Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee community information meeting, September 13, 2023

[0:02:03] Voice 1: good morning hey everyone

[0:02:10] Voice 6: uh welcome to this special town hall meeting of the salt spring

[0:02:15] Voice 6: island trust committee um the

[0:02:21] Voice 1: echo check check that's sorted no this one announcing better now

[0:02:51] Voice 3: okay uh so yes to recap welcome to this uh special meeting of the salt spring island local trust

[0:02:58] Voice 3: committee town hall session um acknowledge that we're meeting on the territory of coach salish

[0:03:08] Voice 3: peoples since time immemorial my name is tim peterson i am the chair of the salt spring

[0:03:13] Voice 3: island local trust committee with me is trustee laura patrick trustee jamie harris we have our

[0:03:21] Voice 3: minute taker suzanne is it sugarman uh sarah sugar

[0:03:25] Voice 3: sugar sugar sarah sugar and

[0:03:28] Voice 3: and uh rich planning manager chris hutton and rob pingall who what's your role here

[0:03:35] Voice 3: legislative clerk let's click now yes yeah okay and uh the three uh boss here make up the

[0:03:43] Voice 3: salt spring island local trust committee purpose of our meeting tonight is to hear from the public

[0:03:49] Voice 3: and uh just want to remind everyone to uh use respectful language it's the workplace for our

[0:03:57] Voice 3: for our employees here our staff and uh speak to the issues relevant hopefully to the local

[0:04:04] Voice 3: trust committee and uh with that i'm going to open the floor look

[0:04:09] Voice 6: for a show of hands

[0:04:12] Voice 6: and uh just ask that you be concise and direct as much as possible we don't have tons of people

[0:04:19] Voice 6: here so we have to worry too much about um time limits but if you drag on too long i'll ask you

[0:04:26] Voice 6: to conclude uh price you want me to stand or it doesn't matter okay well i'm here i'm part of the

[0:04:33] Voice 6: housing task force and i'm here to implore our trustees to please pass 5 30 as fast as possible

[0:04:40] Voice 6: i'm constantly inundated with people just this week i talked with two young people

[0:04:47] Voice 6: of course that's relative now they're under 45 so um both of them are leaving the island

[0:04:54] Voice 6: one's a contractor one has a different occupation they're both leaving because they can't keep staff

[0:04:59] Voice 6: because they can't get housing uh they've both been on the island 15 years and 20 years

[0:05:05] Voice 6: respectively um they don't want to leave they're very sad about it their life has been here for a

[0:05:12] Voice 6: long time but they just can't get a lot of housing opportunity for staff and they can't afford with

[0:05:20] Voice 6: their businesses to buy a house for staff or to subsidize the rent any more than the wages that

[0:05:26] Voice 6: they're paying so i'm here to say please let's get 5 30 done and then let's move on to a more

[0:05:35] Voice 6: permanent long term because in our opinion from the housing task force this is just a very small

[0:05:41] Voice 6: first step in my past life of being a real estate investor in residential property i've got 45 years

[0:05:49] Voice 6: experience with tens of thousands of units across canada i can tell you right now there isn't a town

[0:05:55] Voice 6: village or city in canada that doesn't have accessory dwelling units to make up part of

[0:06:01] Voice 6: the housing situation people with suites in their houses it seems to me that every jurisdiction that

[0:06:08] Voice 6: i read about in north america right now is desperately looking for ways to throw out the

[0:06:13] Voice 6: old rules and bring in new rules so that what was a single family dwelling neighborhood now can have

[0:06:19] Voice 6: duplexes and four plexes what was a neighborhood in Vancouver now can have secondary suites in the

[0:06:25] Voice 6: garages on lots in Vancouver Seattle everywhere you look it seems like everybody is moving to help

[0:06:31] Voice 6: the situation of affordable housing but us and I don't know if the statistics are correct but I do

[0:06:41] Voice 6: believe we have the worst housing situation of any jurisdiction in the province of British Columbia

[0:06:47] Voice 6: so the sooner we act the sooner we can move on to more permanent solutions um nothing's ever

[0:06:55] Voice 6: going to be perfect and we all know that there's a small group of people on this island that are

[0:07:00] Voice 6: opposed almost to anything and everything um and i don't think we need to go any further down the

[0:07:08] Voice 6: road what we need to do is help the 11 000 people on this island produce workforce housing employee

[0:07:16] Voice 6: boy housing so in my opinion we can have a rounded community business dot people my age on the

[0:07:22] Voice 6: community but young people living here and raising their families thank you thank you and so your

[0:07:30] Voice 3: hand up and i'll wait a bit okay any other hats looks like you're go ahead um

[0:07:39] Voice 5: so mine is on a

[0:07:40] Voice 5: couple different topics but one of them is um basically on that as well um i have in my own

[0:07:48] Voice 5: property for example i've got a suite that i rent out and the same sort of thing i have gotten with

[0:07:56] Voice 5: non-stop backlash i would love to want to know why mr damon is never at any of these meetings

[0:08:02] Voice 5: because he's the one spending all day writing out tickets to all of us yes when you try and email

[0:08:09] Voice 5: you try and call him try get an explanation through what am i doing wrong you can't get

[0:08:16] Voice 5: very convenient for him to just sit behind the screen be a keyboard warrior write threatening

[0:08:23] Voice 5: letters i am being harassed by the trust again right now because i can't have a suite in my house

[0:08:31] Voice 5: god forbid i want to also have my employees who are trying to stay on this island last time i

[0:08:38] Voice 5: checked all these rich people in their mansions that want the island to be a park guess what they

[0:08:42] Voice 5: employ every one of us without us they have nothing i run a property management company

[0:08:48] Voice 5: i help people clean their homes to clean their suites i am being ticketed for having my employees

[0:08:56] Voice 5: act as cleaners for people on this island because they're saying

[0:09:00] Voice 5: you're cleaning units that you know

[0:09:01] Voice 5: are airbnbs i don't own the properties i don't decide to airbnb them out my employees are

[0:09:08] Voice 5: simply providing a service and i have been ticketed to no end the amount of legal fees that

[0:09:15] Voice 5: have stacked up against me at this point is beyond stupid because

[0:09:20] Voice 1: there are people

[0:09:21] Voice 5: on this committee

[0:09:22] Voice 5: that are dead against airbnb and you know who

[0:09:25] Voice 5: you are and it is bull every service worker on this

[0:09:31] Voice 5: island is dependent on money from tour sellers so why are you so hell-bent to use my language

[0:09:38] Voice 5: i'm doing away with airbnbs and why am i being ticketed for running a cleaning business

[0:09:45] Voice 5: i'm providing a service for people i don't own their properties the last time i spoke with

[0:09:51] Voice 5: and asked why am i being ticketed for having bedrooms in my home that i airbnb out so i can

[0:09:57] Voice 5: pay my mortgage that has almost doubled in the past two years i've gone

[0:10:02] Voice 5: from almost three thousand

[0:10:03] Voice 5: dollars a month to an almost six thousand dollar a month mortgage payment i somehow have to figure

[0:10:08] Voice 5: and how to come up with that money.

[0:10:09] Voice 5: I

[0:10:10] Voice 6: am now being citationed to no end

[0:10:12] Voice 6: for renting bedrooms in my home as Airbnb.

[0:10:17] Voice 6: Tell me how that is right.

[0:10:20] Voice 6: And what is going to be done to stop this?

[0:10:23] Voice 6: Because I should not have to hire lawyer after lawyer

[0:10:25] Voice 6: after lawyer to fight this.

[0:10:27] Voice 6: And I shouldn't have to defend my clients.

[0:10:31] Voice 5: I have a client, she is 75.

[0:10:34] Voice 5: She's renting out a bedroom in her home as an Airbnb

[0:10:37] Voice 5: because her pension is not keeping up

[0:10:39] Voice 5: with the rising cost that she is facing so my company does the cleaning for her i'm a co-host

[0:10:44] Voice 5: on her airbnb account so i can see when i need to send my staff into clean i'm being ticketed

[0:10:49] Voice 5: she is being ticketed tell me what this 75 year old woman has done wrong tell me what the other

[0:10:57] Voice 5: client of mine who is raising her three teenage children because her husband walked out on her

[0:11:02] Voice 5: and she can't afford to survive she is again renting out a spare bedroom so that she can

[0:11:09] Voice 5: support her children and hopefully give her children a better life than she had i am again

[0:11:14] Voice 5: a co-host on her account so i can see when my staff needs to go in and do cleanups because

[0:11:19] Voice 5: she's working around the clock trying to pay the bills again i'm being ticketed she's being

[0:11:24] Voice 5: ticketed tell us how we are the problem and tell me what has been

[0:11:27] Voice 6: done to stop this nonsense

[0:11:29] Voice 6: because that is all it is and

[0:11:32] Voice 5: i have to stop now because if i don't

[0:11:37] Voice 6: thank you uh anyone else like to address the trust committee yes and i forget how to pronounce

[0:11:44] Voice 6: your name properly so forgive me uh that's my can my um my can yeah um i just want to take a

[0:11:52] Voice 6: minute to let that drop because that's like a really big piece and you know when we move from

[0:11:59] Voice 6: one speaker to the others we don't absorb so i just want to take a moment to say that's really

[0:12:04] Voice 6: true that's the importance of sure um so we've met a lot of you before um i've been on i don't

[0:12:13] Voice 6: even know whether it exists anymore but we have this thing that was appointed called the housing

[0:12:17] Voice 6: action program passports the policy uh latest in this 20 years series of initiatives to extensively

[0:12:26] Voice 6: to deal with the housing crisis, but possibly just to generate reports and sit and meet.

[0:12:34] Voice 6: So about 10 of us, we've worked extremely hard on this issue. We were appointed by this

[0:12:40] Voice 6: government. We found out recently that there were motions to disband the task force with

[0:12:47] Voice 6: our work incomplete. So that was very bizarre and not the only shenanigans that we've seen.

[0:13:00] Voice 6: just to have basically received what i consider a promise in july that the secondary suite bylaw

[0:13:08] Voice 6: would be approved in september and then to suddenly hear that it's off the agenda for

[0:13:15] Voice 6: tomorrow's meeting um is bizarre to hear you know we were not presented anything about

[0:13:26] Voice 6: first nations and no particular concern was shown for them when we started our work over two years

[0:13:32] Voice 6: ago and then suddenly the very last minute after all the work is done and final five days almost

[0:13:39] Voice 6: uh ready to be approved suddenly we hear that the natives don't want and it turns out that one of

[0:13:46] Voice 6: the 14 first nations with some claim is right um which apparently lobbied by private interests on

[0:13:57] Voice 6: salt spring you know a native insurance decided that they wanted to put a stop to the profits

[0:14:02] Voice 6: and they have that right to do that however uh that they had you know that they had communication

[0:14:09] Voice 6: with with staff that apparently trustee is more privy to um there's a lot of bizarre stuff going

[0:14:18] Voice 6: on here um and i didn't you know i don't i'm not here to live in the banana public um i run a

[0:14:24] Voice 6: construction company unemployed people i've lost workers who've moved away they can't find housing

[0:14:30] Voice 6: go to restaurants that no longer exist because their workers couldn't turn a profit because

[0:14:38] Voice 6: they were losing workers so they couldn't have enough hours to make it go you've heard all this

[0:14:42] Voice 6: before we've heard from fairies we've heard from the high school you know so it's not information

[0:14:48] Voice 6: that's stopping you from action and i don't mean any personal criticism i know that the

[0:14:55] Voice 6: mechanisms of politics are very difficult but um we have a situation where your own surveys report

[0:15:03] Voice 6: you know on the on your website nine over ninety percent of respondents said they strongly believed

[0:15:08] Voice 6: or believe that we need secondary seats um at the town hall that was held on a bylaw 530

[0:15:18] Voice 6: i reported 38 people who came up and sold 20 in favor of a close so i don't see um

[0:15:25] Voice 6: I don't see any massive opposition to this controversy, but I've lost complete faith

[0:15:34] Voice 6: in this government.

[0:15:36] Voice 6: I've

[0:15:37] Voice 1: devoted hundreds of hours of volunteer time to work that you asked me to do.

[0:15:46] Voice 1: And I want full transparency.

[0:15:52] Voice 6: transparency. The letters of the staff who write it to people without checking or taking

[0:16:00] Voice 6: on, you know, authority that they don't have, that needs to be public and needs to be scrutinized

[0:16:08] Voice 6: and people, there needs to be consequences for this behavior. I'm going to stop here

[0:16:12] Voice 6: for now because I want to leave the turn for other people. But I'm tired of talk. I don't

[0:16:18] Voice 6: believe you know there's rumor of oh well it'll be fine we'll we'll get to it in october i don't

[0:16:25] Voice 6: from everything i've seen no i don't have any faith or not so what i would like in closing

[0:16:31] Voice 6: with this first intervention thank you for the generous time to speak is i want a hard

[0:16:38] Voice 6: commitment when is there going to be a vote on uh proving secondary

[0:16:45] Voice 1: seats to get us in step with

[0:16:46] Voice 1: and what the whole rest of the problem is doing.

[0:16:48] Voice 1: Thank you.

[0:16:54] Voice 1: I think I saw

[0:16:54] Voice 6: a hand up here

[0:16:55] Voice 6: and then I'll come over to you next.

[0:16:59] Voice 6: My comments are somewhat as a question

[0:17:02] Voice 6: because I see that what Bryce is talking about,

[0:17:05] Voice 6: what you're talking about, what you're talking about,

[0:17:07] Voice 6: they're all sort of interconnected in a lot of ways.

[0:17:10] Voice 6: And there's a lot of what I would consider

[0:17:13] Voice 6: to be fake news out there.

[0:17:15] Voice 6: Okay.

[0:17:16] Voice 6: I keep seeing articles in the paper

[0:17:18] Voice 6: put up about 200 250 whatever illegal airbnbs and they take exception to that because

[0:17:26] Voice 6: okay um and as a realtor for the last 20 years one of the movies uh in when people were buying

[0:17:38] Voice 6: is explaining to them i mean we had to memorize uh you know the bylaws inside of the bathrooms

[0:17:44] Voice 6: is upside down when somebody's freak out it's like nope sorry i know that's not going to happen

[0:17:50] Voice 6: that's not right on the other hand the ability to put a b&b in your house is written right into

[0:17:58] Voice 6: the main bylaws right and as long as you're in compliance you're not cleaning kitchens you're not

[0:18:03] Voice 6: doing that themselves they're not illegal whether you advertise on hotels.com or airbnb

[0:18:10] Voice 6: or any of those kinds of things

[0:18:12] Voice 6: really doesn't make any difference.

[0:18:14] Voice 6: So if we can somehow, in the discussion,

[0:18:17] Voice 6: wipe out the term Airbnb,

[0:18:19] Voice 6: because it's very confusing.

[0:18:21] Voice 6: Now, it is a habit that Airbnb doesn't really care.

[0:18:25] Voice 6: They will rent out an entire house,

[0:18:28] Voice 6: which is not legal, but okay.

[0:18:31] Voice 6: It's just part of their product mix and so forth.

[0:18:34] Voice 6: It would be interesting if you could get them to commit

[0:18:37] Voice 6: to following local bylaws.

[0:18:39] Voice 6: Then there's controversy about Airbnbs and B&Bs and it's very confusing to people.

[0:18:45] Voice 6: So you get these comments in the Driftwood, on the Exchange and so forth about how these illegal B&Bs are taking away housing from people.

[0:18:56] Voice 6: And it would be interesting to know if Isles Cross actually has any statistics on any of that.

[0:19:03] Voice 6: Because quite frankly, it's just all goof in the air.

[0:19:07] Voice 6: I don't know where they all are I don't know your situation and what suites that you're

[0:19:13] Voice 6: and so forth but there's lots of B&Bs as a matter of fact most of the zones in the island

[0:19:21] Voice 6: allow you to have B&B rooms within your house as long as the resident is living there

[0:19:27] Voice 6: you can have B&B rooms those are those aren't housing for workers and stuff because they're

[0:19:33] Voice 6: just a room with a bathroom that's all there is really and there's no kitchens in it you're not

[0:19:38] Voice 6: going to raise a family you're you know you're not going to be taking away housing so this and

[0:19:45] Voice 6: this is the argument against bylaw 530 okay is that uh your people are all upset that uh these

[0:19:54] Voice 6: illegal bnbs and they're not necessarily illegal bnbs are taking away housing from people we're

[0:20:01] Voice 6: just going to add to that mix. I think that really, I mean, the

[0:20:06] Voice 6: trust may have to have made a bold statement, a public bold

[0:20:12] Voice 6: statement about what is a legal B&B and what isn't a legal B&B.

