Islands Trust Regional Planning Committee special meeting, April 25, 2024

[0:00:00] Voice 2: All right. We are recording and we are live streaming.

[0:00:09] Trustee Patrick: All right, then. There's all trustees ready to fire up and go.

[0:00:14] Trustee Patrick: Not seeing any objections. All right.

[0:00:18] Trustee Patrick: I'm Laura Patrick, chair of this committee,

[0:00:23] Trustee Patrick: and coming to you as a local trustee on Salt Spring Island.

[0:00:29] Trustee Patrick: I'm going to call this meeting to order.

[0:00:31] Trustee Patrick: Where I do, always honored and grateful to be coming to you today.

[0:00:35] Trustee Patrick: from the Sinchothin and Hohkaminim-speaking people's territories here on Salt Spring.

[0:00:43] Trustee Patrick: Reconciliation with First Nations is a journey of learning and building relationships,

[0:00:48] Trustee Patrick: and I'm really grateful to be participating in the culturally committed group that we have available to us.

[0:00:56] Trustee Patrick: It is a deeply rich and connecting experience.

[0:01:00] Trustee Patrick: At last week's AVICC, we heard from many First Nation leaders and Chief John Jack, among them, whose words always, he speaks softly, but his words are strong and impactful.

[0:01:20] Trustee Patrick: And, excuse me, it's really amazing to see the Alberni-Clayquot Regional District, they're really leaders in demonstrating shared decision making and watching them, hearing them, the experience as it goes along, it's uplifting, inspirational, gives us something that we're working toward ourselves.

[0:01:44] Trustee Patrick: themselves. So today, this is a special meeting. We have an agenda before us. I'll do introductions

[0:01:52] Trustee Patrick: in a moment. Are there any additions or changes to the agenda? Excellent. We'll remain focused

[0:02:01] Trustee Patrick: because this is a big enough topic and the reason why we called this special meeting today so that

[0:02:04] Trustee Patrick: we remain focused. So with that, can I have general consent? We can approve the agenda?

[0:02:11] Trustee Patrick: Excellent. So with that, I'd like to go around and do introductions. And I would like you,

[0:02:15] Trustee Patrick: You are the members of the committee themselves to do that.

[0:02:18] Trustee Patrick: I'm going to go off the list I have here.

[0:02:20] Trustee Patrick: At the top, I have Trustee Boland.

[0:02:24] Voice 7: Good morning.

[0:02:25] Voice 7: I am speaking to you from Saterna Island,

[0:02:29] Voice 7: and I'm one of the two representatives for Saterna Island.

[0:02:33] Voice 7: Thank you.

[0:02:35] Voice 7: Trustee Borthwick.

[0:02:40] Voice 10: Good morning.

[0:02:40] Voice 10: Yes, I'm Sam Borthwick,

[0:02:43] Voice 10: trustee for Denman Island, vice chair of this committee,

[0:02:46] Voice 10: and very pleased to be speaking from

[0:02:50] Voice 10: Tosteak, Denman Island, Comox, First Nations

[0:02:56] Voice 10: and many other nations.

[0:02:59] Voice 10: And yeah, I would echo a little bit

[0:03:00] Voice 10: what Trustee Patrick was saying.

[0:03:02] Voice 10: In addition, the culturally committed workshops

[0:03:05] Voice 10: are really valuable.

[0:03:06] Voice 10: I really enjoyed getting to participate in one last week.

[0:03:12] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Campbell.

[0:03:15] Voice 9: Aaron Campbell of North Pender Island.

[0:03:19] Trustee Patrick: And Trustee Graham.

[0:03:22] Voice 6: Good morning from Denman Island, traditional territory of the Comox.

[0:03:26] Voice 6: I'm a locally elected trustee.

[0:03:29] Voice 6: Trustee Laroni.

[0:03:31] Voice 4: I'm Mikayla Laroni from Hoyate, Laskini Island.

[0:03:34] Voice 4: I am in rather rainy Vancouver this morning,

[0:03:37] Voice 4: and I'm still trying to figure out exactly which land acknowledgements I need to use for here.

[0:03:44] Voice 4: A lot of people with, what do you call it, interests.

[0:03:48] Trustee Patrick: Thank you very much.

[0:03:50] Trustee Patrick: Did I miss any of the trustees?

[0:03:52] Trustee Patrick: I don't believe so.

[0:03:53] Trustee Patrick: going to turn to Director Cermak to introduce himself and the staff that are joining us today.

[0:03:59] Voice 5: Good morning everybody. It's a pleasure to see you all on this pleasantly rainy day.

[0:04:03] Voice 5: I am Stefan Cermak. I'm the Director of Planning Services and I've come to you from Salt Spring

[0:04:10] Voice 5: Island. I believe Trustee Patrick called it the UN of First Nations, the intersection of 13 First

[0:04:16] Voice 5: Nations interests and territories. I'll turn it to Robert to introduce himself and pass the

[0:04:21] Voice 5: the introduction torch thanks

[0:04:24] Voice 12: stefan i'm robert kojima regional planning manager for the southern

[0:04:28] Voice 12: region i'm in victoria today we're

[0:04:37] Trustee Patrick: to anthony morning

[0:04:39] Voice 1: everyone my name is anthony fatino i am a

[0:04:41] Voice 1: um i guess rpc planner now i was a island planner but uh i've recently joined this team and uh i'm

[0:04:51] Voice 1: coming today from Victoria as well right

[0:04:56] Trustee Patrick: and um this is Rob is this Rob that's helping us

[0:05:01] Trustee Patrick: yes

[0:05:01] Voice 2: good morning all Rob Croker here I'm planning services admin assistant and here in support of

[0:05:06] Voice 2: the committee on the technical side uh to do some minutes as well join you from the territory of the

[0:05:12] Voice 2: Lekwungen speaking peoples Songhees and Esquimalt and I'm very humbly uh honored to to be here

[0:05:18] Voice 2: excellent

[0:05:20] Trustee Patrick: well welcome I'm grateful I think this committee is the best uh staff supported

[0:05:24] Trustee Patrick: committee at the Islands Trust. Frankly, I think it's the best committee at the Islands Trust, but

[0:05:33] Trustee Patrick: that's good. All right. Well, today we have really one business item. That's 5.1. That's the

[0:05:41] Trustee Patrick: Annex of the Governance Review Report. And with that, I'm going to turn that over to

[0:05:48] Trustee Patrick: Director Cermak to introduce this.

[0:05:51] Voice 5: I'm in turn going to give it over to Robert Kojima,

[0:05:54] Voice 5: Emma, who has been spearheading the whole project, working in harmony with Anthony.

[0:05:58] Voice 5: Or pardon me, sorry, I'm reading about bylaw enforcement on the side.

[0:06:02] Voice 5: I'm thieving my time.

[0:06:03] Voice 5: I'm sorry.

[0:06:04] Voice 5: Over to Robert.

[0:06:06] Voice 5: Thanks, Stephan.

[0:06:07] Voice 12: Yeah, so I'll be brief.

[0:06:09] Voice 12: I'll just go over the briefing and then turn it back over to the committee to have discussion, questions, deliberation.

[0:06:17] Voice 12: But in summary, the governance review, as I'm sure you know, was completed in early 2022.

[0:06:24] Voice 12: And it included a review of planning services, and the review of planning services was in a separate document in the governance review, referred to as Annex 1.

[0:06:35] Voice 12: Annex 1 had a number of recommendations, and the consultant who did the review of planning services had a number of recommendations.

[0:06:47] Voice 12: He was a retired planner director who worked in various local governments.

[0:06:54] Voice 12: With the governance review in general, there's no specific direction from Trust Council, and specifically with Annex 1, there was no specific direction.

[0:07:01] Voice 12: However, staff, we've compiled the recommendations, pulled the recommendations out of Annex 1, put them in the table that's attached in the agenda today, and provided some comments and updates on each of those recommendations.

[0:07:16] Voice 12: It's been presented to RPC as a briefing.

[0:07:19] Voice 12: briefing, generally sort of under the understanding that RPC's Terms of Reference includes providing

[0:07:27] Voice 12: advice on the provision and allocation of resources, specifically planning resources.

[0:07:34] Voice 12: So RPC saw this briefing initially last year, April 2023, it was on an agenda, it's been

[0:07:41] Voice 12: deferred and as a consequence holding a special meeting to review it, made some minor updates

[0:07:48] Voice 12: to some of the wording since the first version was done last year.

[0:07:55] Voice 12: Just in summary, many of the recommendations

[0:07:59] Voice 12: had been already identified as actions,

[0:08:02] Voice 12: either specifically or sort of under, you know, more generally,

[0:08:06] Voice 12: in the 2018 review of planning services

[0:08:09] Voice 12: that was conducted over several years.

[0:08:15] Voice 12: and in terms of the status of the various recommendations you know we've noted we think

[0:08:21] Voice 12: the status of them are and then some of them that remain unimplemented they tend to be either

[0:08:27] Voice 12: longer term initiatives or they need political direction in some cases or you know there's a

[0:08:35] Voice 12: couple that just aren't considered practical or feasible so i'll leave it at that and i'll turn

[0:08:41] Voice 12: turn it back over to chair Patrick.

[0:08:44] Trustee Patrick: Thank you very much, Robert.

[0:08:46] Trustee Patrick: I did not have time to go back,

[0:08:48] Trustee Patrick: but I thought there was a motion

[0:08:49] Trustee Patrick: from the governance committee asking this committee

[0:08:52] Trustee Patrick: to focus on annex one,

[0:08:54] Trustee Patrick: because the governance committee is responsible

[0:08:55] Trustee Patrick: for working on the recommendations.

[0:08:58] Trustee Patrick: But I know I'm on the governance committee

[0:09:01] Trustee Patrick: and I was pursuing that this annex be turned over

[0:09:06] Trustee Patrick: to this committee for feedback on.

[0:09:09] Trustee Patrick: So I think trust counsel is waiting to hear from us is my understanding of how I look at it on this annex.

[0:09:16] Trustee Patrick: And certainly I've been reporting it that way to the governance committee in my role as sitting on that committee.

[0:09:22] Trustee Patrick: So with that before us, and I think I appreciate staff have prepared this table, which is annex one.

[0:09:27] Trustee Patrick: one, but there's also the report, the entire report from the Governance Committee, as well

[0:09:36] Trustee Patrick: as this annex that was prepared by Eric Vance, which I do know is one of, he has done this work

[0:09:43] Trustee Patrick: for many municipalities in the province of reviewing their programs, and he is well respected

[0:09:50] Trustee Patrick: in the work that he does. We're fortunate that he had his eyes on this, but he also buries comments

[0:09:56] Trustee Patrick: in the text of the report that are not just recommendations.

[0:09:59] Trustee Patrick: So today I'd like to make sure

[0:10:01] Trustee Patrick: that we are considering the full annex

[0:10:04] Trustee Patrick: and in relationship to this table.

[0:10:07] Trustee Patrick: So trustees, I think we should just walk through the annex

[0:10:10] Trustee Patrick: sort of each section, each and the following recommendations

[0:10:14] Trustee Patrick: as we go through that, does that make sense to everyone?

[0:10:19] Trustee Patrick: Excellent, so you're gonna kind of have to bounce back

[0:10:22] Trustee Patrick: and forth between the table, I know I printed mine out.

[0:10:27] Trustee Patrick: that's how it goes so the very first section or the beginning of the report kind of has a dump

[0:10:33] Trustee Patrick: jumps right into it um and um and then starts with the section a which is bylaws um are there

[0:10:47] Trustee Patrick: any questions on this very introductory piece or uh i've just jumped through i'm on page nine of

[0:10:53] Trustee Patrick: the report there um no questions i i know i do have one myself i know i've asked before but uh

[0:11:08] Trustee Patrick: there there was that specific when when we did receive the grant um to update the development

[0:11:15] Trustee Patrick: application services that 50 000 of that budget was put aside for improving the efficiency and

[0:11:23] Trustee Patrick: streamlining the processing times and i know that's been competed and we're going to have a

[0:11:28] Trustee Patrick: open see what's coming in this uh the new program here but i'm wondering if someone can talk about

[0:11:36] Trustee Patrick: how that element is going to look or what was done to sort of streamline and process times

[0:11:45] Voice 5: sure i'll start with that and i'll encourage any other staff to jump in so that was focused on

[0:11:53] Voice 5: When we did a review of our processes in CityView, each process was detailed, evaluated, and what's the word I'm looking for?

[0:12:06] Voice 5: We structured the flow of each process, and then we looked for efficiencies, how to make it simpler and simplify that.

[0:12:17] Voice 5: Such that we, you know, Robert actually was heavily involved in that because he has such an

[0:12:22] Voice 5: elegant mind in terms of making things efficient. And so we, yeah, so what we did is we reviewed the,

[0:12:29] Voice 5: I can't remember the exact term, the workflow, the work structure, the, we had a very complicated

[0:12:35] Voice 5: diagram of how everything works. It was just insane. But then we systematically went through

[0:12:41] Voice 5: every single step and we looked for ways to make it easier and so that took a lot of effort I think

[0:12:47] Voice 5: we spent well almost over a year looking at that we did a lot of pre-work and then it kind of sat

[0:12:51] Voice 5: for a while we had to pick up again and anywhere that we could find as a group working with CityView

[0:12:57] Voice 5: through that process we were trying to achieve that deliverable such that we exhausted all

[0:13:03] Voice 5: applications processes that go through CityView so that's the very high level perhaps there's

[0:13:08] Voice 5: more that somebody maybe robert would like to contribute or i see may rate has a question

[0:13:13] Voice 5: pardon me trustee bolland

[0:13:15] Voice 7: oh that's right trustee bolland that's fine you can call me if you can

[0:13:21] Voice 7: pronounce my first name this

[0:13:23] Voice 5: rhymes with parade that's what you always said so it's easy to

[0:13:26] Voice 5: remember yeah

[0:13:27] Voice 7: so um yeah i would be really interested in seeing what was achieved because

[0:13:32] Voice 7: fifty thousand dollars is quite a lot of money and i i'm glad you know it's gone into the pockets

[0:13:37] Voice 7: it's a city view in whose interests you know it's it's in their interest to to make it all work but

[0:13:44] Voice 7: i would be really interested in seeing whether they just implemented exactly what you had

[0:13:50] Voice 7: or whether there were actually improvements and streamlining you know

[0:13:55] Voice 7: um because you know

[0:13:57] Voice 7: to some degree they just take whatever you've got and gone go sure but i would really like to see

[0:14:04] Voice 7: to see what was achieved by that $50,000.

[0:14:08] Voice 5: Thank you.

[0:14:09] Voice 5: If I may, through the Chair, I'm not sure we could do that without doing some serious

[0:14:12] Voice 5: backcasting.

[0:14:13] Voice 5: It'd be hard to tease out of a $500,000-type project or $400,000 project what the $50,000

[0:14:21] Voice 5: aspect of it.

[0:14:22] Voice 5: So I'm not sure I could honour that request.

[0:14:25] Voice 5: However, I mean, I could demonstrate some of the work that we've done to do it, but

[0:14:30] Voice 5: that but i mean that might be a pointless exercise to some degree because explaining that would be a

[0:14:36] Voice 5: very cumbersome and tedious process because the flow charts were on essentially one massive

[0:14:43] Voice 5: if you can imagine a giant white board and then us and create like a circuit board of connections

[0:14:50] Voice 5: you know the logic diagram

[0:14:52] Voice 3: yeah

[0:14:53] Voice 5: and then but doing that for all the applications and then

[0:14:56] Voice 5: And systematically going through each line and how it connects to each process and where can we cut out a process and where can we, like the movement of all those flows were exhaustive.

[0:15:08] Voice 5: And so that's where the $50,000 was spent in time doing that.

[0:15:14] Voice 5: Do

[0:15:15] Voice 7: you have, like in here, there are estimates of the time taken for a variety of things.

[0:15:22] Voice 7: and if they were like a benchmark before city view will you be

[0:15:27] Voice 7: able to do review the same

[0:15:31] Voice 7: type of numbers and provide you know an estimate of improvement achieved through the city view

[0:15:38] Voice 7: implementation because it has taken multiple years and a lot of money and i would like to feel that

[0:15:45] Voice 7: it's kind of delivering so we can move on from this conversation now but i would love to see a

[0:15:51] Voice 7: a demo and I would love to see some sort of numbers on what's being achieved relative to

[0:15:57] Voice 7: what was estimated during this review. That's fine for the moment.

[0:16:01] Voice 5: I'll just put a bow on that

[0:16:03] Voice 5: perhaps for you Myriad and that is that I already have that direction from Trust Council or Planning

[0:16:08] Voice 5: Services does from Trust Council to report back on application processing timed as much as possible

[0:16:16] Voice 5: And I committed to coming back in September to Trust Council to report about how much time we're spending in current planning, because we did a year and a half, or maybe Robert will remember, maybe it was almost two years of tracking each individual application in order to get the most accurate average of time spent processing each application so we could create a fee that's relevant and up to date.

[0:16:39] Voice 5: so that was done but then we extinguished that specific specificity per application and glommed

[0:16:47] Voice 5: it into current planning so we can divide current planning versus and so i can report out on that

[0:16:52] Voice 5: but then to open it up and get better reporting per application to answer your question

[0:16:58] Voice 5: is going to take a little bit of maneuvering and timing do i think we can do it i think we could

[0:17:03] Voice 5: but then i think it will take another year to two years of of monitoring that time right because we

[0:17:09] Voice 5: have to like you can't just you have to

[0:17:11] Voice 5: have the applications the new applications go through the

[0:17:13] Voice 5: system which take a year in a bed so um i think there's i'm seeing momentum and desire of trust

[0:17:19] Voice 5: council to do that and i'm i'm sort of anticipating that ask we haven't set up the time collection to

[0:17:25] Voice 5: do so yet so it's not quite the same it's unfortunate that our time collection uh doesn't

[0:17:33] Voice 5: match like they're different software and so the more we keep track the more we're just doing

[0:17:37] Voice 5: administrative work and not the actual planning work so there's a bit

[0:17:41] Voice 5: of attention there and

[0:17:42] Voice 5: inability but point is uh we can do it if trust council wants us to do it it would just take time

[0:17:48] Voice 5: to get the answer of comparison it would take okay it

[0:17:51] Voice 5: would take me a year and a half to two years to

[0:17:52] Voice 5: actually give you a satisfying answer that's

[0:17:54] Voice 7: fine let's just have a demo at some stage and then

[0:17:57] Voice 7: figure out what to do next thanks understood no

[0:18:00] Trustee Patrick: thank you i think we're all looking forward to

[0:18:02] Trustee Patrick: to seeing this new software do its stuff

[0:18:04] Trustee Patrick: in hopefully the near future.

