ASK Salt Spring: Answered - Ep. 37 Laura Patrick

Episode Date: May 25, 2024

Ep. 37 of Ask Salt Spring Answered, in which we talk to Salt Spring Island Trustee Laura Patrick about the Complete Communities Assessment and the Official Community Plan (OCP).

You're listening to episode 37 of Ask Salt Spring Answered in which we talk to Islands trustee Laura Patrick. We were just in Ask Salt Spring and the guests today were Laura Patrick and Jason Eumanns, who is a planner for the Islands Trust. And the main conversations were about the Complete Communities Plan or Program, not sure exactly what it's called, Assessment, I think, and also the Official Community Plan Update. So we started off talking about the complete communities,

and the LTC has received a $150,000 grant from the BC government to undertake an assessment. And I gather it's a report which will study all kinds of different geometrics with regards to how Salt Spring operates. Maybe you could talk a little bit about that, Laura. Sure. We were very fortunate to receive $150,000 from the province on what they call a complete community assessment program. There's guidance material for complete communities, and there's many reasons why you would look at your community from a completeness standpoint.

And one of the reasons is to prepare for an OCP update. And the word is geospatial analysis. You know, it sounds pretty cool. But in one way, this is really about collecting data and presenting it to help us have a conversation about our official community plan and extensive data and putting it in a map format. That's the geospatial. So taking the data and relating it to the island. Where are the houses? Where have they been built recently?

Where's our environmental sensitive areas? Where's ocean rise? And you can think of all of these questions of data, but presenting it on a map. And some of it could be in relation to each other. If you look at this to that, it might give us a different story. And so I think as this is really going to put us in a great position for doing our OCP review, because to,

I don't know, I look at a map and the data starts to, it just jumps off the page at you and something might become obvious to us that we didn't know about without looking at this data. So that's going to be the most useful piece. Yes, there will be a report that will be done at the end of the complete communities because that's required for the grant funding. But the real value of this is going to be setting us on a strong beginning for our OCP update. Right now, I gather there was some things that it covers housing, transportation, infrastructure and daily needs I think he said, but there's also 16 other indicators and it was discussed that you're going to be trying to expand that to include more about about environmental protection and ecological factors?

Well, we wanted to, you know, the complete community, what is a complete community? What's a complete island community? Are we a complete, you know, I'd say we're a complete-ish community. We've got ferries, we have to leave. Why do we leave? There's a lot of questions that might be unique to an island and definitely unique to an island that's in the Islands Trust that has a preserve and protect mandate. So we want to look at the indicators that the province has already established, which are urban focused, and really apply our island life to it and make sure that we're measuring ourselves on things that matter to us.

Okay, I gather you've hired some consultants and you're going to have a workshop to get additional indicators from people on Salt Spring? That's the plan. There's an engagement plan that staff have prepared to work with a multitude of island organizations to sit down and workshop these indicators to see what best reflects Salt Spring. Right. And then they're going to come up with some potential scenarios that address these different issues, right? The consultants are, that's correct. I mean, as they bring all this data together and start to relate this data to one another, they are being asked to look at some scenarios of where these four indicator area, like transportation and housing and needs, and those are the intersection of all these things. Are there scenarios of what could be improved? Like where could the housing go or what infrastructure we need?

I think we've heard a lot of people talk about pathways and bicycle paths and active transportation. There will be some scenarios pulled together that just have these options on them. And this isn't a take option A or B or C. As Jason was explaining today, it will be for the community to look at and say, well, I like a little bit of A and a little bit of B and a lot of C. And so they're going to be really conversation kickers. They're not, oh, we're going to pick one and that's it.

They are simply conversation starters. Right. And this all has to be done by September, which is not too far away. And then what will happen? Will the report be issued to us on Salt Spring like right away? Or how long will it take before we actually see the results of this? That's a good question. I don't have an answer to that.

I mean, there is a deadline for the grant. That is the driver force to get the report. The report will be very much focused on meeting and satisfying the needs of the grant funding so that the province feels they got benefit for the $150,000 that they gave us. But I'm sure it will be a public report and it'll be publicly available and us, but I'm sure it will be a public report and it will be publicly available and it would be released. There will be a website page for the OCP project coming up, and I think that's where all these resources

are going to be pulled together. Okay. So getting to the OCP official community plan, for those of us who aren't so familiar, this is going to be a targeted update as I understand it from from today's meeting and yeah and the target is is housing right? Housing is the main reason when we say housing it's where are we building it, how are we building it's where are we building it how are we building it who are

we building it for uh our current ocp the beginning the vision and the objectives in the beginning of the plan are wonderful it describes an island that's diverse with diverse housing options and it's a it's it's did we that? Did we achieve that? What went wrong? And so we need to look at the OCP and say, are there things that we're missing? What do we need to just update the OCP? The land use bylaw, that's the regulatory part. That's where the rubber hits the road.