[0:20:17] Voice 6: You ask people to read by law 535, you know, it's, it's sorry,

[0:20:24] Voice 6: I've got the numbers wrong. I mean, too long. Anyway, if you

[0:20:29] Voice 6: If you read those bylaws, they're pretty clear.

[0:20:35] Voice 6: And the trouble with the general public,

[0:20:37] Voice 6: and I know it's mind-numbing to sit and read

[0:20:41] Voice 6: through that entire document and all the definitions

[0:20:44] Voice 6: and so forth, and a lot of the public just don't do that.

[0:20:49] Voice 6: So maybe the trust, in order to make this more transparent

[0:20:53] Voice 6: and have more people understand what the actual rules are,

[0:20:57] Voice 6: If they made a very clear public statement about what is a legal B&B and what's not a legal B&B,

[0:21:06] then that would sort of dispel a whole bunch of the arguments that are out there

[0:21:11] and all the sort

[0:21:13] Voice 6: of negative publicity about it.

[0:21:18] Voice 6: People are allowed to have three bedrooms within their house,

[0:21:22] Voice 6: depending on the zoning, of course, as B&B rooms. If your property is allowed to have a guest

[0:21:29] Voice 6: cottage, okay, that can be the fourth room at the B&B, and you can rent that weekly,

[0:21:36] Voice 6: nightly, monthly, or not monthly, sorry, you're not allowed to rent to do it monthly.

[0:21:43] Voice 6: But that needs to be sort of laid out very clearly, very precisely to people, because

[0:21:49] Voice 6: Because he's just arguing back and forth from the naysayers and so forth, just causing all the consequences.

[0:21:55] Voice 6: So that I would ask for the trust to be bold about it and make it very clear and very public what's legal and what's not legal.

[0:22:04] Voice 6: And stop using the term Airbnb, because that is the biggest confusing factor I didn't call.

[0:22:12] Voice 6: Because Airbnbs do rent entire houses, okay?

[0:22:15] Voice 6: So everyone just thinks everything that's done by Airbnb has got to be legal.

[0:22:19] Voice 6: and it's not okay so that's the first question in there sorry about that thank you thank you for

[0:22:28] Voice 3: that and so i'll hand over here and then i'll come over to you

[0:22:30] Voice 6: i'm y'all chamber and um i just

[0:22:34] Voice 6: just to preface this i really agree with the um you know the request for respectful

[0:22:46] Voice 6: I would, I guess, put forward to you a request that the way you do that, you also speak to

[0:22:56] Voice 6: the importance of being respectful to residents, and I feel that in my experience, and in many

[0:23:05] Voice 6: people's experiences, many residents have not felt structurally respected by the trust,

[0:23:15] Voice 6: And so I think

[0:23:16] Voice 5: just as a reminder to staff and to residents, if you could speak, I mean, speak to us about it's important to the staff workplace, it's out there,

[0:23:28] Voice 6: you know, and if you could somehow take a step to the question, leave that in the future, you know, things that it's important to expect from students.

[0:23:39] Voice 6: so um so i just wanted to touch on two things uh about this issue and maybe a new issue

[0:23:48] Voice 6: which i agree a lot of people use warning um so i just came back from visiting my family

[0:23:57] Voice 6: first thing i did personally getting to come to the newspaper and the article on the front page

[0:24:05] Voice 6: was about how because their OCP process was going to take about six months, they were going to, in two months, rush through a complete rezoning of the entire town, so that the entire town would be allowed with the complex laws of the state.

[0:24:26] Voice 6: So that's just showed me that this is very possible in other places, right?

[0:24:33] Voice 6: Um, and I guess regarding, um, Don, um, regarding Don's parents, um, that I was, um, bed and breakfast, um, I, I agree with the sentence, but I would say that, um, the black letter of the law about whether it's legal or not legal, so it might have to be, um, for, for bed and breakfast.

[0:24:59] Voice 6: this um but the black level of the law which was written when building houses was actually

[0:25:08] Voice 6: to do for normal people which is not something correct um the black letter of the law is that

[0:25:15] Voice 6: only 50 of your house can be uh vetted rights which means that only people with nations

[0:25:24] Voice 6: can have for you in bed and breakfast.

[0:25:29] Voice 6: I need to affordably house myself,

[0:25:34] Voice 6: my elderly mother,

[0:25:35] Voice 6: and tenants at a wonderful home,

[0:25:39] Voice 6: putting in, just putting in services, right?

[0:25:43] Voice 6: And that's me doing all the excavating.

[0:25:45] Voice 6: I'm already having to stand on the site.

[0:25:48] Voice 6: Just putting in services to, you know,

[0:25:54] Voice 6: a water home site or an RV site is tens of thousands of dollars, right? So in order for me to afford

[0:26:04] Voice 6: to afford a new house, even myself, I need a way to bring in visitor accommodation revenue.

[0:26:13] Voice 6: now i am applying to the landing in lieu of not having a house

[0:26:19] Voice 5: right um but we need

[0:26:22] Voice 5: i get back to the ocp because the otp is very clear that we and this

[0:26:30] Voice 6: is why i understand

[0:26:31] Voice 6: for me in the ocp that this is legal right but there needs to be a balance between visitor

[0:26:38] Voice 6: accommodation and residential accommodation and it was really clear that you know in order to have

[0:26:47] Voice 6: this sort of foundation it needs to be where people are actually like the locals are actually

[0:26:53] Voice 6: exactly right you want the people who live off violence and who you know buy a fancy place just

[0:27:00] Voice 6: to make a lot of money that's what it is right and i agree it needs to be really clear however

[0:27:07] Voice 6: However, there is a problem with the fact that, right, because it's, if you need to have a mansion in order to participate in this, then it doesn't help affordably housing.

[0:27:21] Voice 6: And so I would love to hear that speech about how to bring affordable housing together with visitor accommodation so that people can use visitor accommodation to find affordable housing.

[0:27:35] Voice 6: And indeed, that is a sentiment that when I meet people in school, I don't see, right?

[0:27:41] Voice 6: And so I would just encourage you to look at, I guess, the purpose of

[0:27:48] Voice 1: the law rather than the black one.

[0:27:53] Voice 3: Thank you for that.

[0:27:54] Voice 3: And before we move on, I just want to state that if I didn't make it clear enough when I spoke about respectful language,

[0:28:03] Voice 3: i mean that for everyone in the

[0:28:04] Voice 6: room um and just in general um and and the part about uh speaking

[0:28:12] Voice 6: the issues not non-individuals is part of that so i i think that to mean locals staff trustees all

[0:28:21] Voice 6: of us so uh if i didn't

[0:28:24] Voice 4: make that clear enough i'll try and make it more clear in the future

[0:28:26] Voice 4: sure. Appreciate

[0:28:27] Voice 4: it. I saw a hand back here.

[0:28:29] Voice 4: Yeah.

[0:28:30] Voice 5: Okay. So just sort

[0:28:32] Voice 6: of addressing this conversation about Airbnb and

[0:28:38] Voice 6: affordable

[0:28:41] Voice 6: housing and all this sort of thing. My understanding is that the term of art that

[0:28:47] Voice 6: the director of art is using is

[0:28:49] Voice 5: that the trust uses and that, you know, is in the specific

[0:29:07] Voice 5: And the problem, I think, that a lot of housing advocates see with these PBRs is that they

[0:29:18] Voice 6: can be extremely

[0:29:20] Voice 6: profitable for

[0:29:22] Voice 6: people who

[0:29:24] Voice 5: treat housing as

[0:29:26] Voice 5: a

[0:29:28] Voice 5: investment in

[0:29:29] Voice 5: homes, right?

[0:29:31] Voice 5: Which makes it,

[0:29:34] Voice 5: which drives up housing prices.

[0:29:36] Voice 5: We still, as far as I understand, do not

[0:29:38] Voice 5: have a very

[0:29:39] Voice 5: slow

[0:29:43] Voice 5: and that

[0:29:44] Voice 5: again

[0:29:46] Voice 5: allows you know we i don't think we watch this happening

[0:29:52] Voice 6: there are a lot of people who

[0:29:54] Voice 6: do not live on some of those at the

[0:29:56] Voice 5: time and have property here that is

[0:30:00] Voice 5: you don't want some passive revenue um i think i just want to get out here that

[0:30:06] Voice 6: like

[0:30:07] Voice 5: if we want

[0:30:08] Voice 5: low-income people who are staffing work you know cafes restaurants hospitals so on and so forth to

[0:30:18] Voice 5: continue to live here and not move away from the island as quickly as possible like so many people

[0:30:25] Voice 6: um we really have to address

[0:30:28] Voice 5: specifically affordable residential building for people

[0:30:31] Voice 5: who are making a lot of money and as it is like it's it doesn't seem like that's happening it

[0:30:38] Voice 5: doesn't seem like five five five three is um it doesn't work out that 30 is doing

[0:30:45] Voice 5: very much for that it is i understand that this you know it's

[0:30:50] Voice 6: a step um but we really need to

[0:30:54] Voice 6: to make some progress on getting a portable housing on transit routes for people who are

[0:31:03] Voice 6: going to be making a team on that um so yeah i'm

[0:31:09] Voice 1: just going to look and see if anyone hasn't spoken

[0:31:11] Voice 1: yet wants to speak oh

[0:31:15] Voice 3: yes go ahead i

[0:31:17] Voice 5: don't know what you say my name is barrett and i just want

[0:31:20] Voice 5: to speak on behalf of a friend who is living in a bus and you know they check the high because

[0:31:26] Voice 5: because the CRD comes around and you're not allowed under the bus.

[0:31:30] Voice 5: So I just feel like in this time of increasing housing rights and fertility,

[0:31:36] Voice 5: it wouldn't be kind to maybe, like,

[0:31:39] Voice 5: put a moratorium on these weird bylaws and

[0:31:42] Voice 1: make it illegal to live.

[0:31:46] Voice 1: That's good to go, I would say.

[0:31:49] Voice 1: Okay, thank you.

[0:31:51] Voice 6: Any of that?

[0:31:52] Voice 6: Go ahead.

[0:31:53] Voice 6: I'd just like to make a comment to this gentleman.

[0:31:56] Voice 6: We on the task force have been working on this problem almost like two, four years now.

[0:32:04] Voice 6: So, for example, any of the people on the island that are opposed to this, truth is

[0:32:11] Voice 6: none of them have ever come to talk to us to understand what we're proposing, which

[0:32:16] Voice 6: I find that's not appropriate.

[0:32:18] Voice 6: We are very concerned about affordable housing, especially for young people.

[0:32:22] Voice 6: I specifically don't want to live on an island where people are looking like me on an island like this is a young people.

[0:32:30] Voice 6: But the first step is with 530, as Laura very succinctly said, what we're really doing is we're looking for landlords.

[0:32:39] Voice 6: And that's our first step to look for some landlords so that somebody like you could,

[0:32:45] Voice 6: let's say there's a lady who's lost her husband and she's a little nervous to live alone.

[0:32:50] Voice 6: nice young couple could move into her unit she would feel safer she's not going to always make

[0:32:57] Voice 6: her decisions based on economics like the STD do she's going to make a decision that she's a

[0:33:04] Voice 6: little nervous a little scared and she happens to have room in the basement that she can quite

[0:33:08] Voice 6: inexpensively turn into a suite and she'd be very very happy to have a young couple where they feel

[0:33:13] Voice 6: a little safe so that's number one number two a young couple that wants to get ahead can plan

[0:33:19] Voice 6: to purchase a piece of land

[0:33:21] Voice 6: and plan to put a sweep above the garage or something

[0:33:24] Voice 6: so that they can start off and afford what they're doing

[0:33:27] Voice 6: so it becomes a mortgage home for people.

[0:33:29] Voice 6: We specifically chose to

[0:33:32] Voice 3: allow landlords

[0:33:34] Voice 3: or private enterprise to do the first step

[0:33:38] Voice 3: toward fixing

[0:33:39] Voice 6: housing on the island

[0:33:40] Voice 6: because we're all aware if you try to do big projects

[0:33:43] Voice 6: that involve government input,

[0:33:46] Voice 6: they usually don't happen and they take 20 years.

[0:33:49] Voice 6: whereas Mrs. Jones could have put a suite in her house in a couple months, should she choose, and offer it to a nice young couple.

[0:33:56] Voice 6: The other point what we did was to be exceptionally green on the island,

[0:34:01] Voice 6: and I do take exception that some people think we're more green than the rest of us.

[0:34:05] Voice 6: I don't think anybody that lives on this island isn't green in their way of thinking,

[0:34:11] Voice 6: but if the site has already been cleared, the road has already been put in, if the electrical poles are still in,

[0:34:17] Voice 6: if there is a septic field and all of those things we're not cutting any new trees with

[0:34:22] Voice 6: our first initiative we're not doing that you cannot add some more landlords or some more

[0:34:28] Voice 6: housing availability on this island any cheaper than what we proposed for example if you put a

[0:34:36] Voice 6: steep roof if you're building a garage and you put a steep roof line on it the cost to put housing

[0:34:42] Voice 6: inside that steep roof line is 63 cents on the dollar compared to regular construction. So if

[0:34:49] Voice 6: you want the most inexpensive thing that people can afford, and again a lot of the people who do

[0:34:53] Voice 6: this aren't going to do it, there's going to be moms and dads that are going to say to their grown

[0:34:57] Voice 6: kids, all right we're going to build a little 900 square footage for you so you can live out there

[0:35:03] Voice 6: and we can live in our own house, we don't have to fight with you all the time. So there's all

[0:35:08] Voice 6: all different reasons people will do this for those on the island that are concerned that

[0:35:13] Voice 6: the population is going to double it's absolutely ridiculous they have zero statistics to back it up

[0:35:18] Voice 6: we have statistics to prove that in our best day we might get a 10-15 percent update which means

[0:35:25] Voice 6: we probably are not going to have more than 100-150 of these units produced and it'll be

[0:35:31] Voice 6: over a three or four year time frame so nothing on the island is going to change except through

[0:35:37] Voice 6: competition, the cost of

[0:35:39] Voice 6: rental and asylum

[0:35:39] Voice 6: starts

[0:35:41] Voice 6: to come down because if there's other options

[0:35:43] Voice 6: for people to rent, you will see

[0:35:45] Voice 6: a level of pricing prices will start to come

[0:35:47] Voice 6: down because those people who are

[0:35:49] Voice 6: choosing right now to gouge

[0:35:51] Voice 6: young people that have

[0:35:53] Voice 6: no options, that ability

[0:35:55] Voice 6: to gouge is going to be mitigated a little

[0:35:57] Voice 6: bit and the market

[0:35:58] Voice 6: supply and demand will

[0:36:00] Voice 6: make it easier.

[0:36:02] Voice 6: So we took two years

[0:36:04] Voice 6: years working with us, we thought about every conceivable aspect. We even intended, if I can

[0:36:10] Voice 6: go through, to meet with the press. I had a conversation with Chris just yesterday about

[0:36:15] Voice 6: we don't want to increase the staff's workload. We want to find a way for this system to be put

[0:36:20] Voice 6: in place so that our staff working for us to work hard, and lots of times there's not enough of them

[0:36:27] Voice 6: to get the work done. So we're trying to consider all aspects. I guess Mike and mine's biggest beef

[0:36:34] Voice 6: would be everybody that throw stones of what we're doing has never come to talk to us never tried to

[0:36:39] Voice 6: understand they're just spewing or saying the sky is falling so to speak so we would love nothing

[0:36:46] Voice 6: more to find a way to help every young person have affordable only

[0:36:51] Voice 1: quicker thank you anyone else

[0:36:58] Voice 1: uh i'll go in the back there i saw you first

[0:37:00] Voice 4: mr chair you and me

[0:37:04] Voice 4: um just just before you go on there um mr chair um if i could please just ask that we just make

[0:37:09] Voice 4: sure that um that comments are addressed to the ltc um i just sorry the comment was a bit um

[0:37:17] Voice 4: i'm just concerned that people would become a back and forth crowd and of course the purpose

[0:37:21] Voice 4: of the meeting is to have the ltc hear from individually rather than if i

[0:37:25] Voice 6: may i don't think

[0:37:26] Voice 6: staff should be stepping in and telling the chair or the trustees on the running meeting

[0:37:31] Voice 6: um i

[0:37:33] Voice 3: appreciate appreciate your comments but i will say that that our standard procedure is to

[0:37:38] Voice 3: is to

[0:37:38] Voice 6: avoid conversation especially amongst the members of the public here i was just trying to

[0:37:44] Voice 6: demonstrate and try to look at all last i i understand that um and so yes as i'll reiterate

[0:37:51] Voice 4: when i said the beginning please address your your comments or questions to to the local trust

[0:37:57] Voice 4: Go ahead.

