Tag Archives: CCEDA

Housing

RIEP Presentation: Affordable Housing Across The Islands

One of the 2025 RIEP Virtual Forum presentations was a panel discussion of how the affordable housing societies were faring on six rural islands. There were a lot of common themes running throughout their stories: difficulties obtaining funding through BC Housing, CMHC and other organizations whose requirements are drawn up for urban rather than rural areas; the cost of building on remote islands; relationships with regional districts and Islands Trust; and water issues. The moderator was Mike Hoebel from the  Galiano Affordable Living Initiative Society (GALI).

Mike Hoebel: “The lack of affordable housing is truly a crisis in our communities and housing policy was a major item for discussion back at the RIEP 2023 In-Person Forum Gabriola. Today we’re going to hear from a number of people about housing related initiatives underway in their communities.”

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Community, Development

This Week: 2025 Rural Islands Economic Partnership Virtual Forum

The 2025 Rural Islands Economic Partnership (RIEP) Virtual Forum is coming up on Thursday, March 6 and Friday, March 7. Two of the organizers, Francine Carlin and Kate Maddigan are my guests today.

“ It’s going to be a jam packed two half days, 9:15 AM to 12:30 PM.  Our virtual events are really unique because we all live on islands or remote coastal communities and don’t have the opportunity to get together as a collaborative regional grouping. So it’s important to have these virtual events that bring together people from all across the coast and the islands, up from North Island as far as Alert Bay, to Sooke and beyond. So we have a pretty broad reach and this year it’s really important, particularly with the events in the world around economic  issues that relate to  our local  economic and social wellbeing,” explained Francine Carlin, Chair of the Rural Islands Economic Partnership. 

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Politics

Cortes Island Grant-In-Aid Projects Approved

$28,500 does not go far when there are 13 applicants. The applications for Cortes Island’s Grant-in-Aid budget were more than twice that amount this year. When he presented a list of recommendations to the SRD Board, Regional Director Mark Vonesch also handed in a report that listed all of the projects that did not make the final list. 

A committee of Cortes residents volunteered their time for the difficult task of choosing which which projects to recommend.

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Business

A Closer look at Cortes Island’s Economy

When the Cortes Island Foundation released Cortes Island’s Vital Signs Report last month, Executive Director Manda Aufochs Gillespie said she’d like to go into specific sections in more detail. 

“One of the things that really stood out to me is the information around income and work and economy.  This area starts around page 13 in this document and I’m going to be using a lot of words to talk about this, but when you look at the report there’s graphs,  little quotes and etc. that make it easier to read.”

She suggested inviting Kate Maddigan, from the Cortes Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA), to get another perspective.   

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Transportation

Next Steps for the Cortes/Quadra Transportation Study

There were a number of next steps connected to last summer’s Cortes/Quadra Transportation survey.

Kate Maddigan, Economic Development Officer of The Cortes Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA) explained, “I haven’t publicly said the final report is complete because I really wanted to put some attention into just making it shorter, like a briefing on that final report, rather than having people read the whole thing. Having said that, the recommendations, which is what I always skip to if I have to read a final report, are pretty straightforward. If I was to summarize the whole thing, I would just say these are the next steps and this is what those people who participated said they wanted.” 

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