And we need to look at the two together. When I think of a, you know, when we think of a policy, a policy, there are always general statements. I might read it one way, you may read it another. But when you match it and put the regulations next to it, you go, ah, I understand that now. You know, I'll give an example. Like a policy say, you should have limits on the height of your house. Well, you know, I might think a big one, you might think a small one. So the regulations where it would say your house can be no more than X feet tall.

Now you go, oh, I can visualize that policy. So that's why it's nice to bring these two projects together at the same time of doing an OCP update and the land use bylaw update. Right. So there was quite a considerable amount of discussion about the OCP and concerns, I suppose, about growing density and growth of population seem to be the major issues that I heard. Are these things that you will be looking at with the OCP? You know that currently Jason was saying that there is 17,000 already on the current OCP as a ceiling for population on Salt Spring, which is 6,000 more than it currently is right now.

So there's plenty of room there. It seems to me that if we wanted to increase the population here, we could under the current OCP. Is the new OCP going to address that particular factor, do you think? Or is it just going to stick with what we've got right now? This is the process, and that's what we're talking about today, is a process to update the community plan. We're going into this trying to create a transparent,

equitable engagement process for people to come forward and talk about the community and the vision. An OCP is really a vision. Where are we going? And this is a check-in, if you want to think of it that way. Where are we going? What's happened? And we talk a lot about growth and the population, and we wait for the next census to come out,

and we're 10,000, we're 11,000, we're 12,000. But we don't really look at what's happening. I have conversations with people, and I go, we're 11,000, we're 12,000. But we don't really look at what's happening. I have conversations with people and I go, we're losing people. And they go, no, no, no, the population's going up. I go, I understand that the population's going up, but we're losing people. And it's, we're losing the diversity in our community. People are leaving that can't find a place to live that we need. Community members, people that have been here for a long time. It's so exciting when you talk to someone who did get a new permanent rental from like the I-Wave or Croftonbrook properties. They're like, first time in 20 years that they've had secure housing. And so we need to drill into this.

I know every community in Canada has got this problem. But like I said, this is our home. And we need to understand, is there some impediments in our own policies and regulations to creating the options of housing that our community needs today. Right. Because you said that the division is a diverse community with diverse options for housing, but the houses that are being built or coming on stream are all single-family dwellings

with very little multiple housing options for people, right? Yep. And I don't count trailers, tents, boats, yurts, you know, as being those are the options. You know, those are temporary things. We need to make sure we have the options that our community needs. And this process is going to be about talking to everyone, talking to the people who are also looking for and needing the housing. So it's all voices matter. Yeah, and what are your hopes for this?

I mean, obviously there's lots of people who have put their brains towards this and it doesn't seem to be a silver bullet or anything that's going to solve this problem. What do you think it's going to take to actually get this done? Well, I mean, there's one thing to plan and it's it's this is our regulatory piece and so if our regulations are creating an impediment let's understand that and fix that to actually get the physical options of housing you know so someone can have a door they can close that's everybody on the island every government every you know every not-for-profit that need to be working together to make these things happen but you know for the island's trust it's these are our regulatory tools that are sort

of the bottom line or the basement that we're building from and we want to make sure that we're not creating those impediments to creating those options. Because there's a lot of strength there, if you think of it. I mean, we set the density. We set how high, how far away from the lot line, how many, where. All of those questions are controlled through the OCP and the land use bylaw. So let's make sure that those documents reflect what we want to do today and into the future best we can. I think Jason said that the one thing that's held back housing more than anything is the

North Salt Spring Water District moratorium on water connections. We're hopeful that something may come up in the near future. Have you heard anything yet about what their study shows? I have not, but I look at it as, you know, if there is a drop of water, extra, does the community have a desire on where that drop goes? So I would hope that there's through planning that we could influence, like where is the priority for providing water?