[0:37:58] Voice 4: I just want to

[0:37:59] Voice 6: think about being working on it for a couple of years.

[0:38:05] Voice 6: In 1993, after I sold the store, I looked at what was necessary, what was needed on

[0:38:12] Voice 6: the island, and affordable housing was one of the big things.

[0:38:15] Voice 6: Two, affordable housing and transportation.

[0:38:18] Voice 6: And I had to hire an architect and went through the whole process of what it would take to

[0:38:23] Voice 6: build a parking lot which we don't have on the island um and in that in those days in order to

[0:38:32] Voice 6: make it viable financially you'll have to rent a 600 square foot one bedroom apartment for about

[0:38:39] Voice 6: nine hundred dollars a month for should make you make three that's obviously from the logo

[0:38:43] Voice 6: and

[0:38:44] Voice 3: that had to

[0:38:44] Voice 6: do with the bylaws

[0:38:46] Voice 6: and uh multi-family dwelling zoning and so forth

[0:38:51] Voice 6: three you can only have 12 units per acre if you're on a system and you're on a water system

[0:38:57] Voice 6: blah blah blah all this stuff so things haven't changed in i don't know how many years is that

[0:39:02] uh

[0:39:02] Voice 6: 60 years or 50 years or something like that they really haven't changed them we still don't

[0:39:08] Voice 6: have any apartments okay and i just last summer did a cross canada trip drove my trailer from

[0:39:14] Voice 6: here to Newfoundland and back have stopped in a hundred small towns across Canada.

[0:39:20] Voice 6: Every little two-bit small town with 450 population in Saskatchewan and whatever

[0:39:25] Voice 6: has an apartment block. Okay, it's not, it's not difficult. That's where young people first start

[0:39:33] Voice 6: off. They'll go and rent an apartment. Or seniors, when they can't take care of their property in

[0:39:38] Voice 6: the words don't go in the department it's and yes you can go and do uh government applications

[0:39:45] Voice 6: for subsidies and blah

[0:39:46] Voice 3: blah blah and all

[0:39:47] Voice 6: that themselves quite frankly if you zone uh made

[0:39:52] Voice 6: some zoning available and i know you would always apply that's what i mean

[0:39:57] Voice 6: apply to trust well there's a two-year process there but if you could possibly get zoning

[0:40:07] Voice 6: for apartments, then once the zoning is there and an investor, contractor, whatever, saw

[0:40:18] Voice 6: what the rules are, they would make a decision as if financially viable or not, and they

[0:40:24] Voice 6: would do it.

[0:40:24] Voice 6: And as Bryce mentioned, you'd get that done fast.

[0:40:28] Voice 6: But if you're relying on government support and government so forth, it's going to take

[0:40:34] forever and a day.

[0:40:36] so there are some fairly quick and easy ways to do

[0:40:40] Voice 6: it i understand that there's always a situation

[0:40:43] Voice 6: where you have to worry about water usage you have to worry about sewer you have to worry about

[0:40:49] Voice 6: whether you're on a transportation roof or not but at one point in time i remember that there

[0:40:55] was supposed to be multiple villages on salt river there's going to be candies over there

[0:40:59] They were going to be, you know, it's

[0:41:01] Voice 6: somehow a little just, they're gone.

[0:41:04] But even within the village

[0:41:06] Voice 6: of Ganges, which I don't think is an actual entity in itself,

[0:41:11] Voice 6: okay, there's what they call the village of Ganges, but there's no real thing there.

[0:41:17] Voice 6: The densities, even if they were duplexes or complex, just say everything within the

[0:41:22] Voice 6: village of Ganges is allowed to be a duplex.

[0:41:26] Voice 6: It's really simple.

[0:41:27] Voice 6: It's not complex.

[0:41:28] Voice 6: and then people will either do it or they won't do it okay we won't be waiting for government

[0:41:35] Voice 6: subsidies on that kind of stuff and duplexes aren't apartments but they're a step in the

[0:41:40] right direction okay um

[0:41:42] Voice 6: and even if they say you can have a complex as long as what you add

[0:41:48] Voice 6: is 50 is for a reference it's very simple to add that as a caveat you know yes you can build

[0:41:56] Voice 6: the duplex on the pizza property but half of it has to be parental okay uh that's that's not

[0:42:02] Voice 6: particularly difficult there are easy ways to solve this problem and there are long long long

[0:42:08] Voice 6: bureaucratic ways and we've been at a long long bureaucratic wage since 1974. um so and i go back

[0:42:18] Voice 6: back to uh the ease of what used to be uh my parents had 35 acres and I was trust was just

[0:42:26] Voice 6: being informed and they were asking all the residents you know show us your property and

[0:42:30] Voice 6: what do you use it for something to buy a welding shop okay your zone inductor and that's where the

[0:42:36] Voice 6: slave and my parents went in and said it's a mobile home park and that's where it really is

[0:42:44] Voice 6: this okay i mean it was not really that difficult and i think if the will were there to make it

[0:42:52] Voice 6: happen you can make it happen sure you're going to take some flack no matter what you do you're

[0:42:57] Voice 6: in politics that's that's the name of the game it's maybe flat okay um but you have to sort of

[0:43:04] Voice 6: look at the will of the people what they need and then just push on and get into that thanks

[0:43:10] Voice 6: Thanks.

[0:43:10] Voice 6: Thank you.

[0:43:11] Voice 6: Micah, and then you had your hand up?

[0:43:16] Voice 6: Yes.

[0:43:16] Voice 6: And go ahead.

[0:43:18] Voice 6: I speak a lot, so someone who hasn't spoken before wants to go ahead.

[0:43:22] Voice 6: Well, so far, the two other hands I saw have also spoken before, so go ahead.

[0:43:27] Voice 6: Thank you so much.

[0:43:29] Voice 6: Again, it's a lot to digest, and I really appreciate the amount of caring and intelligence

[0:43:36] Voice 6: it's fun solutions but we're dealing with here um which many other communities are dealing with um

[0:43:43] Voice 6: small point i'm interested in solutions that um we're not arguing about you know the scvr people

[0:43:51] Voice 6: and the affordable people then i'm looking for common ground so for example what but most of

[0:43:56] Voice 6: what i want to talk about in this round is uh i just want to pick up on something like that

[0:44:06] Voice 6: So, Neil and Emily, you know, I'd love to know from the trustees, is it possible to have, can you legally have a mechanism where a person who is, the ability to provide STDR units is tied to the provision of affordable housing?

[0:44:24] Voice 6: So, if you have someone who says, okay, I'm committed to provide an affordable housing unit, and they demonstrate that they're doing that, you say, you know what, you're helping our community.

[0:44:36] Voice 6: we uh we recognize this and we know that it's hard to pay your mortgage with affordable housing so

[0:44:43] Voice 6: you can have an extra spd do you have the question is do you have legally the authority to do that

[0:44:51] Voice 6: um the main part of what i want to say and i don't know if we're getting answers as it's happening

[0:44:55] Voice 6: tomorrow or you know um but i would love to know also you know how to get an answer to your question

[0:45:02] Voice 6: the main thing i want to say about tiny homes um i was at someone i build them i serve it so

[0:45:09] Voice 6: um i'm trying to involve board i've talked to every level of government about this

[0:45:16] Voice 6: i've been working on this a long time um i was at somebody's property yesterday a simple parent

[0:45:21] Voice 6: a teenage child who has a ceasing to sit order on their tiny home from crd because perceived

[0:45:29] Voice 6: this being still in construction.

[0:45:32] Voice 6: Someone who left

[0:45:33] Voice 6: as far as I know, a pretty unhealthy

[0:45:35] Voice 6: relationship and trying to get by.

[0:45:38] Voice 6: It's obscene.

[0:45:41] Voice 6: These people are not criminals.

[0:45:43] Voice 6: These people are just...

[0:45:45] Voice 6: This person is actually

[0:45:49] Voice 6: involved

[0:45:49] Voice 6: in one of the clinics on the island.

[0:45:51] Voice 6: Trying to be discreet about their identity, but

[0:45:53] Voice 6: these are people who work, who have

[0:45:55] Voice 6: high-level skills, who are trying to

[0:45:57] Voice 6: health uh the well-being of this community um talks to the building infection department in

[0:46:08] Voice 6: victoria about this um i've heard their concerns i've written for again for the task force the

[0:46:17] Voice 6: page paper addressing the insurance issues the health and safety issues the environmental impact

[0:46:22] Voice 6: package everything demonstrates that per person the we have a lot we have the power we have the

[0:46:32] Voice 6: weight for us and capacity in fact everybody lives smaller um the entire island would benefit

[0:46:38] Voice 6: so i'm not saying people don't have a right to live in the big you know 6 000 square foot

[0:46:43] Voice 6: high-end customer without doing rainwater collection or anything like that but you

[0:46:49] Voice 6: can't stop people who want to live in 300 square foot with their kid um so i've received calls from

[0:47:01] Voice 6: i think at this point 15 mayors of city councillors across bc who want to legalize

[0:47:09] Voice 6: tiny homes and they're saying you know you know province of nexon did it they specifically had

[0:47:19] Voice 6: a mechanism where they said tiny home is building the foundation um and we're yes we're going to

[0:47:26] Voice 6: allow loft but you can't set it up in and we're going to allow ladders to that loft which the

[0:47:31] Voice 6: current government does they said we are not going to enforce on buffers trailer tiny homes or any of

[0:47:41] Voice 6: that those are motor vehicles that's the motor vehicle department we have a situation in dc where

[0:47:47] Voice 6: there's no provincial uh rule on this yet province uh administering the building code

[0:47:55] Voice 6: that is basically cut and paste from a federal building code um you have a crd in my mind

[0:48:04] Voice 6: overreaching authority of all respects because i've talked to those people and they're very

[0:48:09] Voice 6: intelligent skilled caring people but again as someone said you know um letter of the law

[0:48:16] Voice 6: rather than the spirit of the problem.

[0:48:18] Voice 6: To my mind, they're overreaching

[0:48:20] Voice 6: their authority, saying that they have jurisdiction

[0:48:22] Voice 6: in the building code level for

[0:48:23] Voice 6: tiny homes on wheels, and

[0:48:26] Voice 6: that they need to back off right now.

[0:48:28] Voice 6: This is something that humans

[0:48:29] Voice 6: have created over the last,

[0:48:31] Voice 6: especially on the West Coast,

[0:48:34] Voice 6: over the last few decades, because

[0:48:36] Voice 6: it's an intelligent solution. It's the

[0:48:38] Voice 6: difference between your entry

[0:48:39] Voice 6: into the housing market as an owner

[0:48:41] Voice 6: being $70,000 and your

[0:48:44] Voice 6: entry being $350,000.

[0:48:47] Voice 6: We cannot, this country was founded by a classist system that only the landed gentry could vote,

[0:48:56] Voice 6: could own property, etc.

[0:48:58] Voice 6: You know, if you were a woman, if you were a person of color, if you were indigenous,

[0:49:03] Voice 6: whatever it is, that system has to go out the window.

[0:49:08] Voice 6: We have people who are just trying to survive, and it's a human right, and I've gone so far

[0:49:12] Voice 6: as to talk to the leader of the opposition about this when he came to Sydney, the federal

[0:49:17] Voice 6: issue as well it's a human right to live in a one-room shack you should not have to that shack

[0:49:23] Voice 6: should not have to be built to uh by a person who is trained in building stadiums 50 000 people 50

[0:49:30] Voice 6: story concrete apartment towers or a house with a basin and a masonry it's a completely ridiculous

[0:49:37] Voice 6: situation and i don't know why the crd has been allowed um to overreach i understand the trust

[0:49:47] Voice 6: have received um legal advice that basically they're not going to incur any additional

[0:49:54] Voice 6: liability from legalizing these things reports that i made for the task force proves that from

[0:50:00] Voice 6: insurance industry's own documents so can my question is what is the the trust going to do

[0:50:11] Voice 6: to get the crd to back off because you've already courageously put forward a moratorium on evictions

[0:50:18] Voice 6: Right? Until such time as there is adequate savings for affordable housing.

[0:50:23] Voice 6: The loophole for that is we already become a long-term plan,

[0:50:27] Voice 6: oh well, there's a common safety risk, but anybody can come up with anything.

[0:50:30] Voice 6: And I'm working on, I'm going to wrap up soon, but thank you for the time.

[0:50:35] Voice 6: I worked on conventional, permitted, fixed homes on a tall frame that can tell you

[0:50:40] Voice 6: that the average one of those is in less safe condition than the average tiny one.

[0:50:45] Voice 6: with people putting nails through wires that they rigged up on their own rats in the walls

[0:50:51] Voice 6: uh single-pane windows and respiratory people have respiratory issues it's uh i don't believe

[0:50:59] Voice 6: the smoke is bringing around oh my god this is a new thing this is a dangerous thing

[0:51:04] Voice 6: um if they need a mechanism to act it to make money to justify its existence

[0:51:09] Voice 6: let them do that in a modest way.

[0:51:11] Voice 6: But so again, just to try and tie it together,

[0:51:16] Voice 6: how are we gonna get the CRD to back up

[0:51:19] Voice 6: and let people live and let the honest trust

[0:51:21] Voice 1: do its business?

[0:51:27] Voice 1: Well, I just

[0:51:28] Trustee Patrick (probable): wanna, I don't have specifics,

[0:51:31] Trustee Patrick (probable): but Paul Brent, who's the electoral area director

[0:51:33] Trustee Patrick (probable): for the Southern Belt Violence has been very aggressive

[0:51:35] Trustee Patrick (probable): with his alternate, Rob Fenton,

[0:51:39] Trustee Patrick (probable): working with this on the crd to get clarity back off on on particular trailers and tiny homes

[0:51:46] Trustee Patrick (probable): so i know they're working hard on that and trying to get some clarity on policy because

[0:51:51] Trustee Patrick (probable): what we're seeing here they're seeing the same on the southern gulf islands where crd's been out

[0:51:57] Trustee Patrick (probable): ticketing and things on on small units so uh i think there's a lot of talk i know talk is always

[0:52:05] Trustee Patrick (probable): annoying, but Paul is a pretty aggressive fellow, and he's not going to back off.

[0:52:14] Voice 6: And then go over here, and as I had here, then you're here. Go ahead.

[0:52:33] Voice 1: Because

[0:52:35] Voice 6: we're a community, and it

[0:52:36] Voice 6: was just this exchange that just happened where Laura gave a reply, right?

[0:52:44] Voice 6: Right. So there was a bit of a dialogue to inform us when there's one, it's, it's so alienating as a resident when you come to meetings and you don't speak to the panel, which never says anything back to you and often you, you know, I

[0:53:06] Voice 6: remember at the

[0:53:07] Voice 6: the fight of the meeting where I talked about tiny houses

[0:53:11] Voice 6: and stuff was in a way that I knew,

[0:53:13] Voice 6: but knowing that it's all on the back.

[0:53:16] Voice 6: So it seems it's very, the way it's usually formulated

[0:53:21] Voice 6: is very unidirectional.

[0:53:24] Voice 6: And what we need on this island,

[0:53:28] Voice 6: especially since it's so polarized,

[0:53:30] Voice 6: is we need more of this talking together, collaborating,

[0:53:35] Voice 6: collaborating, seeing each other in all directions, right?

[0:53:40] Voice 6: And I agree, yes, we're addressing the LTC,

[0:53:44] Voice 6: but what we're really doing is being a community trial to solve our issues.

[0:53:50] Voice 6: And I agree that what we need to do is, yes, have more of these kinds of campaigns,

[0:53:57] Voice 6: um and also restructure them um and and loosen all the rules that you want so that we can so

[0:54:08] Voice 6: this is a wider conversation between all of us and i think that that's one of the beautiful

[0:54:13] Voice 6: things that's happening in this meeting and i mean chairs could be certainly you know

[0:54:20] Voice 6: I don't know.