[0:18:07] Trustee Patrick: All right, let's move on to the,

[0:18:09] Trustee Patrick: I believe the recommendations of the OCP,

[0:18:17] Trustee Patrick: but there is one set right above

[0:18:19] Trustee Patrick: where the recommendations start in the report.

[0:18:21] Trustee Patrick: It talks about where OCP processes get typically bogged down

[0:18:27] Trustee Patrick: on public understanding.

[0:18:29] Trustee Patrick: And I just want to bring trustees to,

[0:18:31] Trustee Patrick: I think the Salt Spring staff are finding out having the chair of the regional planning committee on the local trust committee.

[0:18:39] Trustee Patrick: I've been we've been working hard on setting up the OCP project that's occurring on Salt Spring and staff have prepared a really good what they're calling terms of reference I would call it work plan but it's the same thing on.

[0:18:52] Trustee Patrick: and I think it's a lot of detail and something you should be looking at and see what

[0:18:59] Trustee Patrick: is being done there because I think it's setting a standard that others can

[0:19:02] Trustee Patrick: learn from as well as we're adopting equitable based public engagement

[0:19:09] Trustee Patrick: so exciting things okay into the recommendations do we want to just call out any questions that

[0:19:16] Trustee Patrick: we have on them and to move along I guess I'll just start off the top are there any

[0:19:21] Trustee Patrick: Any questions on item one?

[0:19:28] Voice 3: Not so, please wait.

[0:19:30] Trustee Patrick: Go ahead.

[0:19:34] Voice 7: So this applies to many of the categories.

[0:19:40] Voice 7: I would love to see, and I see it's sort of partially in the housing toolkit.

[0:19:45] Voice 7: You guys probably have it.

[0:19:47] Voice 7: A table, a matrix that says island by island, here's a link to the OCP, here's a link to the LUBs, how many there are.

[0:19:55] Voice 7: These are the bylaws for enforcement. This is the administrative bylaw, just because the way information is presented to us is presented in a tunnel fashion.

[0:20:08] Voice 7: You know, you belong to Saterna. You know, go here. You will find everything to do with Saterna.

[0:20:14] Voice 7: As a regional planning committee, we need to have a better overview.

[0:20:18] Voice 7: you and you know I went back to the housing toolkit and I know that I think Jason did a

[0:20:24] Voice 7: report which was the start of that and he went through all these OCPs and LUBs but you have to

[0:20:31] Voice 7: go again paragraph by paragraph by paragraph I would love to see a matrix I would like to see

[0:20:39] Voice 7: because when they talk about how many OCPs there are more than there are LTAs I kind of think okay

[0:20:47] Voice 7: OK, how does that make sense? And then the other one is I would like to see in the same table

[0:20:53] Voice 7: the standard templates that you say are either in use, available or in progress, the one for

[0:21:01] Voice 7: an ideal OCP, an ideal LUB and the staff report, I believe. I think access to those

[0:21:09] Voice 7: in a library matrix format would really help everybody understand what we're dealing with.

[0:21:17] Voice 7: Thanks. Thank

[0:21:20] Trustee Patrick: you, Trustee Boland, again, trying to get us to have good information at our

[0:21:24] Trustee Patrick: fingertips. Trustee Borthwick.

[0:21:27] Voice 10: Yeah, and this is sort of, since I first became trustee, I've been,

[0:21:34] Voice 10: you know, I've been aware of this sort of question, and I've been curious the sort of

[0:21:40] Voice 10: data organization side of my brain, you know, would love to do, you know, sit down with a bunch

[0:21:47] Voice 10: of these OCPs and try and tease out, okay, well, where's the language that refers to each component

[0:21:51] Voice 10: and how can we compare and contrast these? Who's got better language? Who's got worse language?

[0:21:56] Voice 10: Whatever else. I absolutely don't have the time to do that, unfortunately. But, and I know it's

[0:22:03] Voice 10: a significant time thing. And I, you know, I know that this is something that the planning staff are

[0:22:08] Voice 10: very intimately aware of. One of the things that I think is important as we sort of move forward

[0:22:16] Voice 10: in trying to homogenize the way that these OCPs are presented is it's still really important that

[0:22:25] Voice 10: the language reflects the community and flows from community. I've had a couple of sort of

[0:22:33] Voice 10: interactions meetings with with regional district staff recently and and sort of talking about the

[0:22:39] Voice 10: different communities in the Comox Valley uh and and you know it's it's really been sort of hitting

[0:22:45] Voice 10: home for me that the OCPs really are a very important foundational document in this and

[0:22:50] Voice 10: it's important that they are able to still be individual now that doesn't mean that they don't

[0:22:54] Voice 10: have to be organized in a way that is easier to parse for staff and easier to do the compare and

[0:23:00] Voice 10: contrast um and while i understand it would be really valuable to have the language be

[0:23:06] Voice 10: consistent uh entirely consistent all the way across i also worry uh

[0:23:13] Voice 10: that in so doing we we risk um something being lost in translation misinterpretation by our

[0:23:22] Voice 10: communities um and and i think uh i think it's going to be really important to make sure that

[0:23:28] Voice 10: we can maintain some of the individuality of the islands in in how the ocps are formatted

[0:23:34] Voice 10: in particular um uh yeah land use bylaw i think i'm less less particular about in that regard but

[0:23:42] Voice 10: but but certainly the ocps need to retain some individuality even if they could be better

[0:23:47] Voice 10: organized thank

[0:23:50] Trustee Patrick: you trustee graham thank

[0:23:53] Voice 6: you trustee borthwick i just want to uh congratulate

[0:23:57] Voice 6: you for really hitting the nail on the head on that one i appreciate from a management perspective

[0:24:03] Voice 6: it's nice to have everything homogenous the same easy to do this easy to that but these bylaws are

[0:24:08] Voice 6: are the communities that they're rooted in that's their bylaws and they need to take ownership and

[0:24:14] Voice 6: it's so important that that as you say the official community plan the aspirational bylaw that really

[0:24:20] Voice 6: directs uh future growth government restriction of growth whatever that island wants within the

[0:24:26] Voice 6: mandate of the trust, reflects the wishes of the people. So let's not forget that. This rush to

[0:24:33] Voice 6: making the machine work faster and more efficiently, it should not be at the cost of

[0:24:41] Voice 6: the individuality of each island.

[0:24:46] Trustee Patrick: Thank you, Trustee Graham. Trustee Elliott.

[0:24:52] Voice 13: Thank you. And sorry, I'm late, everybody. Yeah, just wanted to reflect after your comments,

[0:24:59] Voice 13: that's Trustees Graham and Borthwick,

[0:25:02] Voice 13: something that's been occurring to me

[0:25:04] Voice 13: is that the big drivers that need to be homogenous

[0:25:09] Voice 13: should be things like addressing climate change

[0:25:12] Voice 13: and First Nations reconciliation

[0:25:15] Voice 13: and what might that look like in the Islands Trust area.

[0:25:17] Voice 13: So these bigger collective pieces

[0:25:19] Voice 13: that will hopefully be driven by the policy statement,

[0:25:23] Voice 13: but then the unique amenities,

[0:25:26] Voice 13: and I think this is something Director Cermak

[0:25:28] Voice 13: You mentioned to me early in the term, the way that each community defines unique amenities might be how that's reflected in their OCPs. So the ways that the values and the unique heritage and history and the development patterns of each community can be reflected in their OCPs and may be addressed in this tricky question of what defines unique amenities in the Islands Trust area.

[0:25:57] Voice 13: So, yeah, that's just something I've been reflecting on. I don't know if it's useful here, but I'm not supportive of homogenizing OCPs. I think the place where we can find the most common ground is in the policy statement amendment, which is coming.

[0:26:16] Voice 13: coming. And then in our OCPs, they need to reflect sort of the, well, the growth and mitigation

[0:26:22] Voice 13: strategies that we need to do to, to address unhealthy or unwanted forms of growth. So

[0:26:30] Voice 13: just some reflections on that. Thanks, everybody. Sorry to jump in late.

[0:26:33] Trustee Patrick: No, that's all right. Welcome. Trustee Borkwick.

[0:26:38] Voice 10: Yeah, and I think, I suspect, I want to sort of preface this, I think I'm kind of cutting from

[0:26:42] Voice 10: from a similar direction as you trustee Elliot on this.

[0:26:47] Voice 10: And I agree in terms of it's important to make sure

[0:26:53] Voice 10: that those very core goals

[0:26:59] Voice 10: of being climate change conscious

[0:27:03] Voice 10: and working with reconciliation are built into this,

[0:27:11] Voice 10: this this you know or that that that lens is being applied um i would say that i think especially

[0:27:17] Voice 10: with regards to reconciliation um that the individuality of communities uh and their

[0:27:27] Voice 10: relationship their individual relationship one on you know one-on-one one-on-13 relationships with

[0:27:33] Voice 10: the first nations are especially a place where things should be able to be individual and

[0:27:41] Voice 10: bespoke because those relationships are unique um and so it's we can't there isn't a there isn't a

[0:27:49] Voice 10: regional brush with which we can paint reconciliation we need to make sure that

[0:27:52] Voice 10: we're doing that respectfully and one one-on-one um with with our our partners um and yeah i think

[0:27:59] Voice 10: i think you know i think that's what you were coming at too but i just want to make sure that

[0:28:02] Voice 10: that sort of concept was captured no

[0:28:06] Trustee Patrick: thank thank you very much i think i think where the opportunities

[0:28:09] Trustee Patrick: communities lie from this committee's perspective is, what is an OCP? What's the level of the

[0:28:17] Trustee Patrick: policies that are in an OCP? So I think there's some communities look at the OCP as a regulatory

[0:28:23] Trustee Patrick: tool and try to make it regulatory. And I think that's where we should be playing a role is that

[0:28:29] Trustee Patrick: it is an official community plan. It is that next step down from the trust policy statements and

[0:28:35] Trustee Patrick: and that they're policies as opposed to regulations

[0:28:41] Trustee Patrick: that arrive in the land use bylaws.

[0:28:44] Trustee Patrick: And I think the process that we attach to these is useful.

[0:28:49] Trustee Patrick: And I think the other question that comes to this

[0:28:51] Trustee Patrick: is the resource issue,

[0:28:52] Trustee Patrick: which was raised by our fans above this.

[0:28:56] Trustee Patrick: And I know we've been looking at comparisons here

[0:29:01] Trustee Patrick: on Salt Spring of what's it costing communities

[0:29:04] Trustee Patrick: to do OCP updates.

[0:29:06] Trustee Patrick: And for some reason at the Island's Trust,

[0:29:08] Trustee Patrick: we always think we can do it with like $25,000

[0:29:10] Trustee Patrick: or $10,000 over here and 5,000 over there.

[0:29:13] Trustee Patrick: And it's like communities are spending a lot of money

[0:29:17] Trustee Patrick: to update their OCPs today in this environment

[0:29:19] Trustee Patrick: of doing good engagement

[0:29:22] Trustee Patrick: and then bringing the community to the table

[0:29:24] Trustee Patrick: because this is the official community plan.

[0:29:29] Trustee Patrick: And I think this is where process is our friend

[0:29:32] Trustee Patrick: because now you get some people in your community saying,

[0:29:35] Trustee Patrick: oh, you're just going to drive this or you're going to make this up.

[0:29:38] Trustee Patrick: And it's like, no, this is the official community plan.

[0:29:41] Trustee Patrick: So I think process is where we have some commonalities

[0:29:44] Trustee Patrick: in how we approach this.

[0:29:46] Trustee Patrick: But you're right, the documents are unique to each of the places.

[0:29:52] Trustee Patrick: Well, we didn't solve that.

[0:29:53] Trustee Patrick: We didn't reduce any numbers of OCPs at the Islands Trust.

[0:29:57] Trustee Patrick: Any other questions on that one?

[0:30:02] Trustee Patrick: All right.

[0:30:04] Trustee Patrick: I think the number two there is the format.

[0:30:11] Trustee Patrick: And the one question, the comment I do have,

[0:30:14] Trustee Patrick: I was on the Regional Planning Committee last term,

[0:30:16] Trustee Patrick: and it says that we did develop a draft model OCP.

[0:30:20] Trustee Patrick: We never finished that work.

[0:30:22] Trustee Patrick: So I would just caution staff that a draft was presented,

[0:30:29] Trustee Patrick: but the committee never finished nor provided feedback on that draft yet.

[0:30:35] Trustee Patrick: yet so um trustee

[0:30:41] Voice 7: boland um i find the saturn ocp to be a great read to be honest and it was

[0:30:50] Voice 7: prepared by a lot of people that i i still know on the island and they are very proud of the work

[0:30:56] Voice 7: they did um i do wonder a couple of things number one is did when those ocps were created

[0:31:04] Voice 7: were they given a sort of a table of contents to guide them so like is there a kind of an

[0:31:13] Voice 7: underlying structure to the ocps that's fairly similar and secondly radical wild thought

[0:31:21] Voice 7: could we use ai to compare and contrast all the ocps i don't know i haven't used ai but i just

[0:31:31] Voice 7: sort of thought wouldn't that be interesting because otherwise you know I'd love to see a

[0:31:36] Voice 7: comparison of the existing OCPs with the model template to see how far away they are and then

[0:31:46] Voice 7: the other thing I would say is that in response to the the individuality of them I'm not entirely

[0:31:54] Voice 7: sure that that's exactly true anymore and our islands are more similar than they are different

[0:32:04] Voice 7: we have the same problems and the same opportunities pretty much throughout the

[0:32:10] Voice 7: islands with exceptions and I find that people don't engage with the kind of process of OCP

[0:32:21] Voice 7: trust policy statement in the way that they did in the past

[0:32:25] Voice 7: before people were working remotely

[0:32:28] Voice 7: busy etc in a way that perhaps

[0:32:33] Voice 7: they're not able to devote the time anymore

[0:32:37] Voice 7: so I do find that some element

[0:32:41] Voice 7: of harmonisation would possibly benefit us

[0:32:44] Voice 7: because dealing with diversity

[0:32:49] Voice 7: for the sake of diversity.

[0:32:51] Voice 7: And I'm not being disrespectful.

[0:32:52] Voice 7: I realize that at the time,

[0:32:53] Voice 7: a lot of people put their hearts and souls into it,

[0:32:56] Voice 7: but that was in the mid-90s.

[0:32:58] Voice 7: And I'm not entirely sure you would get the same devotion

[0:33:05] Voice 7: to a project and the same interest

[0:33:08] Voice 7: and the same desire to be individual

[0:33:13] Voice 7: as they had then.

[0:33:16] Voice 7: Thanks.

[0:33:19] Trustee Patrick: Thank you, Trustee Boland. I think a lot of communities are finding that no one is really going in there and ripping apart their OCPs and making them all new again, that the capacity in most communities are, it's just not there.

[0:33:35] Trustee Patrick: I think the word tune up or check in or other words are probably more appropriate. I really like what San Juan County Islands did in the introduction of review of their what they call comprehensive plan instead of official community plan is they really acknowledge the work that had gone into the previous draft.

[0:33:56] Trustee Patrick: it said, you know, we did realize maybe we didn't talk to all the voices in the community. And that's

[0:34:02] Trustee Patrick: what they had focused on in their update was to make sure that they did reflect all the voices.

[0:34:07] Trustee Patrick: And I think we all know that a major voice was probably not involved in the creation of many

[0:34:15] Trustee Patrick: of our OCPs across all of our islands because they were done in the 90s. And today we have

[0:34:20] Trustee Patrick: definitely on a different level and journey of reconciling those differences

[0:34:27] Trustee Patrick: so it is an interesting approach so I think that is what makes it difficult

[0:34:34] Trustee Patrick: for putting in a new model format when you're just checking and tweaking and

[0:34:40] Trustee Patrick: updating what exists another observation I'll pass on just I had we staff were

[0:34:46] Trustee Patrick: presenting the OCP project here on Salt Spring to the local Community

[0:34:50] Trustee Patrick: community commission a few weeks ago, and they had the cover of our OCP was up, and it said that

[0:34:56] Trustee Patrick: right on the cover, it says land use and service objectives, and it has Islands Trust logo on the

[0:35:05] Trustee Patrick: top, and it's like it's the regional district that provides the services, not the Islands Trust, so

[0:35:11] Trustee Patrick: it's, I think those are interesting questions as we look into it. Who is represented by the OCP?

[0:35:17] Trustee Patrick: It is an official community plan who all abides by that plan.

[0:35:25] Trustee Patrick: All right.

[0:35:25] Trustee Patrick: Any other questions on number two?

[0:35:29] Voice 5: Madam Chair, just for fun, if you don't mind me contributing, Robert Kuchima was the key staff person amending the last OCP.

[0:35:36] Voice 5: So if you have questions about that process, he's the guy to ask.

[0:35:40] Voice 11: The Salt

[0:35:41] Voice 11: Spring OCP year.

[0:35:42] Voice 11: That was a long time ago.

[0:35:44] Voice 11: And I was parachuted in.

[0:35:48] Trustee Patrick: Oh, no.

[0:35:49] Trustee Patrick: Oh, well, I have to say, I think Jason's doing a wonderful job of preparing the process.

[0:35:55] Trustee Patrick: And like I said, I really encourage people to look at the terms of reference that has been done.

[0:35:59] Trustee Patrick: I think it's going to be a standard.

[0:36:03] Trustee Patrick: Okay, number three.

