Directors at the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) are supporting the early steps toward a new effort to draft a regional growth strategy.
Sechelt council passed a motion last month suggesting local governments work together on a strategy and that the SCRD try to get provincial support for the project.
That request went before the SCRD’s planning and community development committee on Dec. 1, where committee chair Frank Mauro, the director for Area A, said he supports the idea.
Mauro asked the committee to back a motion to have SCRD staff prepare a report on the potential scope of the strategy, and possible funding sources to pay for the background work.
“We want to get this on the table,” said Sechelt director, and mayor, Bruce Milne. Milne also acknowledged that there had been a couple of failed attempts to create a regional growth strategy in the past. “If we can get this going, I’d suggest you have the most regional friendly council at the District of Sechelt you’ve had in at least two decades.”
Roberts Creek director Mark Lebbell distributed copies of an April 25, 2016 letter from the SCRD to local governments asking them to endorse a series of “sustainable land use principles for the Sunshine Coast” and wondered why Sechelt never responded.
“There are some good opportunities and good principles, I believe, in that report,” Lebbell said. “I would ask the District of Sechelt representatives at this table to take this information and look at the opportunities it presents.”
Milne said the principles were the sort of “motherhood statements” nobody could disagree with, and Sechelt felt it was already following them. “It was not picked up by anyone on council, for the simple reason that there’s nothing in here that isn’t already in our sustainability plans or our OCPs [official community plans],” Milne said, suggesting a regional growth strategy “that had some teeth” would get more traction.
Gibsons council received Sechelt’s request at its Nov. 21 meeting, but did not pass any specific motions in response.
Renewed talk of pursuing a regional growth strategy has grown, in part, out of the situation with the water supply, and SCRD directors will be devoting much of their final committee meeting of the year to water-related items.
The infrastructure services committee was scheduled to receive a comprehensive timeline of actions related to the regional water plan at its Dec. 21 meeting.
The documents also include a Nov. 28 letter from BC Parks. The letter, from BC Parks regional director Jennie Aikman, says the provincial agency is “evaluating the options with respect to the water supply improvements proposed in Tetrahedron Park,” but offers no indication of when a decision on the approvals needed for the proposed $5-million Chapman Lake expansion project will be made.
The letter also asks the SCRD to provide an update, “particularly [on] initiatives related to source capacity including groundwater investigation and universal metering, so that we fully understand the regional district’s progress on this plan.”