[0:54:22] Voice 6: I would say great.

[0:54:24] Voice 6: You know, it's not.

[0:54:25] Voice 6: It's almost

[0:54:26] Voice 1: the chosen season.

[0:54:31] Voice 1: Here.

[0:54:33] Voice 1: So I.

[0:54:34] Voice 6: We have.

[0:54:35] Voice 6: For the moment.

[0:54:38] Voice 6: And the importance of.

[0:54:41] Voice 6: I.

[0:54:42] Voice 6: Well, it's going to be.

[0:54:44] Voice 6: The free market.

[0:54:45] Voice 6: development in the world, so to speak, which, you know,

[0:54:49] Voice 5: and I

[0:54:51] Voice 5: bought my prior, so I'm not a huge, you know,

[0:54:54] Voice 6: capitalism

[0:54:56] Voice 5: lover, but I, you know, I recognize that we live in a

[0:55:01] Voice 5: society where we need markets to fix certain problems. The

[0:55:07] Voice 5: thing I want to address, though, that we own this housing

[0:55:10] Voice 5: crisis is, you know, not just on book brands, from wide and even, you know, coast-wide in

[0:55:19] Voice 5: a lot of ways.

[0:55:20] Voice 5: And we have seen broadly in Vancouver, Victoria, and some of the larger areas where there's

[0:55:26] Voice 5: lots of development, and they make so much effort to encourage development, to incentivize

[0:55:33] Voice 5: it, a total failure of the market to provide actual affordable housing to people.

[0:55:39] Voice 5: And so what, um, can I hear what you're doing?

[0:55:42] Voice 5: Oh, I can.

[0:55:43] Voice 5: I can.

[0:55:44] Voice 5: So what you were talking about, about creating incentives to, um, you know, to get people

[0:55:51] Voice 5: to do affordable housing and something else, so things like that, you know, setting some

[0:55:58] Voice 5: sort of environments that people have units available that,

[0:56:03] Voice 6: that need a certain, whatever

[0:56:06] Voice 6: I think that's really critically important to any move

[0:56:11] Voice 5: that we go forward with, you know,

[0:56:14] Voice 5: changing, losing our federal rules or adding U.S. state and whatnot, because the fact seems

[0:56:23] Voice 5: to be that as supply increases, demand is increasing as well, and it's

[0:56:31] Voice 1: kind of a well-meaning

[0:56:32] Voice 1: strategy.

[0:56:32] Voice 1: a problem thank you it's a child yes okay um just

[0:56:43] Voice 6: as an interesting sideline you know there's always

[0:56:45] Voice 6: two sides okay it's never really one side and a number of tiny homes are not illegal okay um you

[0:56:54] Voice 6: can build as small houses you want there are some basics you must have large supply you must have a

[0:57:00] Voice 6: septic system and it's supposed to be on a foundation although there are accepted to that

[0:57:05] Voice 6: small home is not on a foundation it's on a slab because it's tied down with hurricane straps and

[0:57:10] Voice 6: so forth so that's not really a problem okay uh the tiny notes on the wheels is basically

[0:57:18] Voice 6: a trailer okay uh and so forth but you know whether you put it on wheels whether you take

[0:57:25] Voice 6: your wheels off or not that's that's uh another kind of thing um if all the wheels are just kind

[0:57:32] Voice 6: or thrown out, then they're exactly maybe where they are.

[0:57:38] Voice 6: In the north end of the island,

[0:57:40] Voice 6: where there are six people living on a piece of property

[0:57:46] Voice 6: with no adequate water supply, no septic system,

[0:57:50] Voice 6: you know, it's like, is this environmentally responsible?

[0:57:55] Voice 6: Sure, they're just living in trailers and motor homes

[0:57:58] Voice 6: and shacks and everything else.

[0:57:59] Voice 6: some of them, I don't think that's particularly environmentally responsive, and that's part of

[0:58:05] Voice 6: where it is, and again, this is something that it's not necessarily the trust's job, but you mentioned

[0:58:11] Voice 6: it, because all these things about housing and so forth, is people don't, if you ask 90% of the

[0:58:18] Voice 6: people on the island, who's responsible for what, under whose authority is what, they didn't have

[0:58:24] Voice 6: the boggiest idea and whether it's the crd or whether it's uh island stress or whether it's

[0:58:31] Voice 6: provisional government or highway department they don't know they have no idea so unfortunately for

[0:58:38] Voice 6: the trust the point of vigor of the trust it's the trust of all it's gotta be then you know but

[0:58:43] Voice 6: really if somebody could just write a game a one-page thing i mean the truth would explain

[0:58:49] Voice 6: explain what the different services are and who's responsible therefore who should you be complaining

[0:58:55] Voice 6: to who should be lobbying it's

[0:58:57] Voice 6: over because lobbying the trust about building the boat

[0:59:01] Voice 6: is kind of it's really not their job their job is then use you know violence etc um and within those

[0:59:09] Voice 6: they do spending they do say and specify what you can and cannot build as far as density and various

[0:59:18] Voice 6: things like that. But building code is not the trust. And you can say to me, oh, the building code is too strict, it's too severe, it's too everything else, until there's a safety issue, until somebody dies with a fire, say, through a wood stove that was not certified, and et cetera.

[0:59:38] Voice 6: you know there's always the other side to the story um and i gotta say yes i've been involved

[0:59:46] Voice 6: in that for a lot of years and all the different angles and and so forth and listen to all the

[0:59:52] Voice 6: different stories um but just understand that it's not black and white there's all

[1:00:00] Voice 6: a variety of stories and you're trying to satisfy a lot of different ones i brought up a thing about

[1:00:06] Voice 6: apartments because as far as new construction there's no cheaper way to build uh dwellings

[1:00:13] Voice 6: than an apartment okay that's all there is to it it comes down to the very basics cost of the land

[1:00:20] Voice 6: what's the footprint of the plan and that's the way to do it um and there have been suggested

[1:00:28] Voice 6: by the president in the past about zoning changes

[1:00:31] Voice 6: and things that just seem to vaporize,

[1:00:35] Voice 6: such as the allowing three stories in Bing Angie's.

[1:00:42] Voice 6: Okay, businesses on the ground floor and suites above it

[1:00:45] Voice 6: and stuff like that.

[1:00:46] Voice 6: I don't know where that all disappeared to,

[1:00:48] Voice 6: but it seems to have disappeared.

[1:00:50] Voice 6: Again,

[1:00:51] Voice 3: if the zoning was just changed to allow that,

[1:00:55] Voice 6: i believe that you would get people uh contractors investors whatever the case may be look at it

[1:01:03] Voice 6: determine is this viable not viable and build it if it's not viable then we're into the whole

[1:01:11] Voice 6: process of the government financing and so forth and that's going to take a million years i mean

[1:01:17] Voice 6: not in my lifetime anyway, but longer at the point, but you know, not in my lifetime. So

[1:01:26] Voice 6: I think we have to try to stay away from trying to get government support to do all these things,

[1:01:33] Voice 6: figure it out for ourselves. And again, understanding who's responsible for what

[1:01:40] Voice 6: by a lot of what is very very critical so is there

[1:01:47] Voice 3: anyone that hasn't spoken that would like

[1:01:49] Voice 3: to speak at this point all right is there anyone else that'd like to speak then yes here so i'd

[1:01:58] Voice 5: like to know directly what the trust is going to do to stop you know like the the comment was made

[1:02:03] Voice 5: about you know respect and you know you guys want us to

[1:02:07] Voice 5: protect you you know i know there's a lot

[1:02:11] Voice 5: people in certain myself included do not feel respected right back i've expressed my feelings

[1:02:16] Voice 5: on warren i've asked you know if i come to meetings why is he never here why it's like

[1:02:24] Voice 5: the politician that hides behind a computer what are you going to do because last time i checked

[1:02:29] Voice 5: you work for me not the other way around right you work for me you were elected by our community

[1:02:38] Voice 5: so what are you going to do to make sure that you know since the whole world seems to be focusing

[1:02:44] Voice 5: on inquiries right now maybe we need to do an inquiry within the island's trust and the bullying

[1:02:48] Voice 5: that is coming from internal from folks like warren who

[1:02:54] Voice 6: are picking on us i get picked on i

[1:02:56] Voice 6: get told no shut down your airbnb is on your property don't like it doesn't want to hear the

[1:03:02] Voice 6: explanation doesn't care that they're all legal if he actually took five minutes listening to me

[1:03:06] Voice 6: you'd realize they're all perfectly legal but you know it's guilty till proven and it's like

[1:03:10] Voice 6: so what are you going to do to look into your own

[1:03:13] Voice 5: internal process of

[1:03:15] Voice 5: the fee are you bullying the

[1:03:16] Voice 5: community because you guys are looking like the bullies right now and that may not be what you're

[1:03:22] Voice 5: intended but that is how it appears to the community so what are you going to do to turn

[1:03:28] Voice 5: that around because when i asked warren okay can i throw a cottage on my property to provide

[1:03:33] Voice 5: provide some housing for a local worker. Nope, can't do that. Okay, I've got permanent RV hookups

[1:03:39] Voice 5: on my property. I could have someone move in on their fixed wheel. I live on my property quite

[1:03:43] Voice 5: comfortably. I've got a large property. They could hook up. No environmental impacts going directly

[1:03:49] Voice 5: into a proper subject. Nope, can't do that. Okay, so I can't have short-term. I can't have long-term.

[1:03:57] Voice 5: So what is your goal here?

[1:03:59] Voice 1: If I may,

[1:04:00] Voice 6: I'd love to answer you.

[1:04:01] Voice 6: i would

[1:04:03] Voice 5: love it i would actually love to hear from me please

[1:04:06] Voice 6: you know i don't anyways a trust

[1:04:11] Voice 6: council we are looking into bylaw enforcement issues right now that's in the works there's

[1:04:18] Voice 6: all kinds of concerns being brought to people from all the islands that you know to trustees

[1:04:24] Voice 6: from all the islands from folks and that's we're looking into them so but

[1:04:31] Voice 5: it's been looking into

[1:04:32] Voice 5: to this for it's

[1:04:33] Voice 6: a process and it's frustrating to me but it's something that's happening a lot

[1:04:42] Voice 6: of people feel the same way you do and personally I would love to see proactive enforcement ended

[1:04:50] Voice 6: for STBRs and I'd love to see by 5 30 past in July

[1:04:54] Voice 6: lot um to submit what john john kate was talking about a complete advocate and screaming it um

[1:05:03] Voice 6: pretty loudly since the beginning of the term is that we need added zoning that will facilitate

[1:05:09] Voice 6: workforce ownership housing in the form of and to be strictly for uh you know it would be strictly

[1:05:18] Voice 6: in the form of um building strata um projects to be controlled by a housing authority the island's

[1:05:28] Voice 6: trust doesn't have to do the housing authority part but we need to do the added zoning that's

[1:05:32] Voice 6: something we can do it's in the purview of our power as trustees and i'm i want to do it

[1:05:38] Voice 6: so um i'm with you i agree with everybody here honestly i

[1:05:43] Voice 5: think we want answers though it's

[1:05:45] Voice 5: there's it's too much of this always we're looking into where and i know well

[1:05:48] Voice 6: it's going to change

[1:05:50] Voice 5: yes but it's we're banging our heads against this brick wall we

[1:05:56] Voice 6: do yeah

[1:06:00] Voice 5: you know like this has to come to an end at a certain point just make some bloody decisions

[1:06:08] Voice 5: and i don't think that is asking too much you know we are all i think a lot of us are

[1:06:17] Voice 5: have been you know self-employed i think most of us in this room are self-employed

[1:06:22] Voice 5: we're trying to provide housing for our employees we get shut down we try to help bring tourism

[1:06:28] Voice 5: islands so that people the service workers that live here can earn a living we get shut down like

[1:06:35] Voice 5: it's just you know like the same way you're saying you know we're not happy until you're

[1:06:38] Voice 5: not happy it's it

[1:06:39] Voice 6: doesn't bring true work you know it really doesn't you know and at a certain

[1:06:47] Voice 6: point maybe we have some help here and take back our island and abolish this trust like i don't

[1:06:51] Voice 6: don't like it it has gotten ridiculous because ideally we've

[1:06:56] Voice 1: got a board that doesn't accomplish

[1:06:57] Voice 1: anything okay thank you uh um so i'd like to address

[1:07:05] Voice 5: the issue of density which you guys

[1:07:08] Voice 5: do have control over um so um for example violence uh there's a new huge big fancy

[1:07:17] Voice 6: We built a site that I was looking at today, and they're going to be building a giant house,

[1:07:29] Voice 6: which they will occupy two weeks of the year.

[1:07:33] Voice 6: Beside them is a sibling who has a giant, giant, giant mansion, which is occupied two weeks of the year.

[1:07:44] Voice 1: on

[1:07:45] Voice 6: the other side i think the house is occupied maybe two months these are giant houses so we

[1:07:53] Voice 6: actually don't have a shortage of housing we have a shortage of access

[1:07:59] Voice 6: and um the the statistic i heard is that 20 percent of the single family homes

[1:08:07] Voice 6: some of them super private mansions,

[1:08:11] Voice 6: 25% of them are empty for most of the year.

[1:08:16] Voice 6: I

[1:08:16] Voice 5: don't know if that's correct,

[1:08:19] Voice 5: perhaps this is the fifth thing I've been given

[1:08:21] Voice 5: when I started

[1:08:22] Voice 5: asking around.

[1:08:24] Voice 6: Now, the way I understand,

[1:08:29] Voice 6: the planner explained to me that the Island's Trust

[1:08:32] Voice 6: understands density and enforces density

[1:08:35] Voice 6: city is her little space,

[1:08:40] Voice 5: right? So if there are 200

[1:08:45] Voice 6: square foot, 300 square foot tiny houses

[1:08:50] Voice 6: or trailers, that's their inventories. But a giant 50 room gazillion square foot house,

[1:09:00] Voice 6: which you can, you know, build to the rafters with, you know, super rich people who just walk out the office.

[1:09:08] Voice 6: I mean, that's one density, right? This is an issue, right?

[1:09:14] Voice 6: The way that density is understood.

[1:09:19] Voice 6: It's also, you know, if you have maybe a super big family of 12 people,

[1:09:26] Voice 6: and you have a really big house and you're all in that house, that's one density.

[1:09:32] Voice 6: If you're four people and you each have a tiny house or a trailer, that's four densities,

[1:09:39] Voice 6: but you're only four people, right?

[1:09:41] Voice 6: So this issue of density, it might be really, and I know you guys know this, right, might

[1:09:50] Voice 6: might be more important to regent and reconsider how,

[1:09:57] Voice 6: because that seems to be one of the things

[1:09:59] Voice 6: that's really preventing people

[1:10:03] Voice 1: who can't provide housing from being able to use it.

[1:10:10] Voice 1: Okay.

[1:10:11] Voice 1: You are absolutely right.

[1:10:13] Voice 1: I mean, the system was

[1:10:14] Trustee Patrick (probable): designed one way.

[1:10:18] Trustee Patrick (probable): It's not working.

[1:10:19] Trustee Patrick (probable): In 2021, from the census,

[1:10:22] Trustee Patrick (probable): census we had a total of 6281 dwellings 5195 of those were occupied by residents out of that

[1:10:36] Voice 1: 2935 one person crazy a lot of one that doesn't answer the question no

[1:10:48] Trustee Patrick (probable): I'm just saying but we've

[1:10:50] Trustee Patrick (probable): got uh houses one person living in well no that there is there's a percentage that are not this

[1:10:58] Trustee Patrick (probable): is from the census so it doesn't necessarily mean one person one

[1:11:01] Voice 6: person living in a place

[1:11:03] Trustee Patrick (probable): they're single there's still one person it's still a

[1:11:06] Trustee Patrick (probable): house for one person i understand that

[1:11:07] Trustee Patrick (probable): but i'm just saying that the per capita impact yeah is you know you and you've got a lot of

[1:11:16] Trustee Patrick (probable): people living in one home where you've got lots of homes with only one people living in it it's

[1:11:19] Trustee Patrick (probable): It's just the model of a single family house is not working anymore for us in our future.

[1:11:29] Trustee Patrick (probable): And that, you know, but our regulations are designed to that.

[1:11:34] Trustee Patrick (probable): So it's, everything's gotta be fixed.

