With a slew of planning documents on the Coast already set to be updated over the next few years, the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) is launching a public process this month to seek input into the regional growth strategy.
Over the next 30 years, a new SCRD report projects the Coast's population will grow by 7,000 people, with the fastest rate of growth (from 2009 through 2012) book-ending the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. The regional growth strategy will cover a minimum 20-year time frame. Its visioning process will incorporate official community plans (OCPs) from all SCRD areas and municipalities on the Coast, except for Gambier, Keats and other islands covered by the Islands Trust. The regional district's general manager of community services, Paul Fenwick, said it will emphasize "growth nodes" to avoid suburban sprawl. To achieve this goal, planning for infrastructure such as municipal sewer systems needs to be worked out well in advance, he said.
The recently-finalized Upper Gibsons neighbourhood plan and Sechelt's pending Vision Plan are two documents "that work nicely with the regional strategy," Fenwick added. Many other planning reviews are also pending on the Coast. While the OCP review in Area E (Elphinstone) has recently wrapped up, Area D (Roberts Creek) is about to begin their review process, which could take two years. Next in line for reviews are Area F, then Area B (West Howe Sound, then Halfmoon Bay). Area A (Pender Harbour) is also set to begin an incorporation study, a move director John Rees said isn't likely to throw any regional process off the rails.
"Any decision on incorporation will be finished long before perhaps the regional growth strategy even begins," said Rees, who envisions the strategy taking up to seven years to complete.
The public process will get underway this month, with open houses in Gibsons (June 16) and Sechelt (June 18) and focus groups on economy (June 23), community (June 24) and environment (June 25). Public input will be sought on population and employment projections, greenhouse gas reduction goals, regional action on housing and transportation, and other concerns as mandated by the province's Local Government Act. The results of those meetings will be forwarded to the four local governments on the Coast, that will hold two September workshops to clarify the direction of the strategy. The matter will be brought to the SCRD board in October, prior to November's municipal elections, in order to vote on whether to accept the strategy and begin implementation in 2009. All local governments must vet the plans in order for the strategy to go ahead, said SCRD communications co-ordinator Kathleen Elliot.
The report, which updates regional growth issues first identified in 2002, shows a potential for the Coast to host a population of 71,154, if all residential-zoned areas are fully built out. Pender Harbour has zoning in place that could enable its population to more than quadruple to 11,600, while land use analysis shows Sechelt alone could see over 28,000 residents -the current total population of the Sunshine Coast, according to the 2006 census.
Unlike a land and resources management plan (LRMP), the regional growth strategy is focused mainly on developed areas of the Coast, not on Crown lands. An LRMP won't likely take place in its traditional form on the Sunshine Coast; in mid-March, the SCRD board was told by Bruce Sieffert, a director for the province's Integrated Land and Management Bureau (ILMB), a "substantially different course" is now being pursued by the province - the strategic land and resource plan, which will initially involve the ILMB and the four Sunshine Coast First Nations. That direction was confirmed by Minister of Agriculture and Lands Pat Bell in Victoria last month, during a meeting he held with SCRD officials, Fenwick said. The Ministry of Community Services is contributing $41,000 towards the strategy, a sum being matched by the SCRD.