[0:36:04] Trustee Patrick: This is about getting on and doing these reviews and how we prioritize them and deal with them at Trust Council.

[0:36:14] Trustee Patrick: Any marvelous ideas or comments on this?

[0:36:17] Voice 10: Trustee Borthwick.

[0:36:19] Voice 10: Yeah, and this is sort of a question for Dr. Starmack. I was wondering if you, and I'm sort of sure that you do, do you have a sort of hit list of which OCPs are in most dire need of review? And do you have a sort of, even in just a sort of soft list of your own?

[0:36:42] Voice 5: i think you do as well um and the reason i say that is you got that at the last

[0:36:47] Voice 5: rpc meeting i believe it was the last one with the the grid and what have you

[0:36:52] Voice 5: yeah

[0:36:53] Voice 12: we'll be bringing that back next in the may rpc meeting that's wrong yeah so if i could just

[0:37:00] Voice 12: comment chair a little bit on this um section we you know staff we were kind of expecting that

[0:37:07] Voice 12: their RPC might be faced with you know multiple requests or proposals from LTCs to review their

[0:37:14] Voice 12: OCPs we haven't seen like a rush of that so at this point you know the projects tend to be more

[0:37:23] Voice 12: targeted like housing reviews and so on and part of that's beneficial for the regional planning

[0:37:30] Voice 12: team because they're building expertise and experience and the hope is that they'll move

[0:37:36] Voice 12: on to OCP and full OCP and LUB reviews at a larger scale for more or greater quantity

[0:37:45] Voice 12: but yeah RPC may be you know when we present the the health of OCPs and LUBs we may be our

[0:37:53] Voice 12: regional planning committee might be actually reflecting back to local trust committees that

[0:37:59] Voice 12: that, hey, ex-local trust committee, your OCP looks pretty out of date.

[0:38:03] Voice 12: You may want to consider a business case to update it.

[0:38:08] Trustee Patrick: Thank you.

[0:38:10] Trustee Patrick: And I think Trustee Boland and I are both on the working group for the corporate planning process.

[0:38:16] Trustee Patrick: And as we're moving forward, we're looking at sort of future terms ahead of us of what that looks like

[0:38:23] Trustee Patrick: and mimicking more what municipalities have occur in the beginning of the term

[0:38:30] Trustee Patrick: where staff do a presentation to the trustees on sort of the state of their documents

[0:38:36] Trustee Patrick: and the health of things so that they have that consideration into as well

[0:38:43] Trustee Patrick: what their thoughts and needs are for the community

[0:38:47] Trustee Patrick: and that requests to do the OCPs and major document reviews

[0:38:51] Trustee Patrick: reviews would occur quite early in the term so that the work could be planned over the four-year

[0:38:56] Trustee Patrick: term and fit into the overall budget planning process for the Islands Trust, you know, rather

[0:39:02] Trustee Patrick: than every year being a battle of, you know, who gets what. So I think there's lots of opportunity

[0:39:09] Trustee Patrick: to improve as we go forward. Trustee Boland?

[0:39:13] Voice 7: I feel that the trust policy statement is going to

[0:39:18] Voice 7: to trigger a series of required updates I feel I've thought about this a lot we're we're in

[0:39:27] Voice 7: we're we're in a state of you know constantly not enough resources to do what we really believe

[0:39:36] Voice 7: needs to be done so we chip away at the edges people are you know not exactly full of job

[0:39:43] Voice 7: satisfaction so i thought radical approach would be um freeze all updates pending a significant

[0:39:57] Voice 7: planning process to put together a plan the required funding resources to overhaul all of

[0:40:06] Voice 7: the ocps and lubs as needed i'm not suggesting the updates those that don't require it but you

[0:40:13] Voice 7: will have to review them first to come to that conclusion like build a set of um screening

[0:40:20] Voice 7: requirements um you know partially using the trust policy statement but taking the opportunity

[0:40:27] Voice 7: if you open the ocp or you open the lub that you do anything else that's required

[0:40:32] Voice 7: um and then we go to the province and say okay guys we cannot fund this adequately to do it in

[0:40:41] Voice 7: a reasonable time frame you need to put your hand in your pocket as you did in the mid 90s

[0:40:47] Voice 7: and provide us with funding to really go through this properly quickly in a timely manner which is

[0:40:55] Voice 7: as recommended in the governance review you know they should be finished in a reasonable time frame

[0:41:00] Voice 7: What I witness is they go on and on and on and then, you know, the goalposts are changing if you can't get it done fairly quickly.

[0:41:10] Voice 7: So my recommendation would be we should freeze all work on all OCBs and LUBs pending the creation of a comprehensive work plan,

[0:41:21] Voice 7: which we ask the province to fund to overhaul and update to bring them all into line with the Trust Policy Statement.

[0:41:30] Voice 7: Thanks.

[0:41:32] Voice 7: Thank

[0:41:32] Trustee Patrick: you, Trustee Boland.

[0:41:36] Trustee Patrick: I think there's probably lots,

[0:41:38] Trustee Patrick: we did talk about this in our last

[0:41:41] Trustee Patrick: regional planning committee

[0:41:42] Trustee Patrick: when Trustee Borthwick took over chairing,

[0:41:44] Trustee Patrick: we talked about, well, there are other ways

[0:41:46] Trustee Patrick: that we could restructure and do things

[0:41:50] Trustee Patrick: in a more structured approach addressing this work.

[0:41:54] Trustee Patrick: And I think that's something this committee

[0:41:56] Trustee Patrick: needs to lean into more as we go forward

[0:42:02] Trustee Patrick: to change the way, instead of, like I said,

[0:42:04] Trustee Patrick: local trust committees just battling for money,

[0:42:06] Trustee Patrick: that there's a bit of a plan that everybody fits into.

[0:42:13] Trustee Patrick: Work to be done.

[0:42:15] Trustee Patrick: Okay, any other comments?

[0:42:18] Trustee Patrick: Let's keep chugging along then.

[0:42:20] Trustee Patrick: We're at three.

[0:42:21] Trustee Patrick: Or did three is very probably similar?

[0:42:25] Trustee Patrick: I think three is pretty much similar.

[0:42:28] Trustee Patrick: This is the work that we need to do

[0:42:29] Trustee Patrick: and how to prioritize and say, who gets what?

[0:42:32] Trustee Patrick: what? Four is still priority. Four is introducing sort of the growth and change elements to

[0:42:40] Trustee Patrick: the prioritization. Trustee Boland.

[0:42:52] Voice 7: I don't mean to hold the floor, but I do have some opinions on some of this. So the most

[0:42:59] Voice 7: growth and change. And I notice in the governance review on page 64, which is the bottom of page 64,

[0:43:10] Voice 7: local planning services, it says, the Islands Trust lacks a comprehensive analysis of the

[0:43:15] Voice 7: trust area's capacity to sustain current population and activity and its ability to

[0:43:22] Voice 7: accommodate more growth and development, and especially in the light of XYZ. But at a very

[0:43:28] Voice 7: simple level and perhaps it can be done, you know, each OCP came up with the number of lots that they

[0:43:38] Voice 7: anticipated having on the island and there must be a record of those that have been developed,

[0:43:45] Voice 7: those that have been divided out but are not developed yet, and some kind of rate of

[0:43:51] Voice 7: applications and again i am a big fan of a matrix that would give us an overview of that

[0:43:58] Voice 7: to show some sort of trend because you know we dig around on saturn by ourselves and think

[0:44:05] Voice 7: um oh there were i think 750 800 lots proposed an estimated population of

[0:44:14] Voice 7: 2,000, 2,500. We lost 150 lots to Parks Canada. We have 450 subdivided developed.

[0:44:27] Voice 7: We try and estimate like what is left and our population is at 450 as opposed to 2,000.

[0:44:37] Voice 7: So it would be really, really good to actually do a systematic gap analysis, even without considering, do we have enough water? Are we fire resilient? Is there climate change? Just the basic numbers across every island, because, you know, as a regional planning committee, that would give us a good overview.

[0:44:59] Voice 7: And I know that there's a profile by profile, again, per island.

[0:45:04] Voice 7: And I know that, you know, possibly with the analysis on the toolkit, et cetera, those numbers exist.

[0:45:11] Voice 7: But there isn't a table that allows you to go through and look at an overview and compare the islands to each other.

[0:45:22] Voice 7: Thanks.

[0:45:23] Voice 7: All

[0:45:28] Trustee Patrick: right. Any other comments?

[0:45:30] Trustee Patrick: I know this is this is an area that definitely needs more work trustee Elliot yeah

[0:45:37] Voice 13: so reflecting

[0:45:38] Voice 13: on that last comment um knowing the build-out capacity what's left to be developed according

[0:45:45] Voice 13: to the official community plan uh the number of lots you know that comes down to population

[0:45:51] Voice 13: and numbers and density and we've had this conversation for 50 years as long as the trust

[0:45:58] Voice 13: has been around at least um what i'm more interested in knowing is what are the factors

[0:46:04] Voice 13: that are driving unwanted types of growth um unwanted types of development and i don't think

[0:46:12] Voice 13: the numbers of you know lots to be subdivided or number of densities allowed per lot tell that

[0:46:19] Voice 13: We need the data about the underlying factors, the water, the already established settlement, the cumulative impact of certain types of growth, single family dwellings and all that.

[0:46:41] Voice 13: Those are the things that tell the story of development and how we can change it to

[0:46:48] Voice 13: protect what is left and reduce unwanted development. I know my internet's so bad,

[0:46:56] Voice 13: sorry. So I really struggle with the, let's get an overall grasp of the numbers and basically talk

[0:47:06] Voice 13: about population control, folks who talk about carrying capacity the island, it often ends up

[0:47:14] Voice 13: being a conversation about how many more people can this island sustain. I'm much more interested

[0:47:22] Voice 13: in how can the people who are living on these islands reduce, modify, or take responsibility

[0:47:31] Voice 13: for the development patterns that have been um driving settlement so far and change how we live

[0:47:41] Voice 13: to reduce that and and build back ecosystems and everything so i i don't think the numbers tell the

[0:47:47] Voice 13: story i think um there's a lot of layers that we need to unpack so i'm just cautious of having

[0:47:57] Voice 13: that conversation and and basing everything on numbers because i don't think it i think that's

[0:48:01] Voice 13: That's where we've been. And that's what's led us to where we are right now, where we actually don't have the tools to protect and preserve the environment through planning, because we based everything on numbers and where should people go and live.

[0:48:15] Voice 13: We need to base it on lifestyle patterns and reducing our impacts and encouraging more sustainable and less impactful forms of living. So my thoughts on that.

[0:48:30] Voice 13: Thank

[0:48:31] Trustee Patrick: you, Trustee Elliott. And also, we weren't experiencing problems with your connection, or at least I wasn't. Excuse me. Yes, I think there's a lot missing here. Footprint, fingerprint, those type of words of what is the type of development that has occurred. Is that the type of development that should occur or continue to occur?

[0:48:54] Trustee Patrick: occur. There's lots of important points that come out of this that in regard to, you know,

[0:49:00] Trustee Patrick: equity and sustainability and really good future use of how we live. Well, gee, Trustee Cermak,

[0:49:17] Trustee Patrick: I always like to call you Trustee Cermak, Director Cermak, I said, I think we're just

[0:49:20] Trustee Patrick: continuing the workload. This is the work that this committee is going to need to do is prioritize

[0:49:25] Trustee Patrick: prioritize the work that needs to be done to get us to this modern place for

[0:49:29] Trustee Patrick: dealing with these things. All right. No more comments coming out of here.

[0:49:35] Trustee Patrick: We're moving on. We're kind of getting past. We don't have answers,

[0:49:39] Trustee Patrick: but the time period is still,

[0:49:45] Trustee Patrick: I think we've already touched on the time period,

[0:49:47] Trustee Patrick: which is about what five is people just jump in and stop me.

[0:49:51] Trustee Patrick: Everyone's being quiet here. Please, you know,

[0:49:55] Trustee Patrick: please step in and talk if you've got something on your mind we want to hear from you

[0:50:02] Trustee Patrick: trustee forthwick yeah

[0:50:04] Voice 10: and i would i mean i just i guess i would uh solicit uh director

[0:50:09] Voice 10: surmax sort of uh opinion on on some of these parts because there are going to be parts that

[0:50:14] Voice 10: are uh i know we've already and and robert was saying earlier there are parts that we know are

[0:50:20] Voice 10: going to come off this list are going to be modified and and have you know some of them

[0:50:24] Voice 10: have been you know partially accomplished or are ongoing um and i know we've got sort of a summary

[0:50:30] Voice 10: of those things and i know we've talked about these things before um but if there are things

[0:50:34] Voice 10: where you know where you feel that there's a a clear alternative or a or a good option um

[0:50:41] Voice 10: you know uh i'd love to hear what you're thinking because we want to work with you not

[0:50:49] Voice 10: not be entirely a tutorial.

[0:50:53] Voice 5: I am your servant, uh, through the chair.

[0:50:56] Voice 5: So, uh, Sam, if I can understand correctly, we're, we're talking about

[0:51:00] Voice 5: number four, but you're speaking more broadly saying, having more staff

[0:51:03] Voice 5: contribution to the discussion.

[0:51:05] Voice 5: Is that what I'm getting at?

[0:51:06] Voice 10: Yeah.

[0:51:06] Voice 10: And I mean, as much as, as much as that, uh, I am your servant is a lovely

[0:51:11] Voice 10: turn of phrase and I know it's a little off the cuff, uh, I see it.

[0:51:18] Voice 10: Well, yeah. And I see us as a team.

[0:51:21] Voice 10: Of course.

[0:51:22] Voice 10: You are, you know, structurally, Russ is our servant.

[0:51:28] Voice 10: True! Repeat that as often as you can.

[0:51:30] Voice 10: You're people who are, you know, appointed by Russ to help us as part of this team.

[0:51:36] Voice 10: You guys have the expertise. You guys have the training and the planning.

[0:51:39] Voice 10: So I see us as a team in this.

[0:51:41] Voice 10: And you deal with this every day.

[0:51:43] Voice 10: And I, you know, deal with a bunch of other different bits and pieces.

[0:51:47] Voice 10: So, you know, we bring different perspectives and I'm happy to hear if you've got suggestions.

[0:51:55] Voice 5: Okay, well, I'll take that opportunity, if you don't mind, then I'll contribute one thought.

[0:51:59] Voice 5: And this is partially from just a wonderful meeting we had last night to the Culturally Committed group and how we use, you know, First Nations involved.

[0:52:08] Voice 5: They are the future. They are the present and the future.

[0:52:10] Voice 5: and i honestly think our metrics are are we can only do as well as whatever it is we're measuring

[0:52:18] Voice 5: like how are we going to measure the change of what we're doing right so you need a metric you

[0:52:22] Voice 5: need to to have some sort of evaluation tool and this thought just keeps bouncing in my head it's

[0:52:28] Voice 5: been bouncing my head for a long time and i use the example where i live in fulford harbor

[0:52:33] Voice 5: you will know we're doing a good job on land use planning and marine planning is if you can walk

[0:52:39] Voice 5: on the beach harvest some clams and not have to put them through deprivation you know you'll know

[0:52:43] Voice 5: you're doing a good job if if you can harvest medicinal plants or i'm not going to harvest

[0:52:48] Voice 5: them but if indigenous people are going to harvest medicinal plants unencumbered and in the season

[0:52:54] Voice 5: and in availability and abundance and if those numbers are growing and so on so forth so i i

[0:53:00] Voice 5: turn my mind to the sustainable use of land which has happened for a long time and and that those

[0:53:08] Voice 5: are the metrics we need and that is where we're going to get funding from the province in order to

[0:53:12] Voice 5: work it out how are we going to get that and and of course the conflict is with private

[0:53:16] Voice 5: land ownership versus uh as they say so-called crown lands and i'm not sure how to do that but

[0:53:24] Voice 5: i certainly understand the process of how to begin that that dialogue and i think we are

[0:53:28] Voice 5: making those dialogues and i would encourage that like you can have as many people on these islands

[0:53:33] Voice 5: as you want if you develop the infrastructure i think asking what the carrying capacity of humans

[0:53:37] Voice 5: is perhaps the wrong question to ask is we're asking what's the carrying capacity of the

[0:53:42] Voice 5: ecological integrity of the environment um you know and that the standard academic answer is 75

[0:53:49] Voice 5: the answer should have its integrity intact that's just not cogent with our development patterns

[0:53:57] Voice 5: so how then the real question becomes how do we get private landowners and we've i've said this

[0:54:01] Voice 5: before you are the stewards the private landowners of the island how do we get the stewards the

[0:54:07] Voice 5: current owners of the lands to to meet those metrics if we if we choose to them how do we

[0:54:13] Voice 5: allow indigenous collection of medicinal plants on the property and harvest how do we get those

[0:54:18] Voice 5: to grow and in cooperation with i think those are the questions i would steer this organization

[0:54:24] Voice 5: towards and i because i don't i think we can talk about you know salt spring having 12 000 20 000

[0:54:31] Voice 5: we could do it in a way that we have big houses small houses many tiny houses that's that's great

[0:54:36] Voice 5: stuff but i think the real metric in sustainability is pretty much how this land was used for you know

[0:54:42] Voice 5: 10 000 years and more is is the the harvesting of resources in a way that doesn't kill you

[0:54:49] Voice 5: you know i have a permanent um red tide uh plaque although i don't believe it necessarily in front

[0:54:58] Voice 5: of where we live um for 15 years so it's like is that that's not sustainable so anyways there's my

[0:55:06] Voice 5: contribution sam you asked for it i generally don't riff because that's a little more political

[0:55:11] Voice 5: than i like to go but if i was going to design from scratch i would put in indicators to be

[0:55:17] Voice 5: safe ongoing harvest and my metric would be to measure that change over time so it's increasing

[0:55:22] Voice 5: opportunities to do so so there you go

[0:55:25] Trustee Patrick: thank you director sermon i think the opportunity for this

[0:55:28] Trustee Patrick: committee you know we've got a list that was prepared by an outside consultant of 50 items

[0:55:33] Trustee Patrick: here that we're going through is ultimately we want to get this translated to what is it we're

[0:55:38] Trustee Patrick: doing put this into our words our actions how we want to address you know uh and improve and

[0:55:46] Trustee Patrick: modernize the work that's being done here and i think uh director cermak it's like the whole crux

[0:55:54] Trustee Patrick: of what we're trying to work on is here on salt spring and all of i guess the southern gulf

[0:55:58] Trustee Patrick: Highlands, our underlying zoning was created in the early 70s. We're building on top of something

[0:56:05] Trustee Patrick: that was done in 1970 and trying to rationalize it in 2024. And I think some of these are this

[0:56:13] Trustee Patrick: hard work that has to be done and that this committee has the opportunity to try to lead that

[0:56:18] Trustee Patrick: and help this organization move in that direction.