[1:11:36] Voice 6: We're in the worst case situation that there is, being that we are in the premier spot

[1:11:42] Voice 6: off with Canada, okay, and that's why we have such a hybrid community and so forth, you're going to live anywhere in Canada, this is like the magic corner, okay, and my trips across Canada, it's beautiful,

[1:11:58] Voice 3: it is for

[1:12:00] Voice 6: three months, years, they have

[1:12:01] Voice 3: not even splintered,

[1:12:03] Voice 6: okay, no, I don't want to leave

[1:12:04] Voice 6: self-protect you i don't care if you buy house or move forward the price um and what that does it

[1:12:10] Voice 6: attracts people here

[1:12:11] Voice 3: and make unless you make this a completely

[1:12:14] Voice 6: socialist island okay people still

[1:12:19] Voice 6: have the right to buy property and it is still market demand for the price unfortunately our

[1:12:24] Voice 6: prices are always going to be higher than most other places that's why vancouver is one of the

[1:12:30] Voice 6: the most expensive cities in North America is because it is one of the most desired places

[1:12:35] Voice 6: to be climate-wise, politics-wise, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[1:12:41] Voice 6: So it's something we have to learn to live with and work with, okay?

[1:12:47] Voice 6: And density is a kitchen, okay?

[1:12:50] Voice 6: That's what defines density in a house.

[1:12:54] Voice 6: Duplex has two densities because it's the same house, but it has two kitchens, okay?

[1:12:58] Voice 6: Okay, and that's what we're talking about.

[1:13:00] Voice 6: Increasing density is being able to put a second kitchen in a house.

[1:13:05] Voice 6: Now we've got two densities, okay?

[1:13:07] Voice 6: And density, not really about how compact they are.

[1:13:12] Voice 6: So whether it's on five acres or two acres, you know, half an acre or whatever it is,

[1:13:17] Voice 6: it has to do with how many dwellings, how many kitchens are in it.

[1:13:21] Voice 6: And so the term density has an unfortunate connotation, okay,

[1:13:26] Voice 6: okay, that people get really confused about.

[1:13:30] So again, I think there's

[1:13:32] Voice 6: a million explanations

[1:13:34] Voice 6: that really need to go out there.

[1:13:37] Voice 6: I mean, you can have a two-week-long town hall meeting

[1:13:40] Voice 6: just explaining to people what all terms

[1:13:44] Voice 6: and all that kind of stuff are.

[1:13:45] Voice 6: Because unfortunately, most of the people

[1:13:49] Voice 6: are really ignorant of that.

[1:13:51] Voice 6: And I know because I've sold a lot of products

[1:13:53] Voice 6: to a lot of ignorant people.

[1:13:54] Voice 6: um but that is part of the job explaining all these kind of things whether they took it to heart

[1:14:02] Voice 6: or not is another thing um there's a lot of people that you explain to them actually there's a lawsuit

[1:14:09] Voice 6: going on with one of them in the trust right now um but they explained what he can and can't do but

[1:14:14] Voice 6: he's doing it don't think anything um you can't help that you can't hear soon um but uh i think

[1:14:24] Voice 6: there's so much lack of understanding about rules and regulations and bylaws and who's that

[1:14:32] Voice 6: authority so there needs to be like a booklet that is mandatory for people to get here to the

[1:14:38] Voice 6: booklet about who who

[1:14:40] Voice 6: does what on the island who is the authority for what and so forth um

[1:14:53] Voice 6: On

[1:14:54] Trustee Patrick (probable): Main Island, they brought in flexible housing, which was to deal with that. They've set a maximum floor area for kind of lot sizes. I think there's three different lot sizes and three different floor areas. And then you can have on the smaller lot size, maximum of two dwellings. You can divide that maximum square footage into what you want. One big one, two small ones. And then the larger properties, you can have three.

[1:15:15] Trustee Patrick (probable): three. And it's up to you to choose how you want to divide that square footage. I think that's

[1:15:22] Trustee Patrick (probable): moving more toward a direction of getting away from just the kitchen and the dwelling being what

[1:15:27] Trustee Patrick (probable): defines it and giving more flexibility to how you want to use your property.

[1:15:31] Voice 6: Hey, sorry. My mother had a lot of canapes across from the high school. And I sat down with my

[1:15:42] Voice 6: little cat program and so forth and develop breaking any of the setback rules as far as

[1:15:49] Voice 6: from the log lines to acquire another apartment spots and so forth down it's not a sewer it's on

[1:15:56] Voice 6: on city water if the trust would have allowed more than one dwelling there's only 0.2 acres

[1:16:05] Voice 6: and a lot of three stories.

[1:16:08] Voice 6: My design would have put three one-bedroom apartments,

[1:16:12] Voice 6: three two-bedroom apartments on that lot.

[1:16:14] Voice 6: And still, they all, don't change any of the setbacks,

[1:16:17] Voice 6: don't do any of that kind of stuff.

[1:16:19] Voice 6: And all that, again, takes is,

[1:16:22] Voice 6: and I don't know whether you have to change the OCP,

[1:16:25] Voice 6: you know, I thought what the thing is,

[1:16:26] Voice 6: to me, it's a stroke of the pen.

[1:16:28] Voice 6: Yes, you can do it, okay?

[1:16:29] Voice 6: Okay. And that whole section in town should be that kind of stuff.

[1:16:36] Voice 6: And that's what you want. You want the density in town where they're not using a road system.

[1:16:41] Voice 6: You know, it's all, they can walk everything. And that would be a real goal in there.

[1:16:50] Voice 6: I'm with you.

[1:16:51] Voice 6: Okay. They get it. They're going for trust every time.

[1:16:56] Voice 6: Thank you, Chair Peterson.

[1:17:00] Voice 6: Yeah, I think density and Ganges is great, but that's not the only answer.

[1:17:04] Voice 6: We need density all over the island because we sincerely need many units to address the workforce ownership.

[1:17:13] Voice 6: And again, I really get worried when I hear talk of somehow demonizing or saying one person in a single family home is somehow wrong.

[1:17:24] Voice 6: oh, okay, it's a free market, and I believe firmly in that.

[1:17:29] Voice 6: If you want to do that, that's up to you,

[1:17:30] Voice 6: and I do not want to put an end to that.

[1:17:32] Voice 6: I'm sure there's lots of people that feel the same way.

[1:17:34] Voice 6: But again, we need added densities in rural areas,

[1:17:39] Voice 6: but strictly for the use of workforce ownership housing projects

[1:17:42] Voice 6: to be controlled by a housing authority,

[1:17:44] Voice 6: similar to what is being done in Whistler and Tofino.

[1:17:46] Voice 6: Not added density for free market,

[1:17:49] Voice 6: but we need to allow the density that is already there to be utilized.

[1:17:53] Voice 6: And what I see happening in a lot of instances is that people are being hampered from utilizing their existing zoning, even.

[1:18:03] Voice 6: So, yes, density in Ganges, but also in other places.

[1:18:07] Voice 6: 530 will be a start, but we can't seem to pass that.

[1:18:12] Voice 6: So, we'll hopefully start with that, and then we can talk about, you know, some added densities for ownership housing projects.

[1:18:19] Voice 6: Because, again, rentals, they're great.

[1:18:22] Voice 6: lots of people want to have a rental but if you want a sustainable healthy community people need

[1:18:25] Voice 6: to own their home yeah interestingly enough one of the first affordable housing projects

[1:18:33] Voice 6: was great for me because you can still buy a home for three hundred thousand three hundred

[1:18:39] Voice 6: fifty thousand as it happens that the current owners are jacking the patterns way out of line

[1:18:47] Voice 6: line but everything in some community there's five acres uh on the corner of rickworthy and uh

[1:18:56] Voice 6: lower energy's road just sold a while ago community services community services okay um

[1:19:03] Voice 6: originally that entire 35 acres was zoning mobile home okay so it's like on that five acres

[1:19:12] Voice 6: you could put, and that would be individual ownership, right, of two or three bedroom mobile homes right there, okay, you could get it.

[1:19:23] Voice 6: Well, that's a little case, okay?

[1:19:27] Voice 6: I'm a figurehead, I'm saying, I'm sorry, for 30 years, something like that, people have yards and all that kind of stuff, okay?

[1:19:37] Voice 6: And they would be inexpensive, close to town, close to schools, close to shopping.

[1:19:45] Voice 6: Bingo! Just go back to the original Zuni.

[1:19:47] Voice 6: Well, because you'd have to be the one shopping with ALR.

[1:19:51] Voice 6: ALR took half the property and said, oh, sorry, this is ALR.

[1:19:56] Voice 6: And you don't need to recall anything on that page.

[1:19:58] Voice 6: hey um but uh yeah something like that is as a game there's your individual ownership it's a

[1:20:08] Voice 6: strata uh and and so forth you're close to town and it's like okay this to me is kind of an

[1:20:15] Voice 6: operator and it's now about some kind of a community service only if even in some kind

[1:20:22] Voice 6: of organization it looks to that kind of stuff so that shouldn't that could be done within

[1:20:28] Voice 6: here. It's our time. It's about

[1:20:30] Voice 3: what you think. It should be done within

[1:20:32] Voice 3: a year. Yeah, thank you.

[1:20:35] Voice 3: Mike, I've seen your hand up.

[1:20:37] Voice 6: Yeah, I'm

[1:20:41] Voice 6: I'd love to see that

[1:20:42] Voice 6: we get back on the man-raising thing.

[1:20:43] Voice 6: It's really fun.

[1:20:45] Voice 3: It's really fun.

[1:20:46] Voice 6: And I

[1:20:47] Voice 3: apologize, too. It's always

[1:20:50] Voice 3: I don't want to

[1:20:52] Voice 3: stifle, but

[1:20:53] Voice 3: at the same time,

[1:20:55] Voice 6: I actually do prefer

[1:20:56] Voice 6: a little more formal sense.

[1:20:58] Voice 6: But I don't want to be needlessly formal.

[1:21:01] Voice 1: yeah i

[1:21:02] Voice 6: think that's what's on me um so yeah i i want to get stuff done about this and go to this

[1:21:12] Voice 6: person who built a shitty kind of house for this person who left their house their foundation house

[1:21:20] Voice 6: it's what i've done is a meta-analysis from an insurance industry standpoint from an occupational

[1:21:27] Voice 6: health and safety standards, all the standpoints of the book, and the case is clear. Smaller living,

[1:21:35] Voice 6: simpler living, done right, solves the housing crisis, solves the environmental crisis.

[1:21:43] Voice 6: So one question is, does the LTC have the authority to redefine density from these dinosaur

[1:21:51] Voice 6: sort of era definitions that we have to where uh for example the thing that has solved a lot

[1:21:59] Voice 6: of development is what we don't have well let's say you can get a component of a micro housing

[1:22:07] Voice 6: village and failures can be built in code um with the foundation and all that uh can demonstrate

[1:22:16] Voice 6: that the average person living there is going to be using 70 less water and we say well okay

[1:22:22] Voice 6: okay, you know what, you could be allowed a little bit more.

[1:22:26] Voice 6: It's not about the civic notion.

[1:22:28] Voice 6: Do you have the authority to modernize the definition of density?

[1:22:38] Voice 6: We define density

[1:22:39] Trustee Patrick (probable): and use.

[1:22:41] Trustee Patrick (probable): That's my own stress.

[1:22:42] Trustee Patrick (probable): Now there are always going to be things that impact that.

[1:22:48] Voice 6: And then the second part of what I want to say is, you know,

[1:22:56] Voice 6: with it's such a challenge i mean the people the reasons many people pointed out here it's such a

[1:23:01] Voice 6: challenge just to get by right now i mean cost of food like and it's really important

[1:23:10] Voice 6: to hear these urgent things and it's also what i'm also wanting to get out of the meeting is

[1:23:17] Voice 6: the center of the vision not just ocp kind of vision but what is the vision to develop

[1:23:21] Voice 6: right because what i'm seeing is kind of a a gated community island is what's happening is what's

[1:23:31] Voice 6: going to be coming together the hospital it's going to become a triage center people um you

[1:23:37] Voice 6: know because we can't find housing for people and they don't want to be able to the institutions

[1:23:43] Voice 6: that control that don't want to fund something that's not going to work you have um businesses

[1:23:48] Voice 6: is going out of business we got high school at one point i think we heard that they were short

[1:23:53] Voice 6: 13 people at one point uh we got fairies reductions and um you know people having

[1:24:02] Voice 6: these five hour waits and who knows if they're missing medical appointments or whatever i mean

[1:24:09] Voice 6: the specter of workers busted from a fairy that connects to crofton is there um and that's what

[1:24:19] Voice 6: people have excited me to talk about it. You know, we'll be like Cabo or we'll be like

[1:24:25] Voice 6: Beverly Hills. You know, I'm working passionately on this right now. I don't want to be doing this

[1:24:34] Voice 6: work. I mean, I've lost a lot of money doing the volunteering. It's not fun to work on something

[1:24:41] Voice 6: you're not doing. But I'm doing it because I feel like we don't do it now. Within five years,

[1:24:51] Voice 6: the culture of the town will radically suffer in terms of sustainability you know

[1:24:59] Voice 6: one of many people who spent their careers on

[1:25:05] Voice 6: design a community what makes life sustainable what and this is not only a

[1:25:10] Voice 6: and one of her points is diversity you have to have

[1:25:20] Voice 6: You have to have tourists, you have to have rich people, you have to have people living

[1:25:26] Voice 6: simply.

[1:25:27] Voice 6: And I see Salt Spring in real danger of losing that.

[1:25:31] Voice 6: So what is the vision that we are fighting for, all of us together, with no division

[1:25:38] Voice 6: here between this table, for a Salt Spring that is going to be a quality of life place

[1:25:46] Voice 6: for a diversity

[1:25:47] Voice 1: of people?

[1:25:49] Voice 1: yeah that's you know i i don't know

[1:25:55] Voice 6: if you i'm sure you're around during my campaign and i ran

[1:25:59] Voice 6: with don marcott as a slate and um we spoke and to a great extent about that and um unfortunately

[1:26:06] Voice 6: we're sitting here in a different time so yeah i hear you so what are the principles so can you

[1:26:15] Voice 6: speak to some of the principles like hey oh we're we're working on the principle that workers should

[1:26:20] Voice 6: be able to for example before he said uh workers should be able to afford their housing yes uh

[1:26:26] Voice 6: we're working on the principle that food should be no more than the cost 25 of the coffee or you

[1:26:31] Voice 6: know your income what are some of the principles that are really guiding you right even these

[1:26:37] Voice 6: multiple crises i know it's not easy that's exactly no

[1:26:44] Voice 1: absolutely vision

[1:26:47] Trustee Patrick (probable): a diverse inclusive

[1:26:48] Trustee Patrick (probable): inclusive community. And I absolutely agree. You just said, what are we becoming? I'm scared to

[1:26:57] Trustee Patrick (probable): death that we're tipping to that direction dangerously if we're not already there. We need

[1:27:04] Trustee Patrick (probable): to flip it on our head. We need to be controlling sort of the higher end of the market more

[1:27:09] Trustee Patrick (probable): aggressively, let people pay what they want to pay for the high end of the market. And we should

[1:27:14] Trustee Patrick (probable): have preserved and protected the lower end of the market at all those options of housing that would

[1:27:21] Trustee Patrick (probable): house a diverse community it's the question we should always start with first is what is a

[1:27:29] Trustee Patrick (probable): healthy community who who who makes up a healthy community we should have that picture what kind

[1:27:37] Trustee Patrick (probable): of housing do they need so that we have to have

[1:27:41] Voice 6: know

[1:27:43] Trustee Patrick (probable): that we need this type of housing to meet

[1:27:45] Trustee Patrick (probable): this kind of community and we haven't we haven't done we haven't done that it's always backwards

[1:27:51] Trustee Patrick (probable): housing needs assessments all these things we respond to that are they're not who we are they're

[1:27:58] Trustee Patrick (probable): not community and we have to start there what is the healthy community and you know trying to

[1:28:07] Trustee Patrick (probable): that's what drives me but the the system is so frustrating because it's behind you know

[1:28:12] Trustee Patrick (probable): so everything's behind it's like dragging trying to pull your tiny home myself up the hill

[1:28:18] Trustee Patrick (probable): um it's

[1:28:20] Trustee Patrick (probable): it's like really frustrating i

[1:28:25] Voice 6: agree it's very frustrating um you know one of the real

[1:28:30] Voice 6: frustrating things for me is that the islands trust was approached 20 years ago saying you

[1:28:33] Voice 6: You guys need to do something about your affordable housing for your workforce.

