While there’s still a question of ownership of properties used by Coyote Cruises on the Okanagan River Channel, the City of Penticton believes the Penticton Indian Band (PIB) does have jurisdiction over those lands.
Municipal staff are working with the B.C. Land Titles office to get some clarification about the properties on the west side of the channel used for the summer float business.
The information Anthony Haddad, the city’s director of developmental services received, showed the most southern property had exchanged hands between the federal and provincial governments including in 1955, around the time the river was channelized.
“Then in 1996, it was transferred to Canada for use and benefit of the Penticton Indian Band, it hasn’t been registered with the land title office which is where some of the confusion is,” said Haddad about the property at the south end of the channel where the final exit point is for tubers. “There are technicalities around the ownership down there but that will eventually be sorted out at some stage. It will up to the federal government and the province to get involved in that.
“In terms of the city’s process with Coyote Cruises and the Penticton Indian Band there are no issues with the process that we’re going through with them right now and the implications that these have and eventually those issues will be sorted out.”
The two properties are located at the midway point at Green Mountain Road and the other one at the south end.
Mike Campol, director of partnerships and projects for the K’ul Group which oversees Coyote Cruises, raised concerns earlier about the ongoing negotiations for a 20-year lease of the city parkland Coyote uses as its starting point.
Since then both Campol and the city believe the direction of talks have changed in a positive way.
To reach an agreement the two sides must go through the new approval procedure, the parkland protection and use process, involving public engagement and approval. It is about two-thirds of the way through.
“It’s obviously a complicated history, as you heard from Mike (Campol) there’s no intention from our understanding to eliminate any access down there (south end of the channel)” said Haddad. “We just need to recognize it, we need to respect and recognize there’s different land ownership at some of the exit points down along the channel way and we need to respect the history and value that has to the band.”
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