[0:56:23] Voice 6: Trustee Graham. Yeah, just bringing us back to

[0:56:29] Voice 6: what I hope we can accomplish today. So number five, I would just remove that. It doesn't mean

[0:56:36] Voice 6: anything. It's arbitrarily chosen a length of time, which may or may not work for some OCPs.

[0:56:41] Voice 6: Some targeted reviews can be done quite quickly, and perhaps an island as complicated and populated

[0:56:48] Voice 6: as Salt Spring needs five years. So let's just strike that. And that's my contribution at number

[0:56:53] Voice 6: five.

[0:56:55] Trustee Patrick: No, thank you. And I think that's ultimately where we need to go is have, like I said, a list

[0:57:00] Trustee Patrick: that reflects what we agree is uh reasonable um we're gonna keep moving um public engagement

[0:57:18] Trustee Patrick: i'm sure i was gonna say trustee graham will have an opinion on does the same engagement process

[0:57:22] Trustee Patrick: work on denman as saturn i was just thinking

[0:57:26] Voice 7: should we strike number six as well then on the

[0:57:29] Trustee Patrick: basis of

[0:57:30] Voice 7: what trustee graham said basically yeah

[0:57:34] Trustee Patrick: oh no yeah

[0:57:36] Trustee Patrick: time the time models of i think all

[0:57:38] Trustee Patrick: all of this is um trustee elliott um

[0:57:44] Voice 13: i do agree that the actions and the engagement methods may

[0:57:50] Voice 13: differ for each lta but i think the goals and the direction might be this might be similar i think

[0:58:00] Voice 13: every community wants to be fully informed wants to have transparency in the process um you know

[0:58:07] Voice 13: know they're they're definitely going to be guiding principles for each engagement I think

[0:58:10] Voice 13: the methods um the way that you reach out is going to be different for example on Gabriela Island we

[0:58:16] Voice 13: had a fantastic in-person community celebration for our visioning process um provided child care

[0:58:25] Voice 13: had lots of staff had lots of food and cake and not a single young person or family came it was

[0:58:34] Voice 13: It was pretty evident that meeting in real time, taking time out on a Sunday was not going to is just not appealing to young families and to the youth.

[0:58:46] Voice 13: So we're going to have to think about doing engagement differently for the diverse community and to meet, you know, equity seeking groups where they're at.

[0:58:56] Voice 13: That may be an online spaces. I think it'll be different for each community, but the principles are all the same.

[0:59:04] Voice 13: everybody wants to be engaged. Everybody wants to know what's happening. We all want two-way

[0:59:08] Voice 13: communication and multiple methods. So I hope that regional planning team, and I do believe

[0:59:14] Voice 13: that's the intent, is going to learn from the Gabriel OCP process. But I don't think

[0:59:19] Voice 13: you'll be able to replicate every single method. It'll just be like, here are some principles that

[0:59:24] Voice 13: worked. And then you tailor them for each LTA. So I don't think the same engagement process will

[0:59:30] Voice 13: work, but the principles should be there.

[0:59:33] Trustee Patrick: Thank you. Trustee Graham.

[0:59:35] Voice 6: Yeah, well said, Toby. And also, I think our expectations need to be more realistic.

[0:59:41] Voice 6: This idea that everybody wants to be consulted. Well, on Denman, there's a whole lot of people

[0:59:46] Voice 6: that could care less about what's going on at the local trust committee. They're quite happy

[0:59:52] Voice 6: to live their quiet little lives. And they're quite surprised that there's even a local

[0:59:57] Voice 6: local government that has the land use planning authority.

[1:00:00] Voice 6: to be quite honest and these are people that have lived here a long time i'm always amazed at

[1:00:04] Voice 6: the lack of interest but i think there might be an advantage to not having you know 1300 people

[1:00:10] Voice 6: try and get in my hall when we have a meeting all of whom want to speak and have an opinion

[1:00:15] Voice 6: um my experience is it's roughly 30 to 40 people on each island that run the show

[1:00:21] Voice 6: they're engaged they're interested they perhaps had a background in policy development or education

[1:00:27] Voice 6: or commerce and they love this stuff and they show up to the information meetings they show up to the

[1:00:34] Voice 6: to the important public hearings etc and and they are very active on social media but that's

[1:00:42] Voice 6: discouraging that you put all those parts together for public engagement for young families and

[1:00:47] Voice 6: nobody showed up and so it wasn't your fault it was as you say that that Sunday was just far more

[1:00:53] Voice 6: more important to those young families to spend amongst themselves at the beach or in the forest

[1:00:57] Voice 6: or whatever they were doing but so you know we have to be have to temper our expectations but

[1:01:03] Voice 6: provide platforms and avenues for all the different ways people need to or want to engage and just

[1:01:10] Voice 6: accept the fact that you're you're lucky if you get five percent well

[1:01:15] Trustee Patrick: thank you trustee graham i

[1:01:17] Trustee Patrick: think we do have to be cautious of you know who shows up and um and i and i do encourage you to

[1:01:22] Trustee Patrick: to look at the Voss Center Dialogue Beyond Inclusion

[1:01:25] Trustee Patrick: for Equitable Place Public Engagement.

[1:01:29] Trustee Patrick: Their principles, invite participation

[1:01:32] Trustee Patrick: within an authentic and accountable engagement process,

[1:01:36] Trustee Patrick: plan early and proactively,

[1:01:38] Trustee Patrick: establish respectful relationships with indigenous people,

[1:01:41] Trustee Patrick: engage the internal diversity of a community,

[1:01:46] Trustee Patrick: work in reciprocal relationships with the community,

[1:01:49] Trustee Patrick: community, tailor engagement plans to the context, commit to ongoing learning and improvement,

[1:01:55] Trustee Patrick: and advance systemic equity.

[1:01:58] Trustee Patrick: So principles we can work on across the trust.

[1:02:04] Trustee Patrick: It's going to show up differently in each of our communities, and I think that's the

[1:02:09] Trustee Patrick: general message.

[1:02:12] Trustee Patrick: All right.

[1:02:13] Trustee Patrick: Any other comments?

[1:02:14] Trustee Patrick: We're going to keep moving on here.

[1:02:17] Trustee Patrick: So land use bylaws.

[1:02:19] Trustee Patrick: We're moving into another section.

[1:02:20] Trustee Patrick: that's sort of the OCP's part. We're now moving into the land use bylaws piece. And I think this

[1:02:31] Trustee Patrick: is important where Eric Vance introduced at the top that many of our bylaws have historical

[1:02:38] Trustee Patrick: artifacts. I like it. We've got archeological sites right in our land use bylaws and that were

[1:02:45] Trustee Patrick: inherited from decades ago. And I know on Salt Spring, many of the definitions are original to

[1:02:49] Trustee Patrick: in 1971. So there's a number of recommendations here. Any comments on any of these? Do you want

[1:03:03] Trustee Patrick: to work your way through them? I'm seeing quiet. Trustee Brown?

[1:03:15] Voice 6: Just looking at number two,

[1:03:16] Voice 6: I think there is some value in land use bylaws being somewhat formatted so that it's easy for

[1:03:25] Voice 6: for people to see where the regulations are on their island.

[1:03:29] Voice 6: I think as trustees, we all get calls from people

[1:03:32] Voice 6: who ask the simplest questions

[1:03:35] Voice 6: and I don't mind answering them,

[1:03:36] Voice 6: but I feel the information is there,

[1:03:39] Voice 6: but I guess it's not in a format that's easily understood.

[1:03:42] Voice 6: And that's our fault, not their fault.

[1:03:44] Voice 6: So maybe having a template for land use by-law regulations

[1:03:49] Voice 6: is a really good idea as opposed to the OCPs,

[1:03:52] Voice 6: which is, I think, more nuanced to each island's aspirations.

[1:04:00] Trustee Patrick: And I do know I was involved in chair of North Pender when the template was introduced

[1:04:08] Trustee Patrick: sort of as part of the comprehensive review of the land use bylaw.

[1:04:13] Trustee Patrick: And that the only issue was that some of the people wanted to see where did where was the old bylaw?

[1:04:21] Trustee Patrick: where did it show up where's the red line and that was a a bit of a complicated conversation

[1:04:26] Trustee Patrick: when you can't really red line when you replace an entire document with something different you

[1:04:30] Trustee Patrick: can just show the path so trustee boland um

[1:04:37] Voice 7: i i agree it a standard format would be very helpful

[1:04:41] Voice 7: i mean no more than you i i've had conversations with um residents and with the planner

[1:04:49] Voice 7: trying to figure out exactly what was meant or intended there are um you know things that

[1:04:59] Voice 7: let's say relate to each other but they're in different sections so you have to kind of piece

[1:05:04] Voice 7: it together if they said a here and they said b there together it means c and um that's not very

[1:05:11] Voice 7: satisfactory even people who are like one of the people we had a lot of trouble with was a guy who

[1:05:16] Voice 7: who was an ex-trustee, he was one of the first trustees in the Islands Trust,

[1:05:21] Voice 7: and he struggled to really get to grips with some of the things that were in there.

[1:05:27] Voice 7: And I do think that another issue is that mix of some regulations being in the OCP,

[1:05:37] Voice 7: that the OCP should be clean.

[1:05:40] Voice 7: you shouldn't have to go back to the OCP

[1:05:43] Voice 7: when you're really looking at a land use bylaw

[1:05:47] Voice 7: but I think in our case there were things in the OCP

[1:05:51] Voice 7: that seemed to relate

[1:05:53] Voice 7: so it was a bit of an effort to come to a landing

[1:05:59] Voice 7: when I moved here first

[1:06:03] Voice 7: we contemplated development

[1:06:06] Voice 7: and we were getting an architect from Salisbury

[1:06:09] Voice 7: And when he explained to me that he would have to look at and was not familiar with the Saterna bylaw, I was shocked.

[1:06:19] Voice 7: I was in complete disbelief that, you know, it would be different in terms of setbacks, et cetera, et cetera.

[1:06:26] Voice 7: And that's another thing I would love to see a table of, is those things that we hold in common, how different are they from each other?

[1:06:36] Voice 7: And how does that impact our processing times and the cost and the number of staff we have to have because of those relatively minor differences?

[1:06:50] Voice 7: You know, it's 15 feet here and it's 18 feet there and it's 10 feet here and 15 feet there.

[1:06:57] Voice 7: Those are all small differences, but they create an administrative minefield that needs a lot of resource to manage, I would have said.

[1:07:07] Voice 7: And to go back to my original question about looking at the numbers designated on the OCP, about lots developed, undeveloped, etc.

[1:07:17] Voice 7: et cetera. I'm not proposing that this should be used to define how we go forward. I was merely

[1:07:26] Voice 7: asking for those as a starting point to feed into our picture, because I don't think any of us have

[1:07:33] Voice 7: a really holistic picture of what's going on across all of the islands. And we are fragmented

[1:07:40] Voice 7: in our knowledge in a way that we shouldn't be okay thanks

[1:07:45] Trustee Patrick: thank you i have just a question for

[1:07:48] Trustee Patrick: staff that there is a model land use bylaw now i know i know that because of the north fender work

[1:07:54] Trustee Patrick: um how is it maintained and kept current because i guess you know we've got the province is spitting

[1:08:01] Trustee Patrick: out new legislation almost daily i

[1:08:05] Voice 12: can provide a brief answer to that chair so yes so when a new

[1:08:10] Voice 12: bylaws adopted um like north penders um we review um the new bylaw and then um compare it to the

[1:08:21] Voice 12: the model the template bylaw and maybe you know update some of the definitions or if the new

[1:08:27] Voice 12: bylaw maybe has a more logical um flow to some of the regulation general regulations

[1:08:35] Voice 12: might update that um and as far as the provincial like the housing um changes right now it's one

[1:08:41] Voice 12: of the things anthony's working on right now is looking at the provincial um terminology

[1:08:46] Voice 12: around housing and um how and what and should those be incorporated into some of the housing

[1:08:55] Voice 12: definitions that are offered in the model land use bylaw

[1:09:01] Trustee Patrick: okay is it uh is the model

[1:09:05] Trustee Patrick: maintained in like a form i think this sort of is probably trustee boland's question is it something

[1:09:10] Trustee Patrick: that we can see um as this committee have access to to see the model

[1:09:15] Voice 12: sure i mean we could share it

[1:09:17] Voice 12: it's on it's a word document on the drive yeah internal drive but uh yep that's good that's the

[1:09:24] Trustee Patrick: pleasure of the local

[1:09:25] Voice 12: trust committee and could circulate a copy of it well

[1:09:30] Trustee Patrick: i think this this

[1:09:31] Trustee Patrick: group here should be well aware of the templates and things that are out there because uh we're

[1:09:35] Trustee Patrick: going to be the ones that are going to be looked to when people have questions about that. So

[1:09:39] Trustee Patrick: I'd encourage everyone to read that and see the model. Okay. On models of trustee Graham.

[1:09:49] Voice 6: Next, number 11. So having been involved in a couple of OCP reviews, targeted and whole,

[1:09:56] Voice 6: I think it's really important that the LUB is amended concurrently. And the reason I say that

[1:10:02] Voice 6: it is because when an OCP policy is changed, there's a trickle down that we understand,

[1:10:08] Voice 6: but the residents don't always catch it. And if there's a delay, that can cause some real

[1:10:12] Voice 6: confusion. So I would say, absolutely, when you're discussing OCP changes with your community,

[1:10:18] Voice 6: it's important to say at the same time, and this would change this regulation. And so you tie them

[1:10:24] Voice 6: together. Anyway, that's my suggestion. Very good. Trustee Elliott.

[1:10:28] Trustee Patrick: Yeah,

[1:10:29] Voice 13: I absolutely agree. What I'm seeing and experiencing on Laskiti, which is a process, OCP review process that started last term, and Chair Luckum was chair, the community undertook total ownership of the review.

[1:10:47] Voice 13: um i will say it's apparent now and maybe trustee laroni can correct me that the the people who

[1:10:57] Voice 13: were involved with that heavily involved with redrafting their their ocp policies um without

[1:11:04] Voice 13: an lub um concurrent review were kind of the same folks that um i think drafted the original one

[1:11:12] Voice 13: And so when we asked the planner to take a high level look at what are the implications of these OCP policies, there was lots missing, like there was no housing policies, you know, there was nothing that looked ahead to what are the needs of the community for the next 25 years.

[1:11:34] Voice 13: and in part and this is nothing no uh i'm wanting to speak badly about the community i think it was

[1:11:43] Voice 13: just that the folks were involved same authors and um and and principles and there's some things

[1:11:50] Voice 13: that were very important to them but not others so if you don't get that review happening at the

[1:11:58] Voice 13: the same time to understand the implications and to see how it aligns with the policy statement

[1:12:03] Voice 13: i think that was a mistake that has led to there's been a lot of lag time and uh we've had to keep

[1:12:12] Voice 13: coming back to that project and looking at the scope again because it was like oh this wasn't

[1:12:16] Voice 13: looked at and this wasn't looked at so um really understanding how it could unroll in real time

[1:12:24] Voice 13: what are the regulations that would be the result and doing that together with the community. But

[1:12:31] Voice 13: it's hard because community ownership is so important and they were very invested in the

[1:12:36] Voice 13: process. But now I'm wondering if we have, you know, the resultant OCP is really not going to

[1:12:44] Voice 13: serve the community for the next 25 years. Is it a visionary document? So in some respects,

[1:12:50] Voice 13: If you don't do the process concurrently and sort of with the expertise of planners, I do think we're doing a disservice somehow.

[1:13:04] Voice 13: It's just my experience from Mesquite.

[1:13:08] Trustee Patrick: Thank you, Trustee Elliott.

[1:13:09] Trustee Patrick: Yeah, I think it is important because when you look at a policy statement, a policy statement, sometimes you go, yeah, I'm behind that policy statement.

[1:13:17] Trustee Patrick: But it's where the rubber hits the road is the regulation.

[1:13:19] Trustee Patrick: regulation. The policy statement could be implemented in a very strict way or a very

[1:13:25] Trustee Patrick: loose way. And I think the community would get a better understanding at the time they're

[1:13:28] Trustee Patrick: considering a policy if you're also thinking of the regulation at the same time, because that

[1:13:33] Trustee Patrick: really helps vision that policy statement. Or you end up with Salt Spring. We have a 2008 OCP

[1:13:42] Trustee Patrick: and a 1999 land use bylaw, not good, so link them.

[1:13:49] Trustee Patrick: Anyone here disagree that they should be linked?

[1:13:52] Trustee Patrick: Let's keep moving.

[1:13:54] Trustee Patrick: All right, model bylaws, I think the answers are here.

[1:13:59] Trustee Patrick: Does anyone want to spend much time talking

[1:14:01] Trustee Patrick: on model bylaws?

[1:14:02] Trustee Patrick: I think staff's approach of yes, model bylaws

[1:14:05] Trustee Patrick: should be created in reality of on an island

[1:14:08] Trustee Patrick: as a pilot trustee Boland.

[1:14:10] Trustee Patrick: um

[1:14:11] Voice 7: i think there should be very very very very stringent screening requirements to embark on

[1:14:21] Voice 7: this because i look across the islands here and the number of attempts that i know of where a lot

[1:14:27] Voice 7: of work has gone into creating a model bylaw on one island and probably um you know initially

[1:14:36] Voice 7: Initially, perhaps other islands expressed some kind of vague interest, which, you know, justified it.