We heard one of the participants today talk about swimming pools, and it's like, all right, well, that's a good question. Do you want water going into swimming pools, or do you want water going into affordable housing projects? Water is a very important part of what we need to talk about and do we have some priorities that we care and i hope i i would expect that that conversation is going to come up and that that is a very important um dream of mine i'll say a dream because i'm always like do we have a planning unit that we could say, you know, if this area is more important, if Ganges, you know, could be

somewhere where we want to see more housing put, can we talk about it as a unit of planning and have a voice rather than as the improvement district, you've got, you know, I've got a connection, I get a vote. How do we say, well, the whole community says, no, we want housing to be more important here. Well, there are some municipalities I know where they do density swaps, where if they know that, you know, somebody wants to develop something, you know, they will swap densities for another area that's lower density or whatever. Is that something that we might be looking at here? Well, I would hope that the conversations we're going to have are, you know, not necessarily, you know, density swaps a tool,

you know, let's talk about the more physical aspect of it. Where do we want to see housing and what kind of housing, what form? Let's talk about that. Then the people like Jason who are planner geeks, they will look at the desire in terms of regulatory language and tools of how do we achieve that. So for me, the community conversation should be more, I want to see this form of housing, this kind of housing, and I want to see it kind of in these areas. Right.

Now you came up with something that I hadn't heard of before, the Community Land Trust. You said you've been over to, was it Cortez Island? Cortez Island, they're really rocking it right now. Their housing society is holding monthly forums as sort of a communication education forward piece to help the community understand their housing challenges that they have. And last weekend, their forum that they hosted was on community land trusts,

and they had three speakers. One was the president of the International Center for Community Land Trusts from Vermont. And then they had Lopez Island, a community land trust, and they had, it's called OPAL on Orcas Island. OPAL, of land and people, is the name of the, or of people and land. I guess I got them backwards. And these, the Lopez Island and Orcas Island over here in San Juan Islands,

you can practically see them out our window here, they've been at it since the 80s. And they're hardworking community organizations. The one fundamental difference that they have in Washington State and in San Juan County is they get a little slice of the real estate transfer tax. And boy, does that little slice make a difference to organizations like these community land trusts. But they use a variety of formulas. They don't necessarily look at it as we have to go out there and build units. They look at it as the units already exist. They just have to get them. So they buy houses,

they buy properties. They may have, and they separate the title so that you get the land and you've got the house. And the community land trust holds the land. And the house can actually, some of the houses are either rented or sold. And the ones that are sold, they have fixed formulas for what you're allowed to see for an increase in in your you know your resale and i think it's and they it's like 1.87 percent a year so if i hold the house for 10 years and i sell it i can only get that you know increase in selling it again and why does that make a difference you know and we talk about affordable housing ownership housing what does that look like?

That's a big difference. And like for Orcas Island, I think they have like over 300 units since the 80s that they've brought in by doing that model. And you think, you know, Orcas is a small island. Yeah. What do you think the chances of us persuading the provincial government to give up a slice of their property transfer tax would be well I'm gonna make a shout out to the electoral area director at Cortez Island Mark van Asch he's already down in Victoria talking about it and I think you know we as islands it's we need to band together and get our voice louder down in Victoria to know that we're already at a disadvantage. It costs more to develop housing on these islands.

And our workforce, for Victoria, people just commute further. For us, you hit a ferry terminal. And boy, does that make a difference you know so keeping people on island that we need on island that can benefit from like community land trusts and not-for-profits and everyone that's working so hard to try to provide housing we all need money to do this and you know if the province could just give us a little slice of that real estate transfer tax uh that would allow us to to set some of these programs in place and start making a difference for people's lives. Yeah. Now the OCP, I think you

said was the plan is to have it in place by the update in place by 2026. Is that correct? Yeah. As Jason's been doing all the pre-planning for preparing for this, timeline was one of them, and he's trying to plan the timeline to work so that we can complete it this term. And there'll be some public meetings and things where people can give their input, right? There's going to be lots of opportunities. I've been very proud of Jason for rising to the challenge because I've thrown every challenge at him I can. And one of them is that following equitable public engagement practices. And so that we

really get out there and listen to more voices. You know, having meetings at 10 o'clock in the afternoon or morning and on a weekday doesn't work anymore. You know. We've got to go out and hear from the people that we need to hear from and make sure that we're bringing all those voices into this process. So this is going to be a very public-forward process, and that's what he's been working on right now, is just trying to make sure that we've got a plan forward that's transparent, open, and we're going to go out there and hear from you.

Okay, well, thanks, Laura, for coming in. And you've been listening to Ask Salt Spring Answered on cheer.fm, the voice of the Gulf Islands. Great. Oh, thank you very much.