[1:28:38] Voice 6: People came from Whistler.

[1:28:40] Voice 6: They have a great job.

[1:28:41] Voice 6: You know, we don't have to reinvent the wheel here.

[1:28:43] Voice 6: It's already being done in other jurisdictions.

[1:28:45] Voice 6: If you know Whistler, Cowichan, you know, a housing authority that controls the prices of buy-in and selling.

[1:29:00] Voice 6: We're not reinventing the wheel.

[1:29:02] Voice 6: It's been done in many places.

[1:29:03] Voice 6: We just need to do it.

[1:29:04] Voice 6: the violence trust was told this years and years ago but it's fallen on deaf ears we've seen this

[1:29:12] Voice 6: the violence trust mandate to preserve and protect being you know misinterpreted in my view and in

[1:29:21] Voice 6: many others view and unique amenities and environment are two separate things and unique

[1:29:28] Voice 6: unique amenities in my view means community, housing, livelihoods, and we really need to

[1:29:38] Voice 6: start focusing on that and I think 530 is a start but again the added densities

[1:29:46] Voice 6: that will allow for workforce ownership housing is a no-brainer to me and I'm very very concerned

[1:29:52] Voice 6: and frustrated because we can't pass file 530 which is a drop in the bucket to addressing the

[1:29:58] Voice 6: situation.

[1:30:00] Voice 6: doing what i'm talking about what added densities segment when i'm going to be able to do that

[1:30:08] Voice 3: uh it's back here yes

[1:30:09] Voice 5: um so i'm going to put the folks out here

[1:30:17] Voice 5: what what is keeping 530

[1:30:19] Voice 1: from maintenance

[1:30:28] Voice 1: i think like they have hear them speak about what

[1:30:33] Voice 5: they know about

[1:30:33] Voice 6: i'd love to know why

[1:30:37] Voice 6: good question oh

[1:30:39] Voice 5: i forgot okay

[1:30:40] Voice 4: um i can i can speak at a high level to it um we um we did bring

[1:30:47] Voice 4: this uh back in uh july staff on a report um summarizing the results of the public open houses

[1:30:55] Voice 4: uh were held in june um at that time um there was an update in the board of the public hearing

[1:31:03] Voice 4: However, there were some referral responses during that time, particularly from some First Nations who indicated some strong opposition to it.

[1:31:14] Voice 4: That is an issue that does require us to go back and, at a minimum, engage and demonstrate that we've met the standard of engaging and identifying and clarifying those concerns.

[1:31:27] Voice 4: For those who have been somewhat communicated back, there was some additional questions.

[1:31:30] Voice 4: In addition, one of the challenges that this would have brought was, oh, sorry, we had a short after the resolution set public hearing, additional requests made to explore other options.

[1:31:48] Voice 4: options. Unfortunately, what that means, I mean, I'm sure you can all understand that

[1:31:53] Voice 4: if we publish a bylaw, we're having a public hearing on a bylaw, and we staff brought a report

[1:32:00] Voice 4: on all the ways you could change that bylaw at the last minute after having, you know, published this,

[1:32:05] Voice 4: put in the notice in the newspaper, giving you the opportunity to read the bylaw online, you read it,

[1:32:10] Voice 4: you prepare your notes, and then we drop a report a week before that says here's all the ways we

[1:32:14] Voice 4: can change it that really shifts the conversation and makes it hard to have a discussion about

[1:32:18] Voice 4: the bylaw that's the subject of the public hearing so public hearing process

[1:32:22] Voice 4: sort of this last opportunity for input an opportunity to speak directly to LTC

[1:32:26] Voice 4: so that procedurally didn't really work in drafting the report unfortunately that was

[1:32:35] Voice 4: kind of the process that we arrived at and staff made the determination that unfortunately they

[1:32:39] Voice 4: would not be able to public hearing until after this report has gone to LTC, and given

[1:32:45] Voice 4: the complications around the ongoing conversation with First Nations and with many other operational

[1:32:53] Voice 4: concerns, it was determined that we needed a bit more time to bring back a report on

[1:33:00] Voice 4: those issues for LTC to consider and to provide them with a complete and competent report

[1:33:05] Voice 4: in order to make an information,

[1:33:07] Voice 1: whether or not to protect all of the gear.

[1:33:12] Voice 1: Now, T.J., I have a quick follow-up,

[1:33:14] Voice 3: and then I'll-

[1:33:15] Voice 5: Well, yeah, I'm hearing two things.

[1:33:19] Voice 5: First, that there was a certain search for stations,

[1:33:21] Voice 5: and second, that there was a request for options,

[1:33:28] Voice 5: and I don't quite understand it.

[1:33:30] Voice 5: And so I'm wondering if you could share

[1:33:32] Voice 5: who are the stations and what are the concerns,

[1:33:34] Voice 5: terms and who was it that made a request that there be other options whatever phrase that you

[1:33:42] Voice 5: used um

[1:33:43] Voice 4: well the the ltc uh chair the ltc uh specifically requested that return with option

[1:33:52] Voice 4: so that is by resolution uh at the july meeting and

[1:33:56] Voice 5: the ltc is is that well

[1:33:59] Voice 4: we don't know there's

[1:34:00] Voice 6: a vote on it right

[1:34:01] Voice 3: so it doesn't mean everybody voted

[1:34:04] Voice 5: no

[1:34:05] Voice 3: no this is the these three people

[1:34:07] Voice 5: voted i didn't

[1:34:10] Voice 5: you voted you wanted reading i wanted

[1:34:13] Voice 6: to read that i wanted

[1:34:14] Voice 6: to read it in july after the second and third readings done and vote on it

[1:34:19] Voice 5: and then somebody said oh there's a few more options who was

[1:34:25] Trustee Patrick (probable): it i think it's the

[1:34:28] Trustee Patrick (probable): The intent, because I've been involved with PILOT 530 since it was born, which is not

[1:34:35] Trustee Patrick (probable): the intent from the beginning, as Price had referred to, was we were trying to cast a

[1:34:42] Trustee Patrick (probable): wide net, but limit the numbers.

[1:34:44] Trustee Patrick (probable): We always knew that people would be concerned, but we knew there wouldn't be very many built

[1:34:48] Trustee Patrick (probable): anyway, but we were saying, we're looking for land use.

[1:34:51] Trustee Patrick (probable): One of the ways we limit numbers is we start making maps that get smaller and smaller.

[1:34:56] Trustee Patrick (probable): and as soon as you make maps that are smaller and smaller you're eliminating potential landlords.

[1:35:01] Trustee Patrick (probable): So our intent was this casting a wide net across the island to look for landlords but

[1:35:09] Trustee Patrick (probable): find a way to limit the numbers to calm the people who are concerned that everybody's going to do it.

[1:35:14] Trustee Patrick (probable): So it's always a challenge as being on this side of the table where

[1:35:21] Trustee Patrick (probable): where we have to look and consider what everyone is telling us we can't say one voice is more

[1:35:28] Trustee Patrick (probable): important than another we have to listen and try to structure this bylaw to be successful

[1:35:33] Trustee Patrick (probable): there's other stages that has to go through beyond us the intent is that we're putting

[1:35:39] Trustee Patrick (probable): forward a bylaw that we stand behind and that it'll get passed by another body above us

[1:35:48] Trustee Patrick (probable): that we can put it in place so we were hearing some some things and it was are there ways we

[1:35:54] Trustee Patrick (probable): can address those issues relieve that fear that there will not be thousands of these units built

[1:36:00] Trustee Patrick (probable): I mean we have the data from all of Saanich Peninsula I think Victoria over two years built

[1:36:05] Trustee Patrick (probable): 24 units it's from

[1:36:06] Trustee Patrick (probable): the whole town of Victoria they're not getting built because they're so

[1:36:10] Trustee Patrick (probable): so expensive and the hoops that I think says John Cade said what are all those other bodies

[1:36:17] Trustee Patrick (probable): all we do is land use you need a building permit if you've got two connections on a well you need a

[1:36:22] Trustee Patrick (probable): management plan from the health department there's there's all these other things that you need to

[1:36:28] Trustee Patrick (probable): have in place to legally have a legal accessory dwelling on your property so that's an overwhelming

[1:36:36] Trustee Patrick (probable): overwhelming thing so we were just looking for were there things that we could do to weak the

[1:36:41] Trustee Patrick (probable): bylaw to make it more appealing or solve some of these concerns that people have to you know reduce

[1:36:51] Trustee Patrick (probable): that concern so that's what we had asked staff was is there something else we could do to calm

[1:36:57] Trustee Patrick (probable): the fears and allow us to move forward i'm

[1:37:02] Voice 3: going to go to the back here because

[1:37:06] Voice 6: I

[1:37:07] Voice 5: just don't get what ways do you say well it's not our fault that people are educated like

[1:37:13] Voice 5: like you know if they don't understand what's happening and they decided oh we let like

[1:37:19] Voice 5: seats happen and now it's going to be like 50,000 more seats and run out of water like

[1:37:27] Voice 5: is is the holdout that like we're like trying to get people that don't want to read to like

[1:37:34] Voice 5: understand what's going on like is that

[1:37:36] Voice 5: like

[1:37:37] Trustee Patrick (probable): understanding that like it seems like

[1:37:42] Trustee Patrick (probable): well we we thought we had a solution to that we added a two-year uh model we asked staff

[1:37:49] Trustee Patrick (probable): put in place a two-year monitoring uh process where we would review um in two years to say

[1:37:56] Trustee Patrick (probable): did something happen that we weren't expecting somehow everybody decided to build one of these

[1:38:01] Trustee Patrick (probable): things and it was a shock um you know so we did put that in place that that signaled that there's

[1:38:07] Trustee Patrick (probable): an opportunity that we could change things or correct the course of action in two years if

[1:38:13] Trustee Patrick (probable): something you know unexpected happened so we put that in place and that was still not enough like

[1:38:21] Voice 5: so then

[1:38:21] Voice 6: like at a certain point and you're not so like okay yeah i thought about 530 like we

[1:38:30] Voice 6: sorry you're

[1:38:30] Voice 5: worried sorry you have concerns for doing this you're like now that there's

[1:38:34] Voice 5: some concern plus let's choose this two-year thing that we put in now you know now that we've passed

[1:38:40] Voice 5: it if you're interested in learning about it here's some information you know that's the

[1:38:48] Voice 6: curse i would you know i feel that yes we could you know i definitely would feel confident in

[1:38:56] Voice 6: saying that. Let's pass it right now. I'm with

[1:39:02] Voice 1: you. More than confident.

[1:39:06] Voice 1: Okay. Yes, sir.

[1:39:08] Voice 6: Yeah, I kind of like to ask, how much do you care about re-election? Like, is that your

[1:39:15] Voice 6: priority? Like, there's a lot of people out there complaining that, oh, they're so scared

[1:39:20] Voice 6: that the bottom-up 530 is going to ruin the island. Meanwhile, we have cashiers and often

[1:39:26] Voice 6: the workers, the ferry workers, you can't find housing. And quite frankly, you cannot give them

[1:39:31] Voice 6: that hope. Like in my attempt to get more than myself and my partner companies, it is a scheme

[1:39:37] Voice 6: job. And everyone said, yeah, this stuff doesn't care about me. I want the right tax right there.

[1:39:42] Voice 6: I'm not like, hurry Brad, there's no point in you going. So I can advise the trust,

[1:39:48] Voice 6: do something unpopular. Tell these scared people who own property and want to pull out the bridge

[1:39:55] Voice 6: behind them to stop it and let's get some well-meaning spill so that the cashier at the

[1:40:04] Voice 6: country grocer isn't getting worried whether they're going to have housing that kind of my

[1:40:09] Voice 6: part of my self-growth point we currently live in the two separate time almost 10 minutes part

[1:40:14] Voice 6: we've done this for most of our relationship and and we'd like to move in together and that's

[1:40:19] Voice 6: That's almost impossible on this island, and you know, I love Sultana, I love my shop here,

[1:40:25] Voice 6: I love my community here, but if we could move in together any time, then good luck

[1:40:34] Voice 6: to my employer replacing me, there's not a lot of people with my skillset on the island.

[1:40:39] Voice 6: I do care about re-election, and you know, I cared greatly at the last election and ran

[1:40:46] Voice 6: with you know as a slave with someone else we had complete we were like-minded and it would be a

[1:40:54] Voice 6: different story if I was the one saying what you know I would say I mean right when I was first

[1:41:00] Voice 6: elected at our first meeting said let's pass bylaw 530 I would have been prepared then and I would

[1:41:04] Voice 6: have been ready to take the wrath and if some higher body said no I would have been well there

[1:41:08] Voice 6: they would have been the ones that are so I do care about re-election and so I would say in the

[1:41:13] Voice 6: next election including the housing task force vote for me and whoever i got sitting beside me

[1:41:22] Voice 3: okay uh there's a number of hands i'm going to go here

[1:41:25] Voice 6: and then come back over here thank you

[1:41:29] Voice 5: um so just briefly uh again what was the first nations group that was the 530 and what were

[1:41:37] Voice 5: i can

[1:41:40] Voice 6: speak to that well

[1:41:42] Voice 3: i i would say i mean there was a there was an article in the was it

[1:41:46] Voice 3: the globe and mail um talking about the seo first nation what's what this uh committee actually

[1:41:56] Voice 3: really needs to do is to is to get clear on specifics about those concerns so that we can

[1:42:03] Voice 3: see if we can address them and and the

[1:42:06] Voice 4: work of building the relationship so we can have

[1:42:10] Voice 4: those conversations is is something that's ongoing um and so i'm hoping i think we're all hoping that

[1:42:18] Voice 4: we can get that get to the point where we can have those conversations in a way that they're

[1:42:25] Voice 6: confident uh and and comfortable enough to share with us specific concerns because i'm not totally

[1:42:32] Voice 6: clear on the specifics okay i'll give you a quick follow-up and then i'm gonna come over here if

[1:42:38] Voice 5: you're not able to find out what the concerns are does this person should put in public power

[1:42:44] Voice 5: to table 530 yes

[1:42:52] Voice 6: um all

[1:42:53] Voice 6: right uh bryce i think and then mike well very good question um

[1:43:02] Voice 6: our trustees, in my opinion, have taken every step that they can to make sure that we

[1:43:07] Voice 6: appeal to everybody and done what needs to be done. I'm not, you know, I mean, I would like

[1:43:15] Voice 6: to see 530 voted on tomorrow, but if not, it'll happen this fall, I hope, because we see it as a

[1:43:23] Voice 6: very tiny first step. And right now, as the trustees can see, they're losing the confidence

[1:43:29] Voice 6: of the people on this island um two weeks ago i won't mention names but i spoke to a number of

[1:43:35] Voice 6: business people on the island that have in excess of 300 employees and they are pissed that things

[1:43:43] Voice 6: aren't happening my concern is if we can't pass 5 30 quickly then the citizens of this island are

[1:43:52] Voice 6: going to become much more negative much more angry and they're going to believe that nobody cares

[1:43:57] Voice 6: cares about them. Nobody worries about them at all. And then the problems for everybody

[1:44:03] Voice 6: behind the table are going to multiply. And then we're going to have things happening

[1:44:08] Voice 6: that shouldn't happen on a friendly, happy island. And you can't blame people when they're

[1:44:13] Voice 6: suffering. And they're saying, why can't this simply be voted on? Because again, we on the

[1:44:20] Voice 6: committee believe it's a very small, we intentionally tried to make it a very small first step.