[1:14:43] Voice 7: And then it all kind of falls apart and goes round and round in circles.

[1:14:47] Voice 7: And I really think that we should minimise the number of new bylaws we create.

[1:14:55] Voice 7: and we should resist creating model bylaws

[1:15:00] Voice 7: which require a lot of effort

[1:15:02] Voice 7: without very expressed stringent requirements and support.

[1:15:09] Voice 7: Thanks.

[1:15:10] Voice 7: All

[1:15:13] Trustee Patrick: right, moving on.

[1:15:14] Trustee Patrick: Thank you.

[1:15:15] Trustee Patrick: And so the compliance enforcement piece,

[1:15:19] Trustee Patrick: I'm wondering if we should just either be cognizant

[1:15:23] Trustee Patrick: of this section and return to it

[1:15:24] Trustee Patrick: when we have conversations with staff on the enforcement

[1:15:26] Trustee Patrick: enforcement policy work? Would that be better use of time? I'm seeing thumbs up. Gets us through

[1:15:34] Trustee Patrick: another section because we will be spending a lot of time with bylaw enforcement in the coming

[1:15:38] Trustee Patrick: months. Okay, so that brings us on to planning projects. You know, this is an area I know a lot

[1:16:05] Trustee Patrick: of trustees at Trust Council have had comments on, and that is sort of the balance routine between

[1:16:12] Trustee Patrick: planning projects and reviewing applications so

[1:16:25] Voice 3: any questions

[1:16:27] Voice 6: up trustee graham yeah i know

[1:16:30] Voice 6: i know we have um ideally one major and one minor project uh and and then as you finish a project

[1:16:37] Voice 6: you can bring another major or minor one back on and you know what uh for an island of denman size

[1:16:42] Voice 6: it seems to be working i mean we've only been at it for not quite two years but but i can't really

[1:16:48] Voice 6: understand why an island the size of salt spring would have to adhere to such a restricted

[1:16:52] Voice 6: format so you know again having these arbitrary hard ideas i i personally don't like that idea

[1:17:03] Voice 6: i don't know how we manage the projects but i think the uh the number of people benefiting

[1:17:10] Voice 6: from the work perhaps should be factored into who gets what it's just an idea well thank you

[1:17:19] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Graham, and I think this relates to the initial comments that we had at the beginning with the corporate planning process and doing things differently and more about, you know, trying to plan over the term and plan in accordance with work and in a different way.

[1:17:35] Voice 5: Madam Chair, maybe I can offer a little bit of extra information for Trustee Graham.

[1:17:40] Voice 5: Sure.

[1:17:41] Voice 3: Yeah,

[1:17:42] Voice 5: I just want to be clear on the policy. So each LTC can have one minor project. And then if it's seeking a major project, it has to go through the funding process that we currently have.

[1:17:54] Voice 5: And that is allocated by Trust Council based on available resources.

[1:17:58] Voice 5: And so this committee, of course, is developing screening materials to see if how the RPC can be a better screen than perhaps the finance committee, who presumably is just trying to be fiscally as conservative as possible.

[1:18:13] Voice 5: But this group can be more planning orientated. What are the priorities of the planning world?

[1:18:19] Voice 5: So that screening material you've had and it'll be coming back, as we said, to the next meeting.

[1:18:24] Voice 5: so each LTC gets one minor project and major projects are doled out according to hopefully

[1:18:29] Voice 5: going forward some screening material and of course that'll include the policy statement

[1:18:33] Voice 5: strategic plan and all the rest and yeah so that that's that's sort of how those allocations get

[1:18:41] Voice 5: and that the resources are sort of finite there's a really important point I wanted to make beyond

[1:18:45] Voice 5: that which is invading me for a second yeah I guess that's it I guess that's just that's how

[1:18:52] Voice 5: major projects are doled out and that's how a minor everybody gets one minor project oh of

[1:18:56] Voice 5: course salt spring and the policy recognizes the uniqueness of salt spring and it says can have

[1:19:02] Voice 5: three projects it does not distinguish between minor and major so it gets three projects

[1:19:07] Voice 5: so and i think we see that currently with salt spring has three major projects and they're

[1:19:10] Voice 5: they're very large projects so um i think i think that's how you can see the allocation

[1:19:16] Voice 5: of resources that way so it was certainly considered and and vetted by the rpc address

[1:19:21] Voice 5: trust council

[1:19:23] Voice 3: trustee graham if

[1:19:25] Voice 6: i may yeah thank thank you for that clarity i wasn't too sure on

[1:19:28] Voice 6: that but uh that that makes that makes sense um overall though i have to say that the amount of

[1:19:34] Voice 6: money that's allocated to local planning with respect to the entire trust budget is woefully

[1:19:40] Voice 6: inadequate um you know it's such a small percentage of our overall budget and and yet it is the most

[1:19:49] Voice 6: most important part of the trust's work as far as a constituent's perspective, I would think.

[1:19:55] Voice 6: This is what they want to see. They want to see us doing wonderful things on our islands and

[1:19:59] Voice 6: protecting the environment and addressing all of the climate change reconciliation,

[1:20:04] Voice 6: all these important things. And they just don't, if you look at the dollars, and I don't know how

[1:20:08] Voice 6: we can re-priorize local planning projects, but that's what we need to, perhaps that's what we

[1:20:16] Voice 6: need to do from regional planning committee to trust council is really let's let's take a much

[1:20:21] Voice 6: more uh strategic uh position on where our money is going

[1:20:30] Trustee Patrick: yes trustee graham i think

[1:20:34] Trustee Patrick: absolutely agree and i think those of us that have been on the financial planning committee

[1:20:38] Trustee Patrick: and have seen this come to trust council that we end up squabbling over a few thousand dollars here

[1:20:44] Trustee Patrick: and a few thousand dollars here for the work that is the most important at the islands trust and i

[1:20:48] Trustee Patrick: I think we need to find a different way, and we started that conversation last time of how can we have the minor projects, which is run on a fund, that the major projects should be run sort of on a fund, too, that we're funding over the long term this work in a way that we can count on rather than have to battle for it every year in a different way.

[1:21:13] Trustee Patrick: So opportunity to improve.

[1:21:20] Trustee Patrick: okay we're going to keep moving on then we've got development applications

[1:21:26] Trustee Patrick: that's the next piece here sorry i'm moving my notes along here trustee boland i see your hand

[1:21:40] Trustee Patrick: thanks um

[1:21:43] Voice 7: i i read a little bit about this could somebody as stephan i would hope speak to

[1:21:52] Voice 7: what would be achieved by this, what are the risks,

[1:21:56] Voice 7: what kind of good and bad outcomes, because

[1:21:59] Voice 7: it would be fantastic if it achieved some sort of

[1:22:05] Voice 7: efficiency gain that could be put into

[1:22:09] Voice 7: resources elsewhere, because going back to what Trustee

[1:22:13] Voice 7: Graham and Patrick said, what I

[1:22:17] Voice 7: see is that we're on a horrible

[1:22:21] Voice 7: spiralling loop where we are increasing the

[1:22:24] Voice 7: complexity of our bylaws and requirements

[1:22:30] Voice 7: which means that we have more and more and more

[1:22:33] Voice 7: resources going into managing all of these

[1:22:37] Voice 7: approval processes and we are unable to ring fence

[1:22:41] Voice 7: resources, money or staff hours

[1:22:45] Voice 7: to deal with the overhaul

[1:22:48] Voice 7: and the of the OCPs and LUVs and I don't know how how we can stop that and that's why you know

[1:22:56] Voice 7: my proposal was go to the province with a big plan and get a big lump of money to do it with

[1:23:04] Voice 7: the project team that's dedicated and but anyway to come back to this item can you speak to what

[1:23:11] Voice 7: the consequences good and bad would be of delegating development permits to staff for

[1:23:18] Voice 7: all the islands thanks oh

[1:23:22] Voice 5: there's a lot to unpack in there there might be some previous uh reports

[1:23:25] Voice 5: that that i we could we could uh dig up and forward to to answer your question more robustly

[1:23:30] Voice 5: uh may rate so forgive me i'm going to be a bit probably skimping my reply but if you'd like um

[1:23:35] Voice 5: we will dig that up for you to get more robust response but initially i'll tell you because all

[1:23:40] Voice 5: these permits get delegated to myself to review and there's the negative is they take a long time

[1:23:45] Voice 5: time to review all the background information as you're all elected officials you know it's

[1:23:50] Voice 5: right what it's like to read a per like a permit application and all the supporting materials and

[1:23:56] Voice 5: then to evaluate if you have enough information to make a decision are the guidelines met and

[1:24:02] Voice 5: uh takes a surprising long time especially when you've got layers of complexity such as

[1:24:06] Voice 5: dai bylaws which are development approval information bylaws so it eats my time that's

[1:24:13] Voice 5: my negative uh but the pro is that it's actually still faster for me to review uh because and it's

[1:24:20] Voice 5: a it's a relatively straightforward process of reviewing guidelines it's not i'm not making

[1:24:24] Voice 5: subjective you know they're just an objective evaluation of guidelines it's not a you know it's

[1:24:30] Voice 5: not a better decision making i'm not i'm not making you know any other decision than evaluating

[1:24:35] Voice 5: a guideline which should be straightforward you would think and um and so that process is sped up

[1:24:42] Voice 5: and so there's it's quicker for the applicant to go through that it's

[1:24:46] Voice 5: quicker for me to respond back to the managers and the and the relevant staff

[1:24:51] Voice 5: person who's written that and it's quicker for the legislative clerk to

[1:24:55] Voice 5: issue that permit so that's primarily the number one thing it's a more

[1:24:59] Voice 5: efficient if we don't have to put on agenda we'd not to waste your time with

[1:25:02] Voice 5: it which is a relatively simple yet time-consuming exercise so in that sense

[1:25:08] Voice 5: it saves the ltc's time and efficiency to spend their time more time doing the work that they want

[1:25:14] Voice 5: to do such as talking about more robust items however um you know you there are some uh you

[1:25:22] Voice 5: know i suppose that's the pros times and efficiency just trying to think about what the other if

[1:25:27] Voice 5: there's other negatives the negative is it's you know we're all prone to uh missing something so

[1:25:33] Voice 5: sometimes having three eyes on it is better than or i should say six eyes on it is better than two

[1:25:39] Voice 5: you know I'm a busy person and sometimes reviewing these things I can miss

[1:25:42] Voice 5: something generally it's not going to be major so there's a bit of a benefit to

[1:25:46] Voice 5: having a committee review but there's always that that failsafe whereby if I

[1:25:51] Voice 5: turn it down or ask for more information they can appeal to the LTC so overall I

[1:25:56] Voice 5: think it does increase time and efficiency mainly of the LTC's

[1:26:00] Voice 5: themselves and the applicant not so much staff staff kind of have to do the work

[1:26:06] Voice 5: and putting on an agenda by the time it gets to that point isn't that much extra work.

[1:26:09] Voice 5: It's mainly meant to help you and it's meant to help the elected official.

[1:26:14] Voice 5: And yeah, I think the number of applicants that come in are cyclical. There's a development cycle

[1:26:21] Voice 5: and so it's able to be anticipated. What we haven't seen, I guess we haven't talked about

[1:26:26] Voice 5: it yet, is delegation of minor variance permits. I think that one would save even more time. It'd

[1:26:31] Voice 5: stop the elected officials from having to contemplate almost i don't call them trivial

[1:26:37] Voice 5: because they're they're enough to trigger their need for a variance but we could we could define

[1:26:43] Voice 5: what is a minor variance and we've seen examples of them throughout the province now and and those

[1:26:48] Voice 5: could be dealt with much quicker and honestly sometimes it's painful as a staff person to have

[1:26:53] Voice 5: to write a report suggesting a shed needs to move a foot but there it is that's the bylaw and that's

[1:26:58] Voice 5: the work we do um so we could sometimes get that quicker and be less process for an applicant to

[1:27:05] Voice 5: deal with so i'd like to see much more i'd like as opposed to dps i'd like to see much more pickup

[1:27:10] Voice 5: well dps for the major as recommended here the major islands uh but i'd like to see variance

[1:27:17] Voice 5: permits the minor ones just uh sort of hustle through the system quicker and it's just really

[1:27:21] Voice 5: again the efficiency is more for the elected officials and the applicant than it is for staff

[1:27:25] Voice 5: staff just have a different process so that that's that's the intent there thank you trustee sir

[1:27:33] Trustee Patrick: when are when i know that uh i'm gonna keep calling you that just uh just uh take take your

[1:27:38] Trustee Patrick: elected uh uh position with pride um because i elected you um when do we expect to see that

[1:27:48] Trustee Patrick: report from staff on the on minor dvps i'm

[1:27:53] Voice 5: glad you asked that question i don't have a direct

[1:27:55] Voice 5: answer but I will I will say that we have prompted staff to deliver that we

[1:28:00] Voice 5: it's been a regular prod we had a shuffling of managers managing teams and

[1:28:07] Voice 5: we just haven't quite picked up the current planning team to catch up with

[1:28:10] Voice 5: all aside from providing advice and support to the applications but doing

[1:28:15] Voice 5: that a little bit of extra work and this is one of those things so it's it's on

[1:28:19] Voice 5: the radar I don't have a timeline but I am anticipating sometime this year

[1:28:23] Voice 5: here anyway so just to be honest thank you dr graham yeah

[1:28:28] Voice 6: thank thank you for that director

[1:28:29] Voice 6: shermak i totally agree um you know having an applicant have to wait two months for the dem

[1:28:34] Voice 6: and i don't local trust committee to look at a very complicated technical document i don't think

[1:28:40] Voice 6: we've ever turned one down i can't even imagine how we would turn it down um the work has been

[1:28:44] Voice 6: done we're not schooled in that world uh we're taking that work as is a professional piece of

[1:28:52] Voice 6: work and we go yep good so yeah staff should be looking at development permits and i love the idea

[1:28:56] Voice 6: of even a development variance permit also uh being held handled from a you know uh yeah

[1:29:02] Voice 6: mechanical perspective as opposed to a political one

[1:29:06] Trustee Patrick: thank you very much the one thing i'll note

[1:29:09] Trustee Patrick: i know salt spring has uh is looks like denman is as well for um um development permits um

[1:29:17] Trustee Patrick: or I guess, no, Demin isn't yet, should be,

[1:29:22] Trustee Patrick: is how does the public become aware

[1:29:24] Trustee Patrick: of the development permits?

[1:29:26] Trustee Patrick: I know they're very, you know,

[1:29:27] Trustee Patrick: they've become accustomed to having access

[1:29:29] Trustee Patrick: to our agenda packages and seeing the development permits

[1:29:32] Trustee Patrick: and, you know, how, I know I included in my monthly report,

[1:29:36] Trustee Patrick: I'll say staff approved, you know,

[1:29:38] Trustee Patrick: following development permits at this address,

[1:29:40] Trustee Patrick: but I, you know, they don't have an application package

[1:29:42] Trustee Patrick: or a detail, but they have to request it.

[1:29:47] Trustee Patrick: Okay.

[1:29:47] Voice 5: I can just contribute to that. Sorry to just jump in there, Tara.

[1:29:51] Trustee Patrick: Nope, that's fine.

[1:29:51] Voice 5: I'm wondering if CityView might be partially part of the answer, is that we always have access to that, and it should show up the information there for those.

[1:30:00] Voice 5: curious so um it's a good prompt that we may need to educate the public on city view better i mean

[1:30:06] Voice 5: we've got a communications plan coming up for sure but um it's a good it's a good segue if we're if

[1:30:12] Voice 5: we're taking it off the usual agenda we're putting it online how to find that information yeah i

[1:30:18] Trustee Patrick: think it could be something that just shows up as an agenda item for information you know even

[1:30:22] Trustee Patrick: though it gets sent to trustees um when an approval is made it might be good to have it

[1:30:28] Trustee Patrick: to show up on the agenda, not the whole package, but just a note that these were approved by staff

[1:30:33] Trustee Patrick: for information, period, just so.

[1:30:37] Voice 5: Forgive me, is that not already happening or is that just

[1:30:39] Voice 5: an email?

[1:30:42] Trustee Patrick: We're getting an email to trustees, yeah.

[1:30:44] Voice 5: So that correspondence at minimum should

[1:30:46] Voice 5: show up in an email or on an agenda package?

[1:30:49] Voice 5: Yeah. I hear that, thank you.

[1:30:51] Voice 7: Does it not go into the

[1:30:53] Voice 7: the individual island web page,

[1:30:58] Voice 7: the applications and their status?

[1:31:02] Voice 12: Not development permits.

[1:31:04] Voice 12: They're not posted separately,

[1:31:06] Voice 12: but I was just going to,

[1:31:07] Voice 12: if I could jump in, chair,

[1:31:10] Voice 12: delegated development permits

[1:31:11] Voice 12: show up in the report

[1:31:12] Voice 12: that goes in the agenda package,

[1:31:14] Voice 12: the applications report that LTCs see.

