Three years ago, Area C received funding to develop an Integrated Community Sustainability Plan (ICSP). COVID intervened and it wasn’t until last August that a 14 member advisory group was assembled. The resulting draft plan was presented at the Wednesday, January 11, meeting of the SRD Electoral Areas Services Committee.  

“It was a very quick process, and we really appreciate all the efforts that went into it. The task force was convened in August and  by November the task force, the consultant and the SRD planner had come up with a draft proposal, which was then circulated to the community, and that draft was commented on by the community. But subsequently, because there was a very short timeline, some amendments were made to the document that was published and what you’re receiving today,” explained Lannie Keller, a Read Island resident and team member. 

Going Back for further discussion

Nick Robinson, from Quadra Island, said, “We received just over a hundred questionnaires and at that point the ICSP was amended without involvement of our community advisory group.”

Lannie Keller: “Our request is that you will look at the four small but significant changes that are requested and the task force is unanimous in making that recommendation.” 

After close to 50 minutes of discussion, much of it after Robinson and Keller had left, Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney said the task force should have a chance to state their case. 

“I really appreciate the thoughtfulness that the task force brought to these four minor recommendations, that they would be more comfortable seeing in the final document. I would really like it if the task force could have a chance to discuss those alterations or suggestions with the consultant. How do I say that as a motion?” she said.   

Chief Administrative Officer David Leitch replied, “It sounds like you would like to defer the comments from the delegation back to the task force and the consultant.” 

“That’s right,” said Mawhinney.

At which point newly elected Chair Gerald Whalley asked, “Do we have a seconder?” 

Director John Rice seconded the motion, which carried.

Background

During the discussion, Meredith Starkey, SRD Manager for Parks and Planning, gave an outline of the project’s history: 

“This process started in 2019, that is when we were awarded the grant. … There was a series of public consultation events that happened at that time.  There was a workbook, there were  in-person open house sessions, there was a public survey that went out.  That served as the basis for when we relaunched the project  in August of this year, after pausing for COVID and a number of other challenges related to this project. We established the task force, which was a 14 member crew with members of Quadra and the Outer Islands.”  

Shannon Gordon, from the Whistler Centre for Sustainability, who had been hired to facilitate the process, explained some of the rationale behind the changes the advisory group had not liked. 

“We didn’t have a lot of time to finish off the project.  We really got started in earnest in August. Once the task force was established, we had the first meeting with that group at the end of the month and worked with them between August and November to get that core content for the ICSP done. We put the draft plan on the page out to the community for feedback mid to late November, and then we’re into December to analyze those results,  incorporate changes based on those results into the plan and finished the project by the deadline, which was December 31st.”

“ … Things were tight. We were  up against a bit of a rock and a hard place  to push it forward. The task force, were very committed  and passionate and would, I’m sure have liked more time on this …”

Why the vision statement was changed 

“What we heard on the vision was too focused on the environment. We need some better balance between environment and community, environment and economy.”

“ … The vision of goal statements aren’t meant to be super prescriptive. They shouldn’t be overly constraining in terms of how you move forward. They need to provide some room for dialogue and discussion  and more detailed decisions coming later through your more detailed plans  and regulations.”

“ … We were very focused through input from the task force on how economic and  industrial activity should protect the environment,  not encroach in natural areas and that’s all good.  We didn’t water that down, but we just wanted to make sure that it was clear that, again, it’s in service of employment and livelihoods – so that people will be employed locally.”

“ … There are going to be trade-offs, sometimes there will be development of housing  in a greenfield site. Obviously you’re going to try to do it in such a way that it minimizes impacts as much as possible. But upon reflection, the word ‘avoided’ was a bit too constraining. So we just scaled that back a little bit to give you some wiggle room.” 

“ … Whenever we get into something that’s too prescriptive, part of what I try to do is ask, ‘what’s the high level intent without being really prescriptive and constraining?’ That comes later, through your more detailed plans and regulations.”

Starkey agreed, “It’s a long-term plan that’s developed in consultation with the community, and it serves as a guidance document for other planning documents and other policy decisions that are made. Unlike an OCP or a zoning bylaw in itself, it’s not a regulatory document. There’s nothing enforceable within it.  What it does is that it gives us an opportunity to bring people together to find consensus. This is notoriously difficult in any community.”

Sectors of the community that did not participate

Two of the Directors had questions which identified sectors of the community that did not participate in the process.

Mark Vonesch, from Cortes Island, asked one of the team representatives, “Can you also talk about the diversity of the ages and the number of young people on that committee?”

“That’s a great question because we’re almost all old. We had meetings in the middle of the day on weekdays, so young people who are working with three kids basically couldn’t be on that task force. The age distribution is heavily weighted to older people. That’s partly why I mention that I’ve raised four kids on Quadra Island,” said Robinson.

“So although we’re old, we’re not completely out of touch with the issues of younger people.  One of our daughters and her husband and two little girls, lived on Quadra for years renting places. So we know about the housing problems, things like that. Actually,  if you think I’m strong on rural character, you should hear our daughter.”

Director Mawhinney wanted to know, “How were the We Wai Kai First Nation, and other First Nations with traditional territories in area C, engaged in this process and was there feedback?”

Starkey replied, “We reached out to every nation, all 23,  multiple times actually,  back in 2019 and then direct solicitation to their referral offices  as indicated as a preference by each of those nations. We did not receive any response, except for a couple to say that they did not wish to comment.” 

The crux of the issue

Robinson explained, “The crux of the issue is around the vision statement.  The plan itself that’s attached to your agenda has a lot of pages, but the heart of it is a vision statement and some goals, just  a page or two of information.”

“The vision statement sets out what the community wants to be, what its values are, and gives direction to the whole rest of the planning process. It’s a single sentence, but it’s important. In the vision statement that we had all come up with, our advisory group staff and the consultant, we had as a strong value the community’s desire to maintain its rural character.”

“Rural character isn’t defined in the ICSP, but it presumably includes things like relatively low population density outside of designated settlement areas,  low traffic, quiet, lots of green space, things like that. And in fact, that rural character value has been important in area C  planning for a long time.”

“It’s actually a central value in the Quadra Island official community plan, and I’m told from people in the Outer Islands that when they develop their official community plan there’s a good likelihood that they would include that ‘rural character’ value in it. The problem is that the amendments that were done after the surveys came in, really gutted that rural character value by changing the wording to say that the community would balance its desire for a rural character with a desire for community vibrancy.” 

“Community vibrancy isn’t defined either. We assume that since you asked to balance rural character against it, that it involves to some extent some different or even opposite things.”

“And it would be hard to see and say an OCP or a zoning bylaw, how rural character would have any force once it had to be balanced by this undefined community vibrancy. So the heart of what we’re asking is to change the vision statement back so that we have rural character as a central value.”

He pointed out, “Our advisory group has 14 people on it, and we’ve got views all over the place. One of the interesting things about being in a rural area is everyone is thrown together, so  we’ve got loggers and teachers and entrepreneurs and everything from tree huggers to rednecks but on this our group are united. We think there should be a strong rural character value in there.” 

Starkey did not believe everyone in the task force agreed, “I did at least hear from one member of the task force who did not come to that same conclusion, and felt like the changes that were made to the draft were necessary.”

Links of Interest:

• Minutes of the Jan 11, 2023 EASC Meeting
• Video of Jan 11, 2023, Electoral Area Services Committee Meeting
• Regional Director Robyn Mawhinney’s website

Top image credit: The view from Quadra Island up Suitil Channel – Photo by Dale Simonson via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)

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