the arguments that we made about the zoning were valid.”
The city zoned the area quarry, which allows for batch plants.
Miller-Wright argued that because there would be no quarry on the site, the lot should have been zoned heavy industrial.
Gower did not agree.
After filing its notice, the residents’ association will need to file a more detailed appeal within 60 days.
But that’s not the only looming court case between the group and the city.
There’s trouble brewing over the petition to turn the McLean Lake area into parkland.
It proposes a 500-metre buffer zone from the lake’s high-water mark.
It also asks the city to pursue purchasing the land from the Yukon government.
However, city officials assert the petition’s questions are invalid and have vowed to challenge the document in court.
“We handed in about 2,654 signatures, from my count, after I took off the ones I knew were duplicates or not eligible for one reason or another,” said petition organizer Marianne Darragh.
“That’s 30 per cent more than the minimum requirement, so I think it gave them something to think about.”
Despite calling the petition questions invalid, the city accepted the petition.
It is now reviewing the signatures to ensure that more than 2,000 of the names are valid, said Darragh.
“Maybe they’re just trying to find some little thing that’s wrong with it — some reason to reject it.”
Under the municipal act, the city must create a new bylaw within 45 days and hold a referendum to vote on it within 90 days.
In March, when the city announced the petition was invalid, administrative services director Robert Fendrick said he would challenge it in court.
“We’re prepared to deal with that. We’ll take it as far as we have to,” said Darragh.
“The thing is, when you go out and get that much support you can’t just ask people to abandon it.”
Fendrick was unavailable for comment.