[1:31:18] Voice 12: But I guess I could see a situation

[1:31:21] Voice 12: where if an LTC doesn't meet regularly,

[1:31:23] Voice 12: early if they only meet every two or three months an application might come in and be processed and

[1:31:30] Voice 12: be closed the phone might be closed before the next meeting with the report but they should be

[1:31:35] Voice 12: in those application reports they

[1:31:40] Voice 7: could be put in the same place as the other applications could

[1:31:43] Voice 7: they or would that just a consideration so there'd be a kind of a comprehensible review

[1:31:48] Voice 7: you so

[1:31:50] Voice 12: i think what uh director stefan said um city view portal will have access to all the

[1:31:56] Voice 12: applications for the public so yeah we'll recommend you look at that first and then if

[1:32:02] Voice 12: there's some inadequacies we can look at other options okay

[1:32:06] Trustee Patrick: great thanks yeah all right we're

[1:32:10] Trustee Patrick: moving on uh we're at organization all

[1:32:22] Voice 3: right i know in terms of the papers i've

[1:32:24] Trustee Patrick: got in front of

[1:32:24] Trustee Patrick: any questions trustee worth how he beat you trustee boland yeah

[1:32:34] Voice 10: i mean i i um i i think i

[1:32:39] Voice 10: understand the desire to move things to manaimo um in terms of access for people i know

[1:32:47] Voice 10: that i really value having uh staff who are um on islands and i also um it increases access for the

[1:33:00] Voice 10: for the community and certainly i mean that this benefits gabriella more than than demon directly

[1:33:06] Voice 10: but um you know having our operations based on on the islands in which we're working seems to me to

[1:33:13] Voice 10: be a yeah i don't know i i think it's important i think it has value it's hard to sort of quantify

[1:33:22] Voice 10: exactly what those things are and i understand that there's efficiencies for for some staff

[1:33:27] Voice 10: in terms of being in the larger hubs but um and and you know gabriel and i'm always less of a jump

[1:33:35] Voice 10: than than say oak bay into onto the southern gulf islands but um i i think there's real value in

[1:33:43] Voice 10: having staff who are who are you know working on islands and you know if we're going to be paying

[1:33:47] Voice 10: rent and buildings or or or any of those sorts of things like doing that in our communities is

[1:33:52] Voice 10: valuable um and yeah i recognize that there's challenges with that too so

[1:33:59] Voice 7: festival um i this

[1:34:04] Voice 7: caused me to think about what is the status of salt spring island and the victoria offices

[1:34:09] Voice 7: and their leases expiring and the fact that we don't really have a handle on like when

[1:34:15] Voice 7: when they say uh what is it might be considered upon expiry of the current lease what is the

[1:34:21] Voice 7: expiry of the current lease and is it the gabriola island office lease that we're considering i don't

[1:34:30] Voice 7: know why they focused on that particular um that particular office rather than any of the others

[1:34:39] Voice 7: but i do think we should look across the different leases and we lost an opportunity um this over the

[1:34:47] Voice 7: the past year to reconsider I mean for instance if there was an office in Schwartz Bay or thereabouts

[1:34:54] Voice 7: all of the southern gulf islands would have easy access to that office and because you know you

[1:35:01] Voice 7: could go in as a foot passenger and and get the bus walk to an office that was there going into

[1:35:10] Voice 7: Victoria is not easy and so that's my view I think that all of the offices should be

[1:35:19] Voice 7: more accessible than they are right now thanks thank you trustee

[1:35:25] Voice 13: Elliot actually I see trustee

[1:35:28] Voice 13: Campbell's hand up for me and I think you're you've been missing him um just because he doesn't

[1:35:33] Voice 13: have his video on so

[1:35:34] Trustee Patrick: sorry I don't have I don't have that one open and I apologize uh uh trustee

[1:35:40] Trustee Patrick: Campbell you're always supposed to yell at me when you have your hand up because I'm I don't

[1:35:43] Trustee Patrick: have that other screen up no I

[1:35:46] Voice 9: was just curious how many I guess how many islands do have offices

[1:35:52] Voice 9: on them because we don't I know we don't have one here um and yeah it would kind of make sense

[1:36:02] Voice 9: from a cost savings to have them more centralized but um yeah I'm wondering I guess what the pros

[1:36:11] Voice 9: and cons are to that the idea of moving it to Nanaimo thank

[1:36:19] Trustee Patrick: you I think we have

[1:36:20] Trustee Patrick: three staffed offices on Gabriela Salt Spring and Victoria and then Galeano

[1:36:25] Trustee Patrick: has an unstaffed office that's available for trustees and staff to use anyone I

[1:36:36] Trustee Patrick: guess the questions I'm not certain you know I know this is this is a larger

[1:36:41] Trustee Patrick: issue that I don't know if this is executive and maybe trustee Luckum is

[1:36:45] Trustee Patrick: Is that what you're going to address

[1:36:47] Trustee Patrick: as to working on the offices there?

[1:36:51] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, thank you very much, Chair.

[1:36:54] Trustee Luckham: Indeed, this came up at Executive Committee just yesterday.

[1:36:59] Trustee Luckham: The lease, you know, just for information,

[1:37:01] Trustee Luckham: the lease on Salt Spring is presently a process of negotiation

[1:37:09] Trustee Luckham: to establish a new location.

[1:37:11] Trustee Luckham: um and so that's ongoing uh no real major update there and uh in fact these uh Victoria office and

[1:37:21] Trustee Luckham: the um Gabrielle office those leases are up um this year uh probably in the coming months and

[1:37:30] Trustee Luckham: um at this at this juncture the reporting out was that uh they're in negotiations with the um

[1:37:38] Trustee Luckham: owners of the property in order to re-establish those leases.

[1:37:42] Trustee Luckham: But as you pointed out, Vice Chair Patrick,

[1:37:46] Trustee Luckham: you were involved, sorry, Chair Patrick,

[1:37:49] Trustee Luckham: you were certainly a Vice Chair on the Executive Committee

[1:37:52] Trustee Luckham: in previous terms.

[1:37:54] Trustee Luckham: And it's a lengthy conversation about changing the location.

[1:37:58] Trustee Luckham: We did enter into a very thorough process

[1:38:03] Trustee Luckham: when the lease was renewed at the present Victoria office

[1:38:08] Trustee Luckham: And of course, there's a substantial investment in preparing that building to meet our needs for a significant period of time.

[1:38:15] Trustee Luckham: And it's certainly doing that at this time.

[1:38:18] Trustee Luckham: But it's a complex issue associated with geographic boundaries, associated with existing employees, and what competitive rates exist in different locations and size and shape.

[1:38:32] Trustee Luckham: So nothing significant is changing there, but the leases are presently being considered to be renewed in those two locations. And that would be another couple of years before there'd be another process.

[1:38:45] Trustee Luckham: But I think the indication from the CAO when consideration came up in the discussion about purchasing spaces as a good long-term plan versus leasing, it's clear that that would be a project in itself and relocating would be a project in itself.

[1:39:02] Trustee Luckham: And that we need to consider that well in advance of any lease expiration that is forthcoming because we obviously need to continue to secure space for the operation for the business to continue. That's it for me. Thanks.

[1:39:19] Trustee Patrick: I think this committee I mean office locations I know you could argue are part of the resources

[1:39:25] Trustee Patrick: but I think our focus is more on you know staff resources dedicated to the planning and the type

[1:39:29] Trustee Patrick: of planning and the quality of the planning and and um and where the staff are are located I think

[1:39:35] Trustee Patrick: is a different issue a larger issue one that's more of uh executive and trust council level for

[1:39:41] Trustee Patrick: making those those decisions so um you know I think it's something we should pass along and

[1:39:47] Trustee Patrick: listen to. But I know when I was a vice chair last term, both myself and Trustee Rogers at the time

[1:39:58] Trustee Patrick: made it, you know, we always reported at the executive committee whenever we saw differences

[1:40:03] Trustee Patrick: in practices between the three offices as it appeared in our local trust committees. And I

[1:40:09] Trustee Patrick: think that's a role for the vice chairs to be always on an eye looking for, because they see

[1:40:13] Trustee Patrick: it directly when you're chairing a meeting in the south and then one on salt spring and then one on

[1:40:18] Trustee Patrick: the north and you say hmm um some changes are unique and and work but some you know should

[1:40:24] Trustee Patrick: be called attention to say well wait a minute these shouldn't be different they should be so

[1:40:28] Trustee Patrick: so um that's what we should like to be looking for

[1:40:36] Voice 13: okay um if i could just go ahead yeah just

[1:40:41] Voice 13: Just jumping off of Trustee Luckum's comments from yesterday, we did have some discussion and the situation when this report was written was that the Northern Office on Gabriola was really struggling for staff and struggling to retain staff.

[1:41:05] Voice 13: And it was partly, I think, due to it was a smaller locale, we get newer, younger planners sort of just out of school, and then they'd circulate out to other opportunities. And that's just not the situation we're in right now. We're fully staffed to the point that I don't have an office to hold office hours in. I've been shuffled off. So I'm like going to the library this month.

[1:41:31] Voice 13: and we I just don't think we've had this before partly because we've got you know policy advisor

[1:41:36] Voice 13: Tyler Brown lives on Gabriola we've got a new co-op planning student who is from Gabriola

[1:41:43] Voice 13: so it's just a result of where we're at and operationally it's fully staffed and we see a

[1:41:49] Voice 13: lot of traffic coming through so this would not be a consideration for right now I think if we

[1:41:56] Voice 13: we were in this position again in the future looking at an office lease in Nanaimo would make

[1:42:02] Voice 13: sense but it's there's just such a full complement of staff that we're we're busting out the seams

[1:42:08] Voice 13: and there isn't another location on Gabriela so I think we're talking about renewing the lease for

[1:42:15] Voice 13: as long as it can be because it's it's fairly cost effective and and the other thing I would

[1:42:22] Voice 13: would bring up is, you know, as employers, we want to make a good workplace for staff. And I think

[1:42:28] Voice 13: this insecurity of not having an office to work in, you know, for Salt Spring, there's going to

[1:42:34] Voice 13: be a lag time between negotiating. Well, so I just can only imagine what that must feel like is

[1:42:41] Voice 13: having to shuffle to a home base or potentially go to the Victoria office for a busy

[1:42:50] Voice 13: planning location like Salt Spring must be very insecure. And so I'm, I'm quite concerned about

[1:42:56] Voice 13: the HR aspect of having office spaces in locations where it makes sense. And, and leasing to me makes

[1:43:04] Voice 13: the most sense. A capital purchase of, of a building, I think would look to taxpayers like

[1:43:09] Voice 13: we're spending our money in the wrong direction. So I'm not supportive of even exploring that

[1:43:14] Voice 13: right now I think what we've got is good and there's a good rationale for leasing right now

[1:43:21] Voice 13: thanks well

[1:43:22] Trustee Patrick: thank you and we're going to let executive committee and trust council

[1:43:26] Trustee Patrick: wrestle over those ideas but I will note that the Salt Spring office has never looked cleaner

[1:43:30] Trustee Patrick: so maybe moving down that is a good thing we pack up boxes okay staff resources I think that's

[1:43:43] Trustee Patrick: That is a more interesting topic that is here.

[1:43:48] Trustee Patrick: If there's any questions on that.

[1:43:53] Trustee Patrick: And I think this is, I think an interesting point is the second item under staff resources

[1:44:02] Trustee Patrick: is we do rely on planners to be sort of the corporate controller of our meetings and something

[1:44:09] Trustee Patrick: I think as I know the governance committee has been wrestling over the secretariat conversations

[1:44:16] Trustee Patrick: and what the roles and corporate needs and supports for this area.

[1:44:21] Trustee Patrick: I don't know if people have ideas or thoughts on that or even staff themselves.

[1:44:32] Trustee Patrick: Do you feel comfortable?

[1:44:35] Trustee Patrick: Do planners feel comfortable all the time in these meetings?

[1:44:38] Trustee Patrick: Are there times where they're uncomfortable?

[1:44:42] Voice 12: Sure.

[1:44:42] Voice 12: It can be a challenge sometimes for planners if they're the only staff person at a meeting.

[1:44:47] Voice 12: you have to if it's the island planner or even a planner too sometimes and say the rpm's not there

[1:44:54] Voice 12: um zoom helps right having the remote access i know there's a couple instances where uh

[1:44:59] Voice 12: you know david marler was available and he was able to join a meeting at short notice to deal

[1:45:04] Voice 12: with some some sort of procedural question or interpret legislative interpretation something

[1:45:09] Voice 12: like that but uh yeah often our you know my advice to planners if you know some procedural question

[1:45:16] Voice 12: comes up and they can't answer it don't try and make it up just say we'll get back to you

[1:45:22] Trustee Patrick: good rule of thumb trustee graham yeah

[1:45:26] Voice 6: drawing on my short time as a as a chair on a number of

[1:45:30] Voice 6: violence um i always felt it was the chair's responsibility to protect staff at all costs

[1:45:35] Voice 6: and when those questions arose to not turn my head to the staff and expect an answer when it

[1:45:41] Voice 6: was clearly not within their professional expertise. And so I would actually say no

[1:45:47] Voice 6: chairs, current chairs, it's your responsibility to protect your staff. And if your staff are

[1:45:52] Voice 6: feeling uncomfortable, it's it's not their problem. It's your problem. So I turn it back to staff

[1:45:57] Voice 6: to chair training. All

[1:46:03] Trustee Patrick: right. Any other questions on staff resources here?

[1:46:18] Trustee Patrick: interruptions over here uh

[1:46:20] Voice 7: trustee poland yeah i am i would love to see um the names of all the

[1:46:28] Voice 7: staff and what they're assigned to only because i you know names pop up here and there emails come

[1:46:37] Voice 7: welcoming somebody back to a new position etc etc and i don't really you know there are key

[1:46:46] Voice 7: staff people in the islands trust that i know but a lot of names i don't know and i don't know what

[1:46:52] Voice 7: their positions are and i think it would be helpful to create a kind of a sense of a

[1:46:59] Voice 7: working relationship community if we could see that kind of thing thanks well

[1:47:07] Trustee Patrick: thank you trustable

[1:47:08] Trustee Patrick: i mean that is that's an interesting comment for staff and maybe in the future we've got the

[1:47:12] Trustee Patrick: the organizational chart, which is always kind of an impersonal thing, that maybe in a future

[1:47:17] Trustee Patrick: meeting, it would be good to kind of review and hear from the staff on, you know, put names to

[1:47:22] Trustee Patrick: these boxes. And for this committee in particular, again, we're out there helping to support what's

[1:47:28] Trustee Patrick: being out there and understanding, you know, the structure and flow of this organization.

[1:47:31] Trustee Patrick: This committee should know that. So that might be just something to park and look at

[1:47:36] Trustee Patrick: to um because we're out there so any other comments on the staffing resources piece

[1:47:44] Trustee Patrick: we're moving along here okay well that brings us to planning reports which is the last section

[1:47:54] Trustee Patrick: how

[1:47:56] Voice 3: exciting is that i

[1:48:01] Trustee Patrick: guess it's planning reports no one wants to talk about that they

[1:48:11] Trustee Patrick: all love the reports they read them thoroughly from front cover to back every time staff know i

[1:48:18] Trustee Patrick: I do trustee Graham

[1:48:21] Voice 6: sorry for hogging the opportunity to speak um I think I think those

[1:48:28] Voice 6: of us that have you know been here a bit we see that the each subsequent report always refers to

[1:48:35] Voice 6: the information that we already saw in a previous report so I don't think too many of us are reading

[1:48:40] Voice 6: what we've already read we're looking at the new information to build on our our knowledge of what

[1:48:47] Voice 6: what we're dealing with um i i'm reluctant to say maybe not include that previous information

[1:48:53] Voice 6: in those reports uh because there may be people that forget and want to refer to it as they

[1:48:59] Voice 6: deliberate before the meeting but you know i don't have a problem with reports i read what i need to

[1:49:05] Voice 6: read and i remember what i've read so far and uh life is good

[1:49:10] Trustee Patrick: all right trustee elliot um

[1:49:16] Voice 13: yeah i

[1:49:17] Voice 13: I see a lot of differences in the planning reports.

[1:49:24] Voice 13: And I think what I am noticing over the last year is I'm trending towards as maybe not standardization, but yeah, shorter, more linked references to previous reports.

[1:49:39] Voice 13: I think things are getting tighter.

[1:49:41] Voice 13: later. And we're going to see an update to eScribe, which should separate all the different

[1:49:49] Voice 13: reports out and allow HTML versions and the links to previous reports. I think everything's going to

[1:49:56] Voice 13: be stored very differently in the future. I don't know how soon that's going to happen,

[1:50:00] Voice 13: but we've been promised this update to eScribe so that we can, and what I'm hoping is that those

[1:50:09] Voice 13: those hyperlinks to previous reports will live on the internet and you don't have to access the

[1:50:13] Voice 13: whole 500 or 200 page agenda. So I don't know. I see some reports from planners that are extremely

[1:50:22] Voice 13: tight, short, give executive summary, give me the information that I need to see. Some that are

[1:50:28] Voice 13: longer and circuitous and definitely the former leads to more effective decision-making, I think.

[1:50:35] Voice 13: so working in that direction would be good thank

[1:50:41] Voice 7: you trustee boland yeah i support everything that

[1:50:46] Voice 7: said if we could have hyperlinks to previous reports and that would be great if we could have

[1:50:53] Voice 7: generally speaking i like the reports and the way they're laid out um and uh the more we can

[1:51:01] Voice 7: use hyperlinks and the more we can have and planning reports is a bad example because they

[1:51:07] Voice 7: They do exist in the web, but standalone copies,

[1:51:10] Voice 7: I just cannot bear the fact that I have to constantly

[1:51:15] Voice 7: trawl through my mind to trawl through agendas

[1:51:20] Voice 7: to find things that I knew were useful

[1:51:22] Voice 7: that have just disappeared into the morass.

[1:51:25] Voice 7: I find it so frustrating

[1:51:28] Voice 7: and such a waste of valuable resources,

[1:51:32] Voice 7: hours, staff time, everything.

[1:51:35] Voice 7: thing. And I constantly think, gee, you know, for instance, great example, when we opened this

[1:51:44] Voice 7: discussion, Stefan referred to the matrix he had created, where he showed a kind of a review of the

[1:51:53] Voice 7: different OCPs, etc. Well, I mean, I haven't hope in hell of finding that report again and finding

[1:52:00] Voice 7: that table, you know, without going back through multiple, multiple RPC agendas in the hope that

[1:52:07] Voice 7: I'll drift across it. I just find that so incredibly frustrating and such an incredible

[1:52:13] Voice 7: waste of our time. Thanks.

[1:52:17] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Forthwick.

