Transcript
Discussion (0)
Okay, I'm here with Ron Cook, who is a board member of the Salt Spring Housing Council
and also on the board of the Dragonfly Project.
Dragonfly Commons, that's correct.
Yep. Hi, Ron. Nice to have you.
And we sat through a two-hour discussion with Ask Salt Spring
talking about the housing issues on Salt Spring Island, which are many and very complex. And Ron, I think you kicked things off talking about how you thought that the three levels
of government, the CRD, the Trust, and the North Salt Spring Water Works needed to take
an active role in, I guess, making sure that housing is prominent as an issue on Salt Spring
and that housing gets built on Salt Spring.
That's correct.
Well, I keep saying that these are our only elected leaders that we have locally,
and with housing being as critical a problem as it is,
I would expect that our leadership would get together
and form a true battle plan to deal with this.
And at this point, we have to come begging to them for this, that,
and the other thing for dispensation around bylaws, et cetera, et cetera, and they should really be taking this on themselves
as a critical problem in our community that needs to be solved.
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of talking going on about this,
but there's not a lot of doing, is there?
Ad nauseum.
And I'm guilty as much as the rest of us.
I mean, the conversation comes up over and over and over,
but the solutions prove to be very difficult to implement.
But having said that, there are many people who are doing things in the background
and in the foreground who deserve support and are doing worthy things.
Now, we mentioned Dragonfly Commons. Just tell me a little bit about that project and
where it's at right now.
Okay. Well, Dragonfly Commons is a non-profit workforce housing initiative that has been instituted by Tammy and Fernando dos Santos,
a wonderful couple. It is located up at the end of Drake Road, just sort of past the Lions Club.
And our plan is to provide 30, what you would maybe call tiny homes, one and two bedroom buildings that
are for sale to people who are working. They will have to be able to get the financing
together, but our plan is to provide it at as low a cost as possible.
So the Dos Santos, all they wish to see is what they paid initially for the property,
the 10 acres, come back to them, and that was purchased 10 or 15 years ago, so it's a very fair price.
And then the rest is just the cost of the structures and the infrastructure,
which, of course, keeps getting more and more expensive
as we wait to get approval for this, that, and the other thing.
And that is always a stumbling block that all the groups are facing all the time.
Right.
And the whole question of funding came up,
and I think you were talking about
how the housing council is sort of an invisible body.
It's an all-volunteer body,
and you think there's a need for some kind of a housing foundation
or a group that would be responsible for,
as a place for people to
go with donations or money or whatever so that we could actually have a pot of
money for housing on Saltspring. Exactly. So you know as it stands right now there is
no real focal point I mean I think Sal salt springers of all of us, of all natures, have, you know, come to
realize that we do have, in particular, a very severe workforce housing crisis. There's just not,
no place for somebody like a nurse or a teacher or people that work in,penters, different industries,
for them to purchase or even rent for that matter.
Our housing stock is completely depleted, used up,
and that's a whole conversation in itself.
But the bottom line is that we need housing for these people
to be able to stay on Salt Spring and to get
ahead a little bit step by step.
And so Dragonfly, our intention, also I should actually talk about the fact that we need
a focal point for Salt Springers who are interested in investing or donating towards housing on Salt Spring.
There's no place for them to really, you know, they don't know where to go if that is something that they want to do.
And so I have been pressing for some form of something similar to the Salt Spring Foundation,
something where people can put their money in,
possibly get a bit of a return on it,
but know that their money is going to be used
to create affordable housing on Salt Spring.
And I will add to that that it's my observation over time that it is the non-profit organizations that can create the best form of affordable housing.
Because nobody's in it for profit, they're in it for the betterment of the community. Right. And I think that suggestion kind of morphed into a discussion about
the Whistler Housing Authority as an example of something of a community that set up a body that
then became responsible not only for funding, but also for building homes in that community.
Is that something that you think should happen on Salt Spring? Absolutely. I think that, again, I'm just going to put a shout out to the Salt Spring Solutions and the paper are they have looked at a number of other
places in Canada where communities have created solutions to their housing problems
and I think Whistler will be one of them but they have got you you know, they are asking our leadership to step forward in their paper,
and they're also saying, and here are some viable solutions that you can think of doing that have worked elsewhere.
And so, you know, more power to them.
I'm totally supportive of their efforts, and I do hope that our leaders take this as a real challenge and move forward with it.
It seemed like there was a certain amount of resistance to this idea from Gary Holman at the CRD today
that his question was, well, you have to be very careful about what you set up the this authority to do um and the fact is that it would have to go
he said to a referendum uh costing 70 000 or whatever and um it would also i think did he
say it would result in an increase in in taxes or well that that was bandied about i can't remember
who actually said it uh you know to be fair, Gary has been very supportive,
and he has initiatives of his own that he's involved in.
And, you know, I don't want to give him a hard time,
but he is one of those three or four triumvirate leaders
that we need leadership from.
And so he does it on the level that he's comfortable with,
but at this point I think that they need to get into their uncomfortable zone,
perhaps, to make things happen.
That being the case, that would be, I think his response was,
if you're expecting the CRD to take this on and do this,
these are the rules and regulations.
I'm still at a point where I'm going, how do we make this happen?
And so I don't know what it's going to end up being,
but we do need to be able to finance a small staff
who this becomes their job is to bring in money
and distribute it responsibly towards affordable housing.
And whatever shape that takes is still in the air.
And I thought it was interesting.
There were various different figures banded about from 3,000 units needed to,
it came down to 500, I think, at the end of the discussion.
Stan was sort of pleading for at least 500 pleads before I go.
Yeah.
That was very important.
And, of course, we're talking about, you know,
obviously projects like Dragonfly
and other ones that are on the books right now,
sort of small pieces,
but really we need to look at a bigger picture
and look at a way of actually providing large numbers of housing here on Salisbury.
So we need a plan, and we need, I think, also to be able to assuage the concerns
of the don't bring anybody else to Salt Spring.
There is a strong movement on Salt Spring of people who are worried about development, and rightfully so, and so am I.
I think the development has got to be responsibly done and take into consideration the nature of the island and our rural nature.
All of those things are very important, but they can't supersede the fact that we need to have a workforce here on Salt Spring,
people who provide the services that will keep us all going as the years progress.
Right. And I think this is a topic that's going to be ongoing.
I gather that on May the 26th, Salt Spring Solutions will be speaking at Ask Salt Spring.
And I'm sure a lot of these points will be brought up then.
Well, thanks very much, Ron, for coming in.
Great. Thanks for having me.
It was a great conversation today at ASK. And I just want to
say that ASK is a wonderful way for Salt Springers to get to know the people who are in different
important places in their community. It's the people who look after the roads.
All our elected officials come from time to time.
And, you know, it's always in the newspaper,
in the What's Happening section,
who's going to be there this week.
And Gail Baker does a wonderful job of hosting it.
And I'm a regular because I just think it's the greatest way
to keep in touch with what's going on.
Yeah, it's very interesting.
Great. Thanks so much, Ron.
Okay, thank you.
Okay.