[1:44:27] Voice 6: we intentionally tried to make sure we didn't have a devastating impact on the island and the

[1:44:33] Voice 6: research has been done that we don't expect it will but our belief as much as it's important to

[1:44:39] Voice 6: look for landlords for you know maybe another 50 60 70 suites which would certainly help it's

[1:44:46] Voice 6: important now prove to this community that we are going to move forward that we are going to solve

[1:44:52] Voice 6: on this problem

[1:44:52] Voice 3: then we can take a very well planned very teeny tiny

[1:44:59] Voice 6: simple proposal and we

[1:45:01] Voice 6: can vote on it because we have taken all the necessary steps um so again i only came here

[1:45:10] Voice 6: tonight to implore our trustees um because of my experience doing real estate all across canada

[1:45:18] Voice 6: and looking at lots of different jurisdictions lots of different councils lots of different

[1:45:22] Voice 6: things, that when you turn the corner to negativity, and the people don't believe

[1:45:33] Voice 6: that the government works for them, or never will, or they believe that outside interest can

[1:45:37] Voice 6: stop you any day of the week, and nobody will do anything about it, if they really start believing

[1:45:42] Voice 6: that, all of a sudden, people don't even consider coming here, and people say, yeah, no, I'm going

[1:45:47] Voice 6: going to leave I'm going to shut down I'm going to go someplace else again just yesterday I spoke

[1:45:52] Voice 3: with a car and on the island for 20 years he is moving because he can't get housing first he

[1:45:59] Voice 3: he said this is ridiculous I love this island but I have way more opportunity than I'm I don't want

[1:46:05] Voice 3: to leave the island but

[1:46:06] Voice 6: if my government is there as exact words if my government won't help us

[1:46:12] Voice 6: what option do I have? So I implore my trustees, please, as fast as it's conceivable for the staff

[1:46:22] Voice 6: to get the work done, let's pass 530 because it's a tiny little step. And that will start us off in

[1:46:28] Voice 6: the right direction. And it will start to tamp it down, the surge of anger that's happening on

[1:46:33] Voice 6: this island from the everyday people. Because if the everyday people don't see something happen

[1:46:38] Voice 6: pretty soon you won't even be able to communicate with them anymore and i truly believe that we've

[1:46:44] Voice 6: gone above and beyond trying to make sure that anybody that might be scared or nervous about

[1:46:49] Voice 6: this process um has been addressed i'm not truly worried about those who don't want to communicate

[1:46:57] Voice 6: those that just want to say it's guy's fault i expect if you're angry about something or scared

[1:47:02] Voice 6: about something you will take the time to actually understand those one-on-ones and my feeling is

[1:47:07] Voice 6: is that you won't even take the time

[1:47:09] Voice 6: to understand what's going on,

[1:47:12] Voice 6: then the trustees don't have to worry

[1:47:14] Voice 6: that much about your emotions

[1:47:17] Voice 6: because you don't seem to understand what we're doing.

[1:47:20] Voice 6: So again, I'm passionate about it

[1:47:23] Voice 6: because we've been working on this for a long time

[1:47:26] Voice 6: and we've reached the stage, I think,

[1:47:28] Voice 6: where we've done anything and everything

[1:47:31] Voice 6: that could be expected of good trust counsel.

[1:47:35] Voice 6: We've been way more than fair.

[1:47:38] Voice 6: But there is now the balance of the 97% of the community, not 90, 97% that voted in favor of this, and the 1.7% voted against.

[1:47:50] Voice 6: And most of the people that voted against didn't take the time to understand what anybody was even talking.

[1:47:57] Voice 6: So, thank you for letting me speak.

[1:48:00] Voice 6: Thank you, Mike.

[1:48:01] Voice 6: And then I'll try to be brief.

[1:48:04] Voice 6: I don't like taking up so much space.

[1:48:06] Voice 6: I'm speaking this time because I'm the person who has this information and the experience.

[1:48:14] Voice 6: I've worked with First Nations directly for over 10 years.

[1:48:18] Voice 6: I've been an advocate for protection of their lands, their culture,

[1:48:23] Voice 6: their freedom to evolve in whatever way they choose,

[1:48:27] Voice 6: mixing tradition with other modern situations.

[1:48:35] Voice 6: I have here on my phone some of the letters from the Trust's referral to First Nations

[1:48:43] Voice 6: about by-law 530.

[1:48:45] Voice 6: I read all of them.

[1:48:47] Voice 6: I don't believe it's accurate to say there are many First Nations in Poland.

[1:48:55] Voice 6: is there is there is there are a few that expressed uh concern about how they've been treated over

[1:49:03] Voice 6: time uh there was a sale which expressed opposition um i understood i think from the

[1:49:11] Voice 6: standpoint you're saying uh that this was a summer 2023 thing the sale letter i have here

[1:49:20] Voice 6: year is from august 2022. um and there is and so the wording in the letter is very similar

[1:49:30] Voice 6: to wording that has been made by non-native people on salt spring previously i have the

[1:49:37] Voice 6: letter of life's impersonation um from june 2022 this is there's no reason this should

[1:49:45] Voice 6: be stopping the process in july september of 2023. um license says things like and i can share this

[1:49:56] Voice 6: with any of you uh like instead of things like you know we don't like

[1:50:00] Voice 6: we don't like how you dealt with us or not dealt with us but hey if you're going to build

[1:50:07] Voice 6: build housing save some units for first nations um it's not like we absolutely will not accept

[1:50:15] Voice 6: So I'm very concerned about this story that's going out there that the Natives don't want.

[1:50:21] Voice 6: As I said, factually, there are four interpretations that have some interest in Salt Prairie.

[1:50:29] Voice 6: One of them is outright opposed. They have, it appears, been lobbied by non-Native interests.

[1:50:39] Voice 6: um the history of this country is full of natives being ignored and then used to suit whatever

[1:50:46] Voice 6: argument we want um but let's stop spreading this myth information and have there are real

[1:50:53] Voice 6: like living native people on the island it's not that hard in the provision of new housing to say

[1:51:00] Voice 6: hey yes you know what we heard you were going to set aside uh units but we can't we can't um

[1:51:06] Voice 6: We can't hide in fear because, oh my God, if we approve this, they're going to say we're

[1:51:11] Voice 6: racist or something.

[1:51:12] Voice 6: That is the oldest part, and it's not even true.

[1:51:17] Voice 6: If we really want to get into it, the bank account system and the way that governments

[1:51:23] Voice 6: have to work, as far as I understand, you have to talk to the bank accountants because

[1:51:28] Voice 6: that's the official governance.

[1:51:29] Voice 6: But these were created for the purposes of destroying First Nations along with the residential

[1:51:34] Voice 6: We have this thing called the Indian Act in Canada that's 150 years old.

[1:51:38] Voice 6: They're not Indians.

[1:51:41] Voice 6: Many communities that come from here,

[1:51:43] Voice 6: Gonzaga and Kahnawaka, Mohawk Territory, near Montreal,

[1:51:48] Voice 6: they have a traditional government, matriarchal government,

[1:51:52] Voice 6: which was basically overstepped by the band council

[1:51:57] Voice 6: because the band council is an instrument for Canada

[1:51:59] Voice 6: to do more of what it wants to do historically.

[1:52:01] Voice 6: So to say a sale of bound counts means the opinion of all Native people who ever had a concern or will ever have a concern about offspring is very, very, very far from the truth and very dangerous.

[1:52:16] Voice 6: So just to bring it all in, not hard in my mind, and I would imagine you would agree, the living, breathing Native people who live on offspring, let's say, hey, we really want you to be more involved.

[1:52:29] Voice 6: all, we realize we haven't been enough of a network, we can do this. And then the First

[1:52:33] Voice 6: Nations are going to talk, not only about the bad health of other people, because there

[1:52:38] Voice 6: are traditional governments in a lot of these communities, and we're going to communicate

[1:52:43] Voice 6: honestly with the public about this too. We were not told on the task force, again, these

[1:52:48] Voice 6: letters, I became aware of them months after. Yeah, so I'm very, very concerned about, you

[1:52:57] Voice 6: know and and i will not be the last thing i'll say is i will not be a part of oh it's you know

[1:53:02] Voice 6: the non-natives and the natives fighting over self-revealing because all these stories that

[1:53:06] Voice 6: are out there the global mail article didn't help uh it's it's uh really being hijacked and taken

[1:53:13] Voice 6: in the wrong direction it's not that hard to work together yeah thank you for the time yeah thank

[1:53:19] Voice 6: you trustee and then to address that um you know for anybody who doesn't realize it there is a

[1:53:26] Voice 6: society on salt spring island called the coast salish people of salt spring there's hundreds

[1:53:31] Voice 6: of first nations that live on salt spring some of these families have never left salt spring

[1:53:38] Voice 6: they've shown up to meetings and voiced opinions in favor of bylaw 530 these are people like

[1:53:48] Voice 6: everybody else they work and all kinds of trades and so it is unfair from what you're saying and

[1:53:58] Voice 6: and i really hope that again anybody who doesn't realize that we have first nations are right on

[1:54:02] Voice 6: salt spring and in favor of 530 and in favor of development and so on

[1:54:08] Voice 4: mr mr chair if i may

[1:54:11] Voice 4: i did want to clarify um they did say there were many stations closed um i want to really

[1:54:17] Voice 4: be clear here that they did have every intention of providing lpc with uh with when the report

[1:54:23] Voice 4: comes in october uh with a full

[1:54:24] Voice 4: background on our engagement with first nations to date on this um

[1:54:28] Voice 4: for your full awareness and disclosure um uh the job is correct um the the seo uh is the only

[1:54:36] Voice 4: nation we've been engaging with directly on this fund's uh proposal uh and uh working to address

[1:54:43] their concerns or

[1:54:44] Voice 4: at least find a way to respond to them so that's that's the response we hope to

[1:54:49] Voice 4: bring back in october in addition um as you note uh my action has asked a number of pointed

[1:54:55] Voice 4: questions um and um basically what i what i did observe is that about two or three of them

[1:55:02] Voice 4: and i'm just going to remember here um do either indicate um they mostly indicate um disinterest

[1:55:10] Voice 4: without uh while reserving the right comment later um there's a number of those as well so

[1:55:14] Voice 4: uh i just want to clarify i did not intend to misdirect anybody here uh there is you know

[1:55:19] Voice 4: when we do these first nation referrals um you know that's that's pretty much what we look at so

[1:55:26] Voice 4: i just want to be clear but if i misspoke earlier my apologies there uh there's one that has

[1:55:30] Voice 4: indicated direct opposition uh and one that has uh made any requests that i'm not sure have been

[1:55:35] Voice 4: addressed adequately at this point.

[1:55:39] Voice 4: Trustee Pappas?

[1:55:42] Trustee Patrick (probable): This is not

[1:55:43] Trustee Patrick (probable): a nations versus community

[1:55:45] Trustee Patrick (probable): issue, and it cannot be.

[1:55:47] Trustee Patrick (probable): Please do not make

[1:55:50] Trustee Patrick (probable): it this. It's a process

[1:55:52] Trustee Patrick (probable): problem.

[1:55:54] Trustee Patrick (probable): Our

[1:55:56] Trustee Patrick (probable): processes haven't kept up with

[1:55:58] Trustee Patrick (probable): the times. We're not even doing a good job

[1:56:00] Trustee Patrick (probable): engaging you. Never

[1:56:02] Trustee Patrick (probable): mind engaging with First Nations.

[1:56:04] Trustee Patrick (probable): um so we have work to do to improve that uh and that's you know we're going to build we're trying

[1:56:12] Trustee Patrick (probable): to build and do this work on top of a process that's not working you know so it's we've got

[1:56:18] Trustee Patrick (probable): we've got to fix some of this so that we can move on and do some more of the things that really will

[1:56:24] Trustee Patrick (probable): make a difference because we we all

[1:56:25] Voice 1: know there aren't

[1:56:26] Trustee Patrick (probable): going to be very many accessory dwelling

[1:56:28] Trustee Patrick (probable): and it's people are already living in them uh they're just illegal uh so this isn't going to

[1:56:35] Trustee Patrick (probable): suddenly change the the you know get everyone employed uh houses it's not going to get you

[1:56:40] Trustee Patrick (probable): together together um so uh let's get on to that and let's fix and understand the process of how

[1:56:49] Trustee Patrick (probable): do we engage all of you and how do we respectfully share the engagement back and forth i don't want

[1:56:56] Trustee Patrick (probable): to engage one party and engage another party it's a sharing it's a learning it's hearing from each

[1:57:01] Trustee Patrick (probable): other and we have to fix that process so that we can move on thank

[1:57:05] Voice 3: you uh trustee harris make it

[1:57:07] Voice 3: very quick

[1:57:08] Voice 6: um you know i feel that we were engaged with the community during the election and i think

[1:57:14] Voice 6: that once a person is elected into uh public office then we're you know we're in the position

[1:57:20] Voice 6: of being there to make decisions on behalf of the community not to speak to the community again and

[1:57:26] Voice 6: again and again that's funny bit of that okay um now we're almost at the end of the time i

[1:57:32] Voice 6: thought i promised you could speak and i'm going to let you speak and then we'll probably be pretty

[1:57:37] Voice 6: close to the end of our time okay so

[1:57:40] Voice 6: impersonations now i am impersonations um when i come from

[1:57:45] Voice 6: and I have an extensive family network who are, right, very, very into First Nations.

[1:57:56] Voice 6: And one of the problems that I find on Spring is there is this, I don't know what to call it,

[1:58:06] Voice 6: a liberal white guilt bias or something

[1:58:08] Voice 6: against our local First Nations

[1:58:13] Voice 6: as not really First Nations, not really Indian.

[1:58:18] Voice 6: And that is really a problem I've had to face.

[1:58:21] Voice 6: And then there's this,

[1:58:23] Voice 5: that same white liberal guilt bias

[1:58:25] Voice 5: where if someone, you know,

[1:58:28] Voice 5: the letter, for example, that all of a sudden,

[1:58:33] Voice 5: ooh, there's this mystique, ooh,

[1:58:36] Voice 6: with the First Nation people.

[1:58:38] Voice 6: Well, no, we're all, everyone deserves to be at the table,

[1:58:41] Voice 6: like Laurie said, and everyone can be slayed

[1:58:45] Voice 6: and in the wrong direction, and, you know,

[1:58:50] Voice 6: we're just all human, right?

[1:58:53] Voice 6: We all, you know, need to be respected in that way.

[1:58:59] Voice 6: And yes, First Nations have not been historically

[1:59:02] Voice 6: where we are and that needs to be corrected, but not corrected

[1:59:07] Voice 6: in a way where we will move about anything that we've said

[1:59:11] Voice 6: because they don't think that this is not enough because I

[1:59:18] Voice 6: mean, what I just told you by our local information is that,

[1:59:25] Voice 6: you know, the Islands Trust doesn't recognize them as

[1:59:30] Voice 6: as, of course, nations which have a voice.

[1:59:32] Voice 6: I think this is problematic.

[1:59:35] Voice 6: So just quickly on the issue of diversity,

[1:59:39] Voice 6: is that really what we're talking about

[1:59:42] Voice 6: on this second foundation is how do we have housing

[1:59:46] Voice 6: for the diversity of people here on this planet

[1:59:50] Voice 6: and how do we respect that diversity?

[1:59:54] Voice 6: There are a number and have been historically

[2:00:00] Voice 6: a number of extremely successful pilot projects,

[2:00:03] Voice 6: talent pilot projects, and .

[2:00:06] Voice 6: The problem is they've all been illegal, right?

[2:00:09] Voice 6: And when they've been found out about it,

[2:00:12] Voice 6: they have been just snatched by the bureaucracies.

[2:00:17] Voice 6: And some have just completely gone into hiding,

[2:00:21] Voice 5: go to talk to physicists.

[2:00:22] Voice 5: Now, the stuff, you know, with the issues,

[2:00:25] Voice 5: especially

[2:00:26] Voice 6: after all the stuff about

[2:00:27] Voice 6: housing, then came up with this toolkit, you know, this affordable housing toolkit, and

[2:00:35] Voice 6: that seems to me the really opposite way that we should be approaching it.

[2:00:41] Voice 6: Why are we not going to the super successful, wonderful, affordable housing pilot projects

[2:00:51] Voice 6: already on this island, and staff learning from them,

[2:00:56] Voice 6: figuring out how to make what they're doing

[2:01:00] Voice 6: really successfully legal, right?

[2:01:04] Voice 6: Engaging the knowledge base

[2:01:06] Voice 6: that so many affordable housing projects have had

[2:01:10] Voice 6: and continue to have on this island.

[2:01:14] Voice 5: I guess the other thing about going through this process

[2:01:19] Voice 5: where I have always been dedicated, and it has cost me dearly and put me into so

[2:01:26] Voice 6: much poverty and debt that it's unbelievable,

[2:01:29] Voice 6: but I have always been dedicated to doing things legally and trying to jump all the middle boots to do things.

[2:01:37] Voice 6: So in terms of the complexity, when I go to the trust office,

[2:01:43] Voice 6: I think, wonderful, wonderful, lovely work, right?

[2:01:48] Voice 6: The cost of me putting an education force to you guys,

[2:01:52] Voice 6: which would then have a couple people have to be a part of it,

[2:01:56] Voice 6: is $4,000.