[1:52:20] Voice 10: And yeah, I knew when I saw Mairead ahead of me

[1:52:23] Voice 10: in the line that she was going to say a lot of the things that I was thinking too. Yeah, it's

[1:52:27] Voice 10: uh, deeply, deeply frustrating to, to, um, not have a more, uh, easily accessible document of

[1:52:36] Voice 10: library of documents. Um, the other part that I, that I, and the only reason I kept my hand up

[1:52:42] Voice 10: really is, um, the, the, the risk that also comes in all of this, uh, is that if you were not a

[1:52:50] Voice 10: a trustee at the time when a report or, uh, um, was included in an agenda, you don't have access

[1:52:59] Voice 10: to that report. Um, and so there may be, there's lots of data that, that exists that, that a

[1:53:05] Voice 10: previous, that, uh, you know, a trustee that's had, that's been in before can be like, oh,

[1:53:09] Voice 10: didn't we see a report from that, you know, six years ago. And I have no way of finding that

[1:53:15] Voice 10: document. Uh, and it's also impossible for me to do my own independent sort of research going

[1:53:19] Voice 10: going through, like, it would be great to be able to have a, you know, a library of documents that

[1:53:24] Voice 10: allows me to search through and see, okay, well, what are the, you know, what are things that,

[1:53:29] Voice 10: where are parts where we've invested staff time? And yeah, it is, it's not a respectful or efficient

[1:53:35] Voice 10: use of the staff resources that were, you know, dedicated to creating those reports. A lot of

[1:53:41] Voice 10: these reports are excellent, but if I can't find them when I need them, they might as well not

[1:53:47] Voice 10: exist all

[1:53:50] Trustee Patrick: right well i'm sure this is not a challenge that's limited to us at this organization

[1:53:55] Trustee Patrick: um i i know it's um there is a lot of information out there and it um it is important i think staff

[1:54:03] Trustee Patrick: generally do a really good job of pulling together the story when the story is being brought to us

[1:54:07] Trustee Patrick: but it's when you do your own independent research on the side that you've got to do the digger the

[1:54:12] Trustee Patrick: the deeper digging.

[1:54:14] Trustee Patrick: And I think we've all experienced that moment

[1:54:17] Trustee Patrick: where you remember seeing something.

[1:54:20] Trustee Patrick: Now, where was it that you saw that?

[1:54:23] Voice 7: Trustee Boland.

[1:54:25] Voice 7: Just to follow up on what we've all said.

[1:54:28] Voice 7: To be honest, the general public is served better

[1:54:31] Voice 7: in terms of documents than we are.

[1:54:34] Voice 7: That the document management system as it exists

[1:54:37] Voice 7: deals with those final reports, the minutes, the agendas

[1:54:41] Voice 7: us to the public we as elected trustees are very poorly served we sit in a kind of a nowhere space

[1:54:50] Voice 7: and we're you know not we're not served as well as general public is in terms of access to

[1:54:57] Voice 7: information my

[1:54:59] Trustee Patrick: explain that explain that more because i'll

[1:55:02] Voice 7: give an example well the planning

[1:55:04] Voice 7: reports so they're essential to us to do our work but they won't show up in the document management

[1:55:09] Voice 7: management system there'll be you know the the you know water reports the agendas the minutes

[1:55:16] Voice 7: and there you know the the list of documents that go into that document library doesn't really

[1:55:24] Voice 7: cover the content that we want access to on a regular basis and we don't have an alternative

[1:55:32] Voice 7: WebDAV is the agendas and the minutes.

[1:55:36] Voice 7: So we sit in a space where we don't have access to the material that we would find incredibly useful.

[1:55:47] Voice 7: Okay,

[1:55:47] Trustee Patrick: so what I'm hearing is that you have to find the agenda package the staff report is in, rather than we don't have a system where that staff report is existing in a standalone document.

[1:55:58] Trustee Patrick: Yeah,

[1:55:59] Voice 7: which goes back to the RFD that I presented, I think, in March last year, which was unanimously supported. And I'm hoping that the next eScribe might do something about it. It's on a follow up action list with, I think, a target of, I can't even remember now, I was so disappointed the last time I read it, a target of, I don't know what to say.

[1:56:27] Voice 7: I

[1:56:27] Voice 13: think it's August this year, but it's, that's the technical update that's happening, but it'll provide a lot of different tools that we don't currently have. And I think that's just, yeah. I agree with you. We absolutely need it. And your motion was well, well-timed, I think. Yeah.

[1:56:46] Voice 7: Well, I don't know. It was well-timed given how long it's taken to come to any fruition, but okay. Fair enough. Okay. Well, I look forward to that. And thanks.

[1:56:56] Trustee Patrick: All right. There's really one section more that, I mean, it wasn't, it was the collection

[1:57:01] Trustee Patrick: of comments. It's on page 25 and 26 of the agenda package where the consultant just sort

[1:57:09] Trustee Patrick: of dumped a bunch of other points for consideration into the document. If anyone had any comments

[1:57:22] Trustee Patrick: on that i

[1:57:38] Voice 7: actually find the reports generally well written that third paragraph i don't um

[1:57:43] Voice 7: i don't agree with i think if we had access to them more easily but i won't go back over that

[1:57:50] Voice 7: but i find the reports generally to be well written and they generally introduce and give

[1:57:57] Voice 7: a high level summary and options in a way that makes sense to me to be honest

[1:58:01] Trustee Patrick: yeah i think i'm

[1:58:06] Trustee Patrick: focusing more on there's the next section there that starts with some points for consideration

[1:58:10] Trustee Patrick: that uh on page 25 there there we go right there it starts there i think this is to me this is one

[1:58:26] Trustee Patrick: of the this is probably the area that we all have to work better at is you know we all like

[1:58:33] Trustee Patrick: the the mandate you know we preserve and protect we preserve and protect we preserve and protect

[1:58:38] Trustee Patrick: but it's in cooperation with those next three words that are so critically important and and

[1:58:46] Trustee Patrick: really any of our major projects can't be done without that in cooperation with part and that

[1:58:54] Trustee Patrick: is unique to each of our islands who who are those other players that actively play a role in

[1:59:01] Trustee Patrick: our communities whether it's a regional district or improvement districts or

[1:59:07] Trustee Patrick: or some sort of associations.

[1:59:10] Trustee Patrick: Yes, Struthie-Graham.

[1:59:12] Voice 6: I can report that on Denman,

[1:59:15] Voice 6: we're about to adopt bylaws

[1:59:18] Voice 6: that required ministerial approval in like two months.

[1:59:24] Voice 6: So it's possible that the ministry

[1:59:27] Voice 6: is also moving faster than they have in the past.

[1:59:40] Trustee Patrick: Let's hope so.

[1:59:40] Trustee Patrick: So I know here on Salt Spring, we, staff, and I guess, well, Stefan, maybe you could report that.

[1:59:50] Trustee Patrick: I know we were talking about, you know, the ministry has turned down a couple of items based on not insufficient engagement with First Nations.

[1:59:58] Trustee Patrick: And so we're prepared.

[2:00:00] Trustee Patrick: our ocp project here on salt spring we said well maybe we should go to the ministry first and ask

[2:00:04] Trustee Patrick: them what is sufficient first nations engagement so that we know what what the bar is and where

[2:00:08] Trustee Patrick: we're going and i know there was some conversations on that and i don't know stefan if this is the

[2:00:13] Trustee Patrick: appropriate time to maybe just update on that if

[2:00:17] Voice 5: you're i can provide

[2:00:18] Voice 5: some information i i don't

[2:00:20] Voice 5: think i have heard from ministry staff answering that question directly because their response to

[2:00:28] Voice 5: us has been you figure out your engagement process and their number one feedback has been

[2:00:34] Voice 5: if you hear from First Nations you must demonstrate that you have heard them and

[2:00:41] Voice 5: you're responding to them in a meaningful manner so that has been the hiccup you know and

[2:00:48] Voice 5: and unfortunately sometimes we hear from First Nations after public hearing and so the ministry

[2:00:54] Voice 5: history hears from them at the last second and then they're they tell Islas Trust well how did

[2:00:59] Voice 5: you address this and we're like well it's past public hearing we actually didn't can't address

[2:01:03] Voice 5: because it's new information that situation is showing up and they're like well figure it out

[2:01:09] Voice 5: so what we're trying to what we've established and we have ongoing Communications we haven't

[2:01:14] Voice 5: perfected anything but we do have ongoing Communications with the staff there to

[2:01:20] Voice 5: to understand the process to understand the hiccups and currently we we just accept that if we

[2:01:26] Voice 5: anticipate an ocp amendment to be particularly challenging or difficult or there's a particular

[2:01:33] Voice 5: first nations that that's expressed uh in interest to do things in a certain way that'll take time

[2:01:37] Voice 5: we just communicate that with elected with pardon me with the staff there and we we sort of try to

[2:01:44] Voice 5: to be proactive in anticipating what it is but really the hiccup has been in the past with these

[2:01:51] Voice 5: changing sort of weight of First Nations responses that that's kind of tripped them up and it's not

[2:02:00] Voice 5: so much the ministry staff it's actually the Attorney General's office that's kind of doing a

[2:02:03] Voice 5: an evaluation of risk so the best I can answer is that we're trying to be proactive in anticipating

[2:02:11] Voice 5: those needs and having even more regular communications with ministry staff to avoid

[2:02:16] Voice 5: any unforeseen circumstances. So in other words, no surprises. We're working towards that.

[2:02:22] Trustee Patrick: Always a good rule of thumb. Trustee Boland?

[2:02:26] Voice 7: The second item down, I had noticed this before actually, it references one local government and

[2:02:34] Voice 7: I was wondering which local government that was, has developed an operational dashboard. So we'll

[2:02:42] Voice 7: city view deliver such an operational dashboard and and will it include referrals because i can

[2:02:51] Voice 7: see how this would draw attention to something where a process had got stuck or gone wrong

[2:02:59] Voice 7: you know ideally an operational dashboard would be green green green orange orange orange

[2:03:04] Voice 7: yellow yellow yellow whatever and then red and red would be okay this assigned estimated time

[2:03:12] Voice 7: time has blown up. Something is wrong here and I need to focus on that and figure out why. So

[2:03:20] Voice 7: will CityView, could CityView be configured to do this for you?

[2:03:27] Voice 5: I don't know about the chess

[2:03:29] Voice 5: clock time thing. It's to you, to me, to you, to me. I think that's clever in a way because you

[2:03:35] Voice 5: would, I think elected officials would be amazed how much it's actually the applicant not doing

[2:03:39] Voice 5: their end of work it's almost the vast majority of time spent waiting for them to do what they've

[2:03:44] Voice 5: been requested to do or it's required by the bylaw so i don't think city view is quite set up that

[2:03:50] Voice 5: way but internally how city view is set up again we talked about those steps that we really

[2:03:56] Voice 5: identified for each application is that is now every office will see that in the same way and

[2:04:05] Voice 5: it prompts the staff to go to okay you've done this now do this you've done this now do that

[2:04:10] Voice 5: so it's very like built into the software what the processes are whereas before we kind of had

[2:04:16] Voice 5: checklists and you know the various other tools to to make sure we one step after the other so

[2:04:22] Voice 5: i don't think it'll give a chess clock time approach but it is systemized a little bit better

[2:04:28] Voice 5: and we and i'm not sure and we haven't really had training on what type of reporting city view will

[2:04:35] Voice 5: will do for us, which is ironic, but Robert and I are probably the two most keenly interested

[2:04:42] Voice 5: people. How is it going to be able to report? And we'll explore all those reporting mechanisms

[2:04:48] Voice 5: as we learn them. And maybe there's answers I could give you, maybe after the fact,

[2:04:54] Voice 5: once I learn them. So I'm a little bit in the dark there. I just know that it systemizes the

[2:04:59] Voice 5: process very well for us, which then also means that the applicant will know what they have to

[2:05:04] Voice 5: do and don't do in a much clearer online sort of transparent way but maybe robert would like

[2:05:10] Voice 5: to contribute to that because he's been playing with city view as well um

[2:05:14] Voice 12: in terms of the reporting

[2:05:15] Voice 12: uh stefan's right um the city view has its standard reports um but it has quite powerful

[2:05:22] Voice 12: customization functions for reporting out um and that's what we really have to get into once

[2:05:29] Voice 12: Once it's set up is probably over time, you'll see the reports that we're able to generate becoming more and more specific or sophisticated, if you like.

[2:05:42] Voice 12: Yeah, the public facing portal will have information on the status of all applications.

[2:05:49] Voice 12: Beyond that, yeah, I haven't seen anything like a countdown clock or anything like that.

[2:05:56] Voice 12: i mean um i must i don't know which local government uh he was referring to but i assume

[2:06:05] Voice 12: it's one with you know very high volume of applications yeah

[2:06:10] Voice 7: i i just think an operational

[2:06:12] Voice 7: dashboard is a very powerful way of really um having attention drawn to the problem areas

[2:06:19] Voice 7: rather than we're trying to deal with everything as fast as we can but anyway yeah i look forward

[2:06:25] Voice 7: having a look at that and hearing more feedback city

[2:06:29] Voice 12: views internal um setup is a dashboard style

[2:06:33] Voice 12: setup and customizable and you can drag and drop different um different screen or different

[2:06:39] Voice 12: functions different little windows okay

[2:06:42] Voice 7: well we'll see at the demo thanks all

[2:06:48] Trustee Patrick: right any other

[2:06:49] Trustee Patrick: questions on this um i have a proposal for next steps it's going to involve sam who's going to

[2:06:57] Trustee Patrick: be saying what see i woke him up um i i was going to commit and uh to work with sam to try to

[2:07:04] Trustee Patrick: cross-reference this this list to our prioritization list to see if we can kind of close you know not

[2:07:11] Trustee Patrick: necessarily close it out but be able to answer it out so we could report to either the governance

[2:07:16] Trustee Patrick: committee or trust council on that we have reviewed this and where the work falls to see

[2:07:22] Trustee Patrick: you know where the gaps are and then you know if there are gaps i can bring that back to this

[2:07:26] Trustee Patrick: committee to say well this is missing completely where does this sit in the prioritization world

[2:07:31] Trustee Patrick: of the work that we're doing or um if that so like i said i commit to bring back a report working uh

[2:07:38] Trustee Patrick: i'm going to drag sam into it and uh of course staff uh that we that i kind of cross-reference

[2:07:43] Trustee Patrick: the two so that we can have really only one work plan that we you know we can sort of say we've

[2:07:48] Trustee Patrick: paid our attention to this we're not forgetting it but the work has been is embedded in the work

[2:07:52] Trustee Patrick: that we're doing that makes sense uh

[2:07:57] Voice 7: see trustee boland uh it's just one last comment the

[2:08:02] Voice 7: comprehensive development zones in that you know you have that housing toolkit and um suitable

[2:08:09] Voice 7: land development do you see a way in which you could identify comprehensive development zones

[2:08:16] Voice 7: for each island and that they could be built

[2:08:20] Voice 7: into a new zone definition for the OCPs or the LUBs.

[2:08:27] Voice 7: So

[2:08:29] Voice 12: most islands have comprehensive development zones.

[2:08:32] Voice 12: So thinking of Saturna, I think it's the corporate co-ops

[2:08:38] Voice 12: are separate zones.

[2:08:42] Voice 12: So a comprehensive development zone is just simply a unique zone

[2:08:45] Voice 12: that's created um for a particular circumstance um most islands have that they may not be called

[2:08:53] Voice 12: comprehensive development zones they may be just given a unique zone name but that's essentially

[2:08:58] Voice 12: what they are is a unique zone i'm

[2:09:02] Voice 7: thinking about the affordable housing increased density

[2:09:05] Voice 7: multi-family residential whatever that particular angle on it that came from the

[2:09:14] Voice 7: work that um around finding locations on which to do multifamily so

[2:09:23] Voice 12: the suitable land analysis

[2:09:25] Voice 12: yeah

[2:09:25] Voice 7: so that's completely

[2:09:26] Voice 12: separate from a concept of a comprehensive development zone

[2:09:30] Voice 12: a comprehensive development zone is the outcome of a process that establishes the regulations

[2:09:35] Voice 12: on a particular site the suitable land analysis is as you know demonstration taking existing data

[2:09:41] Voice 12: and layering it and ranking it.

[2:09:44] Voice 7: Okay, I'll leave it at that because obviously I don't understand

[2:09:47] Voice 7: enough. Thanks. Thank you, Trustee Elliott.

[2:09:52] Voice 13: Yeah, thanks for explaining that, Robert. I haven't

[2:09:55] Voice 13: heard of that before. Where did you say it's in use? Because I don't think Gabriel has that tool.

[2:10:03] Voice 13: cool salt

[2:10:03] Voice 12: spring so if you your most land use bylaws um have um circumstances or a location

[2:10:13] Voice 12: where there's just a zone that's unique to that one location well

[2:10:18] Voice 13: like our village core zone on

[2:10:20] Voice 13: gabriel because you're allowed

[2:10:22] Voice 13: multi-family dwelling units in the village core that is

[2:10:25] Voice 13: the only place they can be yep

[2:10:28] Voice 12: it could be that often they're unique circumstances on islands like

[2:10:32] Voice 12: historic kind of situations where there's multiple dwellings on a property it doesn't it's doesn't

[2:10:38] Voice 12: um fit in to any of the existing zones and so a comprehensive development zone is created for that

[2:10:44] Voice 12: like it says in in this uh like eric vance says here they're they're essentially custom zones

[2:10:53] Voice 5: maybe maybe i'll add to that a little bit they tend to be a comprehensive development can also

[2:10:58] Voice 5: be like a multi-use so you get a multi-family single residential maybe a light commercial or

[2:11:04] Voice 5: something like that it tends to be a comprehensive that way not always because it's depending on

[2:11:09] Voice 5: whatever the past use was but certainly going forward that's how they tend to be applied

[2:11:13] Voice 5: so

[2:11:14] Voice 7: i suppose and i'll just leave it there let's let's go on from it but it just to open

[2:11:19] Voice 7: leave this as an open question is there a way that we could proactively use that concept

[2:11:24] Voice 7: to designate areas for affordable housing, multifamily, et cetera,

[2:11:31] Voice 7: that actually to like take action

[2:11:34] Voice 7: so that we're not constantly trying to catch up.

