The Cortes Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA) released their site design concept for the ‘Village Commons,’ in Mansons Landing, last week. This is the fruition of a public consultation process which actually began in 2004, more than a decade before CCEDA purchased the property. In today’s interview, project leader Kate Maddigan talks about the six months of community meetings and input that led to the current design.
The first step was finding a consultant from outside the community to facilitate the process.
Maddigan said that Dave Snider and Patricia Huntsman from the Pathways Landscape Group did an excellent job from start to finish.
They gave CCEDA a variety of ways to consult with the community:
- sounding boards, where people could post thier ideas, were put up at the post office and Cortes Market in Mansons Landing, the Squirrel Cove General Store and ferry terminal waiting room in Whaletown.
- An online bulletin board was set up for community members to post their ideas.
- Around 20 people logged in to a virtual community cafe that Patricia and Dave facilitated.
- Around 15 people showed up for a face to face meeting in Mansosn Hall last fall.
“It felt like we got a real diversity of perspectives,” explained Maddigan. “We did have someone who really wanted there to be lots of space for small business people and we had people who did want to be able to drive into the site. There was some question as to whether we wanted there to be a road going through there and we had people saying you don’t have to develop this all at once. Which is true, we don’t have to do it all at once. We can just do a staged development, we can keep it fairly undeveloped too. There’s lots of people that feel it should remain park-like. There was just so many ideas and we were just very satisfied with it.”
The top three ideas appeared to be:
- keep it small, keep it rural
- a laundromat
- an outdoor event venue.
There is a central covered area with stage capacities and an area for fires.
“So, we have the outdoor venue figured out and then some ‘flex spaces’ that could be used for anything. They’re just buildings that could be office space,” said Maddigan.
A laundromat might be more problematic. Space is limited (2.6 acres) and the only road goes one way, which might be congested if a lot of people were using it to drive up to the laundromat.
“I don’t know that this space would be conducive to a laundromat. There might be other spaces in Manson’s that are more appropriate for that.” she said.
The Village Commons is fairly park-like right now. Maddigan said the clearing is a nice place to enjoy the sun on winter days. There is a shallow well. CCEDA plans to convert its old wheeled kiosk into office space.
“We like this plan today, but in two years, something could change and we could say, you know what: it makes so much more sense to have this other thing. And how can we incorporate that into the plan?” she said.
Maddigan expects the plan to unfold slowly, as funding and the availability of volunteers permit.
She is concerned about the Strathcona Regional Districts reluctance to update Cortes Island’s Official Community Plan (OCP), which dates back to 2012.
“This plan isn’t necessarily dependent on that, but if you’re going after funding it helps to have an OCP,” said Maddigan. “There is a lot of infrastructure dollars available right now through various grants. Who knows how long that’s going to be around for?”
She added, “I really feel strongly that people seem to be pleased. I’m not hearing any negative feedback about this. I think the process was well received by the community and it really is due to the efforts of volunteers. CCEDA’s land working group is made up of Amy Robertson, Colin Funk, and Beatrix Baxter. They really did want to get this right according to the community’s wishes and they continue to want to see that.”
Top image credit: Laurier Mathieu and his True Foundations contractors laying in a new culvert and clearing out dangerous trees and debris – courtesy CCEDA
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