[2:01:58] Voice 6: Well, I have spent the past five, six years

[2:02:01] Voice 6: being smashed into the ground economically, right,

[2:02:05] Voice 6: by enforcements.

[2:02:07] Voice 6: So now I'm in the state, right, and going forward,

[2:02:10] Voice 6: but I don't actually love an instrument for $40,000.

[2:02:15] Voice 6: Mine were just, I don't know if it's, you know,

[2:02:20] Voice 6: so I wouldn't say this is a point on it,

[2:02:22] Voice 6: but this is the experience that I know.

[2:02:26] Voice 6: So there's gotta be a way that it will come affordable

[2:02:30] Voice 6: for us to be legal, right?

[2:02:32] Voice 6: Because as it

[2:02:34] Voice 5: is right now,

[2:02:35] Voice 6: people aren't,

[2:02:40] Voice 6: right and

[2:02:41] Trustee Patrick (probable): and just like a

[2:02:43] Voice 6: contractor the contractor on the land works very high-end

[2:02:48] Voice 6: houses for people explains to me no you know i want those because it means i've been charged

[2:02:56] Voice 6: five hundred dollars to build right it's great but it's not good

[2:03:03] Voice 6: and i think you know people often look at things like that idea that it has to be on a transit line

[2:03:11] Voice 6: it wouldn't help anyone um on you know me or my things to be on a transit line right

[2:03:21] Voice 6: being

[2:03:21] Voice 5: on a transit line doesn't get me anywhere

[2:03:24] Voice 6: and being on a transit line doesn't help the

[2:03:27] Voice 6: A person who is currently a student of mine

[2:03:31] Voice 6: who spends all their time wirelessly doing things, right?

[2:03:35] Voice 6: They just need a good internet connection

[2:03:38] Voice 6: in front of their work.

[2:03:39] Voice 6: So this

[2:03:40] Voice 1: idea that

[2:03:41] Voice 6: having to have those units

[2:03:42] Voice 6: on the transit line,

[2:03:44] Voice 6: especially since after COVID,

[2:03:45] Voice 6: we had to spend so many people working from home,

[2:03:48] Voice 6: that's not really, there's other options.

[2:03:50] Voice 6: Car sharing, if we're in a group,

[2:03:53] Voice 6: people building on land,

[2:03:54] Voice 6: we can share a vehicle together.

[2:03:57] Voice 6: But the transit line thing is a little bit, you know,

[2:04:02] Voice 6: it's a bit of a detour.

[2:04:06] Voice 6: Okay, thank you.

[2:04:07] Voice 6: And I'm going to give you the final word here.

[2:04:10] Voice 6: Well, I'd like to start by thanking the staff

[2:04:13] Voice 6: and thanking the trustees for giving up their evening

[2:04:15] Voice 6: to come spend two hours having a bunch of angry people

[2:04:21] Voice 6: who give up their time to go around and be watching Netflix

[2:04:25] Voice 6: or communicating to families, so thank you for being here.

[2:04:28] Voice 6: and and i'd love to implore the trustings to pick out the pace to act a better word i understand i'm

[2:04:35] Voice 6: very engaged in engaging with politics assault now and i understand local politics are inflationally

[2:04:41] Voice 6: best but i i went to town hall in in july where trustee patrick said she wants to be first in

[2:04:49] Voice 6: people on salt spring island and he just needs to prove that and trump and garrett said that if we

[2:04:55] Voice 6: the left and him and Don are about things that are different and that he really supports all of

[2:05:00] Voice 6: these kinds of issues and I hope when I go to my third town hall, I'll have something new to say

[2:05:06] Voice 6: hopefully about something being done to move these things forward to move

[2:05:11] Voice 6: biothera forward to move something else forward because those about consult from Adam who make

[2:05:17] Voice 6: up your community of workers, your favorite bartender, the guy who always helps you with

[2:05:24] Voice 6: but we can't wait for the process we need housing not not today not yesterday but 20 years ago

[2:05:35] Voice 6: and if if these things don't happen if these things aren't put in place then your community

[2:05:41] Voice 6: will not be your favorite bartender or your favorite cashier it will be your favorite

[2:05:47] Voice 6: 10 000 square foot homeowner who's here two weeks out of the year

[2:05:51] Voice 6: and those those people i'm sorry they they don't make a community like those of us who were

[2:05:57] Voice 6: i was ready to vote on it right and i'm with you i'm fixing to maybe have to leave

[2:06:04] Voice 6: i'm in the same boat as you so i don't know what else i'm going to tell you i'll probably tell you

[2:06:09] Voice 6: the same thing both for me and don mark you can't vote for don for another three years no no but

[2:06:16] Voice 6: that's what should have happened so the question was asked don't jamie me the question was asked

[2:06:22] Voice 6: earlier to be fair what are you concerned about re-election and so i said yes and that's when

[2:06:27] Voice 6: i brought up don marcos but you know i'll leave it at that thank you yeah i just got

[2:06:33] Voice 6: one thing

[2:06:34] Voice 6: she wants to say i want to

[2:06:38] Trustee Patrick (probable): i want to thank you but we we have been busy staff have been busy

[2:06:42] Trustee Patrick (probable): we applied for the housing accelerator program which is a massive program that came available

[2:06:46] Trustee Patrick (probable): for the CMHC federal and staff put everything aside and went forward and got an application

[2:06:53] Trustee Patrick (probable): in for this community for that housing accelerator fund uh we're now waiting to see if we get some

[2:06:59] Trustee Patrick (probable): money but that's money to make some serious changes so we didn't leave that on the table

[2:07:04] Trustee Patrick (probable): and staff worked diligently to get that application in back in August so

[2:07:09] Voice 1: I

[2:07:10] Trustee Patrick (probable): know it's hard because

[2:07:11] Trustee Patrick (probable): you're not seeing anything done but they dedicated everything to get that done hey

[2:07:16] Voice 3: and i'd just like

[2:07:17] Voice 3: to uh as we conclude here i'd like to thank all of you for coming out and speaking to us

[2:07:22] Voice 6: um really

[2:07:25] Voice 6: important for your local

[2:07:26] Voice 3: trustees to hear from you it's really important for me as your your

[2:07:30] Voice 3: chair is living in this community here from you and and it's important for staff as well so i

[2:07:36] Voice 3: I really appreciate you guys taking time out of your lives to

[2:07:39] Voice 6: come and talk to us.

[2:07:43] Voice 6: Thank you very much.

[2:07:44] Voice 6: Thank you.

Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee Minutes ADOPTED 1 
September 13, 2023 
  
 
Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee 
Minutes of Special Meeting 
 
 
Date: Wednesday, September 13, 2023 
  
Location: Beaver Point Hall  
1361 Beaver Point Road, Salt Spring Island
 
  
 
Members Present: 
 
 
Timothy Peterson, Chair 
Jamie Harris, Local Trustee  
Laura Patrick, Local Trustee   
 
Staff Present: 
 
Chris Hutton, Regional Planning Manager (RPM) 
Rob Pingle, Legislative Clerk 
Sarah Shugar, Recorder 
 
Others Present: Approximately 12 members of the public 
These minutes follow the order of the agenda although the sequence may have varied. The electronic 
meeting was live streamed, recorded, and made available for electronic public attendance.  
1. CALL TO ORDER 
 
 Chair Peterson called the meeting to order at 5:00 p.m. He welcomed everyone to a meeting of the 
Salt  Spring  Island  Local  Trust  Committee and  introduced  himself,  the Trustees  and  staff. Chair 
Peterson humbly stated gratitude to live and work in Coast Salish First Nations territory. 
 
2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA 
 
By general consent, the agenda was adopted. 
 
3. TOWN HALL AND QUESTIONS 
 
Chair Peterson opened the town hall at 5:04 p.m. 
 
Housing Action Program Task Force Member Bryce Chapman requested the LTC to approve Bylaw 
530 as soon as possible and noted long time residents and business owners are leaving Salt Spring 
Island  due  to  the  lack  of  housing,  other jurisdictions are looking  for  options  to  improve  the 
affordable housing situation and the LTC needs to produce workforce and employee housing and 
support families. Mr. Chapman spoke to intergenerational living and mortgage helper scenarios as 
part of Bylaw 530 and that Bylaw 530 would have an estimated 10-15 percent uptake that may add 
50 to 60 units to the housing stock. Mr. Chapman advised Bylaw 530 is a small first step to address 
the housing crisis and noted 97 percent of the community voted in favour of Bylaw 530 in a Housing 
Action Program survey. 
 

 
 
Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee Minutes ADOPTED 2 
September 13, 2023 
  
A member of the public spoke to ongoing enforcement by Islands Trust bylaw enforcement for her 
business and rental units, that renting rooms is a necessary mortgage helper and asked why Bylaw 
Enforcement Manager Warren Dingman does not attend the LTC meetings. The member of the 
public reported her employees are being fined for cleaning Airbnb rentals and suggested an enquiry 
into the Islands Trust regarding bullying residents.  
 
Trustee Harris reported Trust Council is looking into bylaw enforcement concerns and it is a process 
that takes time. Trustee Harris expressed support for Bylaw 530 to be approved and for proactive 
enforcement of illegal housing to be stopped.  
 
Housing Action Program Task Force Member Maïkan Bordeleau expressed concern that the Housing 
Action Program Task Force was disbanded by the LTC and the work is incomplete, asked what is the 
vision for the Salt Spring Island community and expressed concern that Salt Spring Island could 
become a gated community model in the future. Mr. Bordeleau expressed support for Bylaw 530, 
and expressed concerns that non-First Nations people were lobbying First Nations to oppose Bylaw 
530. Mr. Bordeleau spoke to First Nations history and political system and encouraged Islands Trust 
to work together with First Nations. Mr. Bordeleau requested the LTC to direct the CRD to stop 
enforcement  of  tiny  homes, bylaw  enforcement  for  health  and  safety  reasons  is  a  loophole, 
conventional housing also has health and safety issues and added that small space living is a human 
right.   
 
Trustee Harris advised there are Coast Salish residents on Salt Spring Island that are in favour of 
Bylaw 530. 
 
Trustee Patrick advised CRD Director Paul Brent has been actively working on tiny home policy.  
 
A member of the public expressed concern that the term “Airbnb” is confusing as it is a brand, not a 
product  and  asked  if  there  are  statistics  on Airbnb impacts  to  long  term  rental  housing.  The 
member  of  the  public suggested the  LTC  make  a  statement  to  differentiate  between  legal and 
illegal bed and breakfast operations and provide a summary of what each government agency is 
responsible for on Salt Spring Island. The member of the public advised he looked into building an 
apartment block that would provide affordable housing in 1993 and regulations made it non-viable 
then.  The  member  of  the  public encouraged  the LTC  to  rezone  properties  within  the  Village  of 
Ganges to be zoned for duplexes, add regulations for provision of rental housing and advised a 5-
acre property adjacent to Brinkworthy Place that was previously zoned for mobile homes could 
potentially provide an ownership model of housing that is close to Ganges Village.  
 
A member of the public expressed support for the LTC and staff to be respectful of residents, for a 
balance  between  resident  and  visitor  accommodation  and  encouraged  the  LTC  to  look  at  the 
purpose of the law instead of the black letter of the law.  The member of the public spoke to bylaw 
enforcement  against her  property,  expressed  concern that  application  fees  are  a  barrier  for 
property  owners  and advised  that there  is  a  bias  against  local  First  Nation  residents  not  being 
recognized and consulted with. The member of the public added Salt Spring Island has a shortage of 
access to housing, there have been a number of pilot projects for affordable housing that have 
been negatively impacted by bylaw enforcement, suggested engaging the affordable housing pilot 
projects and added that the requirement to be on a public transit route is antiquated. 
 

 
 
Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee Minutes ADOPTED 3 
September 13, 2023 
  
A member of the public expressed support for Bylaw 530 to increase affordable rental housing, to 
consider alternatives such as tiny homes and to reconsider the current definition of density. The 
member of the public spoke to short-term vacation rentals driving up market housing prices, being 
profitable for some people as a passive income source, and added that Salt Spring Island is exempt 
from the BC Speculation and Vacancy tax. The member of the public expressed support for finding 
market solutions to support affordable housing and noted other jurisdictions such as Vancouver 
have increased zoning and have failed to provide affordable housing.  
 
Trustee Patrick reported the 2021 Statistics Canada census reported the following: 6281 dwellings 
on Salt Spring Island, 5195 dwellings occupied by residents and 2935 dwellings occupied by one 
person. The model of the single-family house is not working anymore. 
 
A member of the public requested the LTC to put a moratorium on enforcement of illegal housing 
and reported a friend hides from bylaw enforcement because the friend lives in a bus. The member 
of the public expressed support for Bylaw 530 and asked the LTC what has stopped Bylaw 530, and 
specifically, what were the First Nations concerns regarding Bylaw 530.  
 
RPM Hutton advised the LTC received referral responses from First Nations that expressed concern 
and there is a requirement for the LTC to address those concerns. Staff determined more time was 
necessary to present a report on options and it is best practice to receive the information prior to 
proceeding to a public hearing. RPM Hutton reported the Tsawout First Nation is the only First 
Nation to indicate direct opposition to Bylaw 530 and Lyackson First Nation indicated that they wish 
to  have  the  right  to  comment  in  the  future.  Staff  are  working  with  First  Nations  regarding  the 
referral responses and will provide a report on Bylaw 530 at the October 12, 2023 LTC meeting. 
 
Chair Peterson reported there was a Globe and Mail article that reported Tsawout First Nation’s 
opposition to Bylaw 530 and the LTC still needs to get clear on the their specific concerns. 
 
Trustee Harris reported his intention was to have Bylaw 530 receive first and second reading at the 
July 12, 2023 LTC meeting. 
 
Trustee Patrick advised the intent is that the LTC is approving a bylaw that we can stand behind and 
will be approved by Executive Committee. We needed to address the concerns that people have.  
Trustee  Patrick advised  Mayne  Island  Local  Trust  Committee has  addressed  density  by  setting 
maximum floor area by lot size and it is up to property owners how they want to use the square 
footage. 
 
Trustee Harris expressed support for added density in rural areas for workforce ownership housing 
projects that would be regulated by a Housing Authority such as housing projects in Whistler, BC. 
Trustee Harris advised he ran on a campaign with Donny Marcotte and added that Islands Trust was 
approached 20 years ago to provide affordable housing. Trustee Harris advised the LTC does not 
need to reinvent the wheel as there are workforce ownership housing models and Bylaw 530 is a 
start to address the situation.  
 
Trustee Patrick spoke to controlling the high end of market housing and protecting the lower end 
market  housing to  provide  for  the  community  and  spoke  to  her  vision for  a  healthy,  diverse 
community. The system and regulations are behind and it is frustrating. 
 

 
 
Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee Minutes ADOPTED 4 
September 13, 2023 
  
 
 
 
A member of the public asked at what point the LTC decides concerns regarding Bylaw 530 have 
been addressed. 
 
Trustee Patrick advised the LTC added a two-year review in Bylaw 530 to provide assurance that 
there is a mechanism to monitor how many housing units are added. 
 
A member of the public asked if re-election is a concern and suggested the LTC acknowledge the 
people who oppose Bylaw 530 and do everything to keep Salt Spring Island the same, and proceed 
with Bylaw 530. The member of the public advised he and his partner live in separate tiny homes 
and would like to live together, families and workers cannot find housing, people cannot wait for 
housing and are leaving the island. The member of the public thanked the LTC and staff for giving 
their  time  to  an  evening  meeting  to  engage  with  residents and requested the  LTC  to  make  a 
decision to approve Bylaw 530 at the next meeting.  
 
Trustee Patrick spoke to engagement process in decision-making. 
 
Trustee Harris advised Trustees engaged with the community during the election and once Trustees 
are elected, it is time to make decisions. 
 
Trustee Harris left the meeting at 7:06 p.m.  
 
Trustee Patrick  reported  staff  worked  diligently  to  submit  the Canada  Mortgage  and  Housing 
Corporation (CMHC) Housing Accelerator Fund application. 
 
Chair Peterson thanked everyone for attending the meeting. 
 
4. ADJOURNMENT 
 
 By general consent the meeting adjourned at 7:08 p.m. 
 
 
 
_________________________ 
Timothy Peterson, Chair 
 
CERTIFIED CORRECT: 
 
 
_________________________ 
Sarah Shugar, Recorder