[2:11:37] Voice 7: But anyway, let's leave it at that

[2:11:39] Voice 7: because I don't know enough about it really

[2:11:41] Voice 7: and I'd probably have to have an offline discussion.

[2:11:43] Voice 7: The short answer is yes.

[2:11:46] Voice 7: Okay.

[2:11:47] Voice 7: Thanks.

[2:11:48] Voice 7: There we go.

[2:11:49] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Luckham.

[2:11:51] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, I just, you know,

[2:11:53] Trustee Luckham: Now, I've experienced these over the years.

[2:11:56] Trustee Luckham: I've been sharing LTCs and site-specific zoning.

[2:12:01] Trustee Luckham: And correct me if I'm wrong, Robert, but any applicant that wants to do something that

[2:12:10] Trustee Luckham: is unusual, not presently covered by zoning, it can be requested or we would suggest that

[2:12:17] Trustee Luckham: a site-specific zoning was the way to facilitate that.

[2:12:20] Trustee Luckham: And whether that's housing options or some other use that was not included in the OCP could be done, but it isn't a simple land use bylaw change.

[2:12:34] Trustee Luckham: It also potentially requires an OCP amendment, but again, that can be done through an application which would be funded by whomever was interested in acquiring that particular use on that particular property. Is that correct?

[2:12:55] Voice 12: Yes, it is.

[2:12:57] Trustee Luckham: Okay. And that exists for everybody.

[2:13:02] Voice 5: And maybe if I can jump in there, Mrs. Chair, Madam Chair, the suitable land analysis is

[2:13:12] Voice 5: a tool that presents an opportunity for individual LTCs to use as, to apply as Mary suggested,

[2:13:20] Voice 5: to explore options for areas that may be suitable for further development, because it tries

[2:13:28] Voice 5: tries to you know comprehensively assess all the data model all the data that's

[2:13:34] Voice 5: available including preserving and protecting the ecosystems and sensitive

[2:13:38] Voice 5: ecosystems and things like that so it's a tool that may be able to as Robert

[2:13:46] Voice 5: pointed out help individual LTC's identify areas of suitable development

[2:13:50] Voice 5: for things like affordable housing but that would eventually I haven't

[2:13:55] Voice 5: comprehended what that would look like to do at a regional scale versus on an LTC by LTC level.

[2:14:00] Voice 5: Certainly at a regional scale, we couldn't do any meaningful changing of OCPs or LUBs, but we could

[2:14:06] Voice 5: recommend and suggest a regional approach to growth management and the type of development.

[2:14:12] Voice 5: So it'd be an interesting project to take on.

[2:14:18] Trustee Patrick: More work. All right. Any other questions?

[2:14:24] Trustee Patrick: you're okay with uh sam and i attempting to cross-reference this to our priorities list

[2:14:29] Trustee Patrick: so that we can be working from one set of works instructions and be able to report out on

[2:14:34] Trustee Patrick: addressing this so i i will work on that with sam and of course i'm going to hope staff will

[2:14:42] Trustee Patrick: give feedback what

[2:14:44] Voice 13: can we help with like this has been a great conversation but it i

[2:14:49] Voice 13: I, um, is there anything, well, like I

[2:14:53] Trustee Patrick: said, I cross-reference, I want to cross-reference the

[2:14:57] Trustee Patrick: two, so that we're, you know, like I said, where we're working on, you know, the priority work that

[2:15:02] Trustee Patrick: we're working on, that we've got the linked and cross-references to, you know, what is in here,

[2:15:07] Trustee Patrick: um, so that we've got a basic accountability of where, where we're addressing this work

[2:15:12] Trustee Patrick: actively in our work program, and then there may be gaps, so I'll prepare a draft, and of course,

[2:15:19] Trustee Patrick: you all will comment on it

[2:15:21] Trustee Patrick: because we have a meeting again

[2:15:28] Trustee Patrick: our next meeting is end of May

[2:15:31] Trustee Patrick: May

[2:15:31] Voice 5: 24th

[2:15:32] Voice 5: I think

[2:15:34] Voice 5: 25th I thought

[2:15:35] Voice 5: May 24th

[2:15:38] Voice 5: so

[2:15:40] Voice 7: just for clarity

[2:15:42] Voice 7: Laura you're going to

[2:15:44] Voice 7: take this checklist

[2:15:47] Voice 7: and our comments and you're going

[2:15:49] Voice 7: to map it

[2:15:51] Voice 7: to our list

[2:15:53] Voice 7: of actions

[2:15:56] Voice 7: to see where they

[2:15:57] Voice 7: where the gaps are and where they align with something we're doing already is that is that

[2:16:03] Voice 7: what you're saying correct so

[2:16:05] Trustee Patrick: that we're working off of one priority list for this committee that

[2:16:09] Trustee Patrick: is how i'm seeing it trustee

[2:16:12] Voice 6: graham thanks and through um our general conversation today i think

[2:16:16] Voice 6: we've removed a number of items which we felt were were not worth pursuing and and and staff

[2:16:22] Voice 6: have shown us where they have accomplished the desired effect and so you know it's going to be

[2:16:27] Voice 6: a more concise list that you're looking at so that we have exactly

[2:16:31] Voice 6: yeah yeah

[2:16:33] Voice 5: maybe i can ask

[2:16:34] Voice 5: a question madam chair um were you also proposing to use it as a part part of a screening material

[2:16:40] Voice 5: to add to the screening material for projects or did i misunderstand that no

[2:16:45] Voice 6: no no no

[2:16:45] Voice 5: okay our it's

[2:16:46] Trustee Patrick: our prior our priority project list is what drives the work of this committee and so i'm cross

[2:16:52] Trustee Patrick: cross-referencing to that.

[2:16:54] Trustee Patrick: Thank you.

[2:16:54] Trustee Patrick: So that we don't have, we're not accountable.

[2:16:57] Trustee Patrick: I don't want to have these two lists active

[2:16:59] Trustee Patrick: that we're keeping track of this work

[2:17:00] Trustee Patrick: and keeping track of our priority work

[2:17:02] Trustee Patrick: that we have one set of work instructions

[2:17:04] Trustee Patrick: for this committee.

[2:17:06] Trustee Patrick: That's my ultimate goal of being chair.

[2:17:12] Trustee Patrick: I just don't want to lose things

[2:17:14] Trustee Patrick: if you want to make sure things don't fall away.

[2:17:20] Trustee Patrick: All right.

[2:17:20] Trustee Patrick: Any other questions?

[2:17:23] Trustee Patrick: I kept us moving

[2:17:25] Trustee Patrick: because I was hoping we were going to be done early

[2:17:26] Trustee Patrick: and not go through the one o'clock.

[2:17:28] Trustee Patrick: So, if there are no other comments, I will get this done when we can.

[2:17:39] Trustee Patrick: And our next meeting is May 24th.

[2:17:48] Trustee Patrick: All right.

[2:17:49] Trustee Patrick: With that, I guess we need a motion to adjourn.

[2:17:53] Trustee Patrick: So moved by Sam, seconded by Christy Graham.

[2:17:59] Trustee Patrick: I guess anyone oppose?

[2:18:03] Trustee Patrick: thank you everyone it was a good conversation and uh and uh we'll keep on moving forward

[2:18:11] Trustee Patrick: onwards and upwards thanks take

[2:18:13] Voice 10: care all right thank

[2:18:14] Voice 10: you thank you all bye

[2:18:16] Trustee Patrick: shoot

[2:18:17] Voice 10: me an email or a text uh when you want to get together and have a chat i've got a lot on my

[2:18:23] Voice 10: plate at the moment but i can we'll we'll make it we'll make it happen

[2:18:26] Trustee Patrick: we gotta do that all right

[2:18:28] Trustee Patrick: thanks bye

ADOPTED 
Regional Planning Committee  
Minutes of a Special Meeting  
April 25, 2024 ADOPTED Page 1 of 6 
Regional Planning Committee 
Minutes of a Special Meeting 
 
Date: 
Location: 
April 25, 2024 
Electronic Meeting 
 
Members Present: Laura Patrick, Salt Spring Island Local Trustee, Chair 
 Sam Borthwick, Denman Island Local Trustee, Vice Chair  
Mairead Boland, Saturna Island Local Trustee 
Aaron Campbell, North Pender Island Local Trustee 
Tobi Elliott, Executive Committee Representative 
Mikaila Lironi, Lasqueti Island Local Trustee 
David Graham, Denman Island Local Trustee 
Peter Luckham, Thetis Island Local Trustee (Ex Officio) 
 
Member Regrets: Alex Allen, Hornby Island Local Trustee 
 
Staff Present:   Stefan Cermak, Director, Planning Services 
    Robert Kojima, Regional Planning Manager 
Anthony Fotino, Island Planner 
    Rob Kroeker, Planning Services Administrative Assistant / Recorder 
 
Others Present: None.  
 
1. CALL TO ORDER 
 
Chair Patrick called the meeting to order at 10:03 a.m. and acknowledged that participants of 
the meeting were attending from all across the territories and home of the Coast Salish peoples.  
 
2. AGENDA 
 
 2.1 Review of the Agenda 
 
No new items were presented for addition to the agenda.  
 
 2.2 Approval of the Agenda  
 
By general consent the Regional Planning Committee approved the agenda as 
presented. 
 
3. PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD 
 
 No members of the public were present.   
 
4. DELEGATIONS 
 
None.  

ADOPTED 
Regional Planning Committee  
Minutes of a Special Meeting  
April 25, 2024 ADOPTED Page 2 of 6 
 
 
5. BUSINESS – WORK PROGRAM ITEMS 
 
5.1 Governance Review Annex 1 – Recommendations Summary - BRF 
 
Regional Planning Manager Robert Kojima introduced the briefing, informing Regional 
Planning Committee that minor updates have been applied since the Committee first 
saw this report in 2023 and deferred discussion. Committee discussion included: 
 Staff reported that many of the recommendations were already identified in 
2018 review of planning services 
 Regional Planning Committee will use the meeting to go through the report in 
sequential order 
 with the transition to CityView platform for planning applications, staff reported 
that a review of processes for efficiency and streamlining has been completed 
to assist transition  
 a Trustee inquired how can CityView improve and streamline over adapting the 
current process for applications  
 Trust Council has requested reporting on application processing time to be 
delivered  
 Official Community Plan Terms of Reference for Salt Spring Island is available, 
and setting a standard for work and equitable public engagement 
 
5.1.1 Summary Table of Annex 1 Recommendations 
 
Committee discussion included: 
 
Section 1. Bylaws 
 
Item 1. Number of Official Community Plans 
 Official Community Plans should reflect each community and flow from a 
community involved process 
 Official Community Plans should retain individuality to represent 
communities they are rooted in 
 efficiency should not come at the cost of individuality of islands 
 values, unique heritage can be captured and inform decisions on growth 
 common ground on larger issues can be achieved in Policy Statement  
 what is the cost for communities to review their Official Community Plans?  
 in pursuit of good engagement and bringing communities to the table, many 
communities devote more robust people resources than Local Trust 
Committees have to Official Community Plan development  
 
Item 2. Draft Model Official Community Plan 
 the Saturna Island Official Community Plan was suggested as a strong model 
document 
 could artificial intelligence tools be used to compare Official Community 
Plans with each other, and with a model template? 

ADOPTED 
Regional Planning Committee  
Minutes of a Special Meeting  
April 25, 2024 ADOPTED Page 3 of 6 
 most jurisdictions that are updating Official Community Plans do so with 
increased engagement and attention to reconciliation versus when many 
Islands Trust Official Community Plans were done in the 1990s 
 
Item 3. Official Community Plan reviews  
 on starting reviews, projects tend to be more targeted, such as housing 
reviews, and as Regional Planning Team builds experience  
 the new corporate planning process should identify projects at the start of 
the four year term for Trustees, to better guide long range planning 
 it was proposed to consider freezing all Official Community Plan and Land 
Use Bylaw updates until they can be brought in line with the Trust Policy 
statement, possibly with more funding from province 
 Regional Planning Committee’s key role is how to structure this work so that 
Local Trust Committees are not just fending for money, but all fits into a 
longer term plan 
 
Item 4. Priority to Local Trust Areas experiencing growth and change  
 a Trustee asked if information is available regarding growth trends, 
developed and undeveloped lots – an overview allowing comparison across 
islands 
 data organization to compare growth information across islands 
 other questions include water resources, fire resiliency, climate change 
 population and carrying capacity does not capture the types of growth: how 
can people living on islands take responsibility for existing development 
patterns and make change to build back ecosystems, foster equity and 
sustainability 
 
Item 5. Official Community Plan review timeframes 
 one Trustee suggested the removal of timeframes from models, citing the 
differences in needs and complexity between islands 
 
Item 7. Actions and engagement methods 
 engagement goals are similar across islands, towards fully informed 
communities with say in process 
 methods will be different, and engaging constituents is different across 
diverse groups that requires meeting people where they are 
 replication across Local Trust Areas is not advisable, and tailoring should be 
sought to island context 
 
Section 2. Land Use Bylaws 
 
Item 8. Reduce Number of Land Use Bylaws to match Official Community Plans 
 value in format similarities and simplicity for understanding Land Use Bylaw 
regulations, as opposed to Official Community Plans nuanced to each 
island’s aspirations 
 standard format is helpful, as currently information in Land Use Bylaws that 
relates can be in different sections across the document  

ADOPTED 
Regional Planning Committee  
Minutes of a Special Meeting  
April 25, 2024 ADOPTED Page 4 of 6 
 one Trustee would like to see differences in regulations common to all Land 
Use Bylaws, for instance setbacks, arranged in a table to compare for a 
more holistic picture across Local Trust Areas 
 the model Land Use Bylaw is being maintained and updated by staff with 
regard to new regulations from Province 
 Trustees expressed interest in reviewing the model Land Use Bylaw and 
Regional Planning Manager Kojima will share with attendees following 
meeting  
 
Item 11. Concurrent updates of Land Use Bylaws and Official Community Plan 
updates 
 value is seen in linking Official Community Plan updates and Land Use 
Bylaws 
 concurrent reviews assist in reflecting the needs of community best, linking 
community vision to regulation 
 
Section 3. Model Bylaws 
 resist the creation of model bylaws requiring large resources without stringent 
conditions and delineated use cases 
 
Section 4. Compliance and Enforcement 
 the Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement Review project will be returned to the 
next Regional Planning Committee for discussion 
 
Section 5. Planning Projects  
 striking an appropriate balance between reviewing applications, and planning 
projects 
 one Trustee suggested that for Denman, project management with regard to 
major and minor projects is working, but struggles to see how this works also 
for very different islands 
 staff is developing screening materials for major projects to guide planning 
priorities, which will be coming back to a future meeting  
 budget allotment to planning is small, though it is very visible to Trust mission 
from constituent perspective 
 strategic position to allocating planning resources thus has outsized impact 
 
Section 6. Development Applications  
 possible outcome of delegating Development Permits include saving time for 
applicant, and for trustees no longer reviewing  
 challenge to delegating Development Permits is fewer reviewers, which is a 
failsafe; but if turned down, the decision could be appealed to the Local Trust 
Committee 
 delegation of minor Development Variance Permits is another area of interest, 
minor variance would need definition and could be dealt with quickly 
 reliance on professional educated staff for these decisions in the above cases is 
helpful to Trustees 

ADOPTED 
Regional Planning Committee  
Minutes of a Special Meeting  
April 25, 2024 ADOPTED Page 5 of 6 
 if delegation was adopted, informing the public of these permits in other 
manners than the current Local Trust Committee agenda packages  
 information viewable to the public on CityView Portal may contribute to a 
solution, with public education about the platform forthcoming 
 
Section 7. Organization  
 Trustees value having staff on islands and this practice increases access for 
community 
 an office in Swartz Bay area would facilitate easier access for southern islands 
 Governance Committee discussion is ongoing regarding leases, and the 
Governance Report was written when the northern office was struggling to 
retain staff, while current staffing is robust 
 rationale for leasing over using capital to purchase 
 
Section 8. Staff Resources  
 planners are sometimes challenged by procedural questions when they are the 
only one attending meetings 
 the role of Chair is to protect staff and keep within the realm of their 
professional expertise 
 value of Trustees having the opportunity to know staff, their role and their work 
 
Section 9. Planning Reports  
 trend towards shorter reports and good summarization 
 pending update to eSCRIBE platform that Islands Trust uses will possibly 
facilitate improved access to previous reports 
 challenge of finding individual staff reports in previous agendas, without direct 
links 
 information produced is good but must be organized for access and research 
 
Annex 1 Section E. Other Observations 
 
Committee discussion included:  
 regarding First Nations feedback, Islands Trust perspective is trying to be 
proactive in anticipating needs, communicating, and avoiding surprises with 
First Nations and Ministry staff 
 a Trustee asked if CityView will provide an operational dashboard to view 
progress of projects and ascertain where projects stall 
 internally, CityView is set up to prompt staff on step by step processes; 
applicants can view progress through the public-facing portal 
 reporting to Local Trust Committees is still being explored as it is currently being 
learned by staff 
 Trustees Patrick and Borthwick committed to cross referencing the Annex 1 list 
with Regional Planning Committee’s current priorities list to report to 
Governance Committee or Trust Council that it has been reviewed, identifying 
what is embedded in current work, and what gaps if any still need to be 
addressed 
 

ADOPTED 
Regional Planning Committee  
Minutes of a Special Meeting  
April 25, 2024 ADOPTED Page 6 of 6 
6. BUSINESS - OTHER 
 
 None. 
     
7. BUSINESS – NEW 
 
 None. 
 
8. NEXT MEETING 
 
The next scheduled meeting of the Regional Planning Committee is May 24, 2024.   
 
9. CLOSED MEETING 
 
 The Committee did not close the meeting. 
 
10. RISE AND REPORT 
 
As the Committee did not close the meeting, there was no need for the Committee to discuss 
this option.  
 
11. ADJOURNMENT  
 
By general consent the meeting adjourned at 12:18 p.m. 
 
 
 
_________________________ 
Laura Patrick, Chair 
 
Certified Correct: 
 
 
_________________________ 
Rob Kroeker, Planning Services Administrative Assistant / Recorder