NOVEMBER
• Federal Transportation Minister Marc Garneau tabled legislation to deal with derelict and abandoned vessels. Garneau said Bill C-64, the Wrecked, Abandoned or Hazardous Vessels Act, would proactively deal with the problem by giving the Nairobi International Convention on the Removal of Wrecks the force of law in Canada.
• The Sunshine Coast Community Forest was set to begin harvesting in Wilson Creek and Halfmoon Bay after work at the site of the 2015 Old Sechelt Mine wildfire wrapped up – and the new activity reignited opposition to logging in the area. The Community Forest was expected to issue tenders Nov. 3 for the harvest of 34,500 cubic metres of timber as well as road building in three cutblocks “in permit” for harvesting between now and May of 2020.
• The developers behind the proposed Gospel Rock Village in Gibsons completed a traffic study and presented the latest revisions to their plan at a public information meeting. Slated for Block 7 at Gospel Rock, the project would be the first major development in the Gospel Rock Neighbourhood Plan area. It would include a mix of 60 single-family homes, 150 townhouses, and 150 apartment units (of which 30 would be market rental). The rezoning, if it passes, would allow up to 360 residential units, with nine hectares (23 acres) set aside as park.
• Traffic engineers planned to review the hairpin curve in the 12000 block of Highway 101 north of Middlepoint following a second harrowing motor vehicle accident in less than a year. The aim of the review will be “to determine if there are any feasible options to improve safety at this location,” the provincial Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure said in a statement.
• Director of planning Andre Boel, at the helm through much of the complex work around the George Hotel and Residences and Gospel Rock Village projects, left Town of Gibsons to take a job in Port Moody as general manager of development services at the City of Port Moody. Boel’s last day with the Town was Nov. 30. Another senior staff member, director of finance Ian Poole, was set to retire on Dec. 31.
• Newly elected Sun-shine Coast Regional District chair Bruce Milne said water was one of the first issues he raised in his inaugural meeting with the SCRD’s chief administrative officer. Milne, the mayor of Sechelt and one of two Sechelt representatives on the SCRD board, was chosen as chair over Pender Harbour director Frank Mauro in a secret-ballot vote at the Nov. 9 board meeting. Ian Winn of West Howe Sound was acclaimed as vice chair.
• Ninety-five outstanding young women and men are awarded the Rhodes Scholarship each year from 64 countries worldwide. This year, one of them was Elphinstone Secondary School graduate Clare Lyle, now in her final year of studying Mathematics and Computer Science at McGill University. The scholarship allows her to study at the University of Oxford.
• The Sunshine Coast Lions Housing Society said it has no plans to evict tenants from its older cottage-style units at Greenecourt in Sechelt – but despite those assurances, some residents feared they could end up homeless. The Society planned to replace the older buildings with a five-storey, 99-unit apartment building. The general public got its first chance to see the plans for the new building at a Nov. 28 open house.
• Dr. Geoff McKee was officially designated as medical health officer for the Sunshine Coast. McKee will replace Dr. Paul Martiquet, who retired as MHO at the end of this year. The position encompasses research, advocacy and educating the community on health issues. It also includes the power to act against persons or places that pose a health risk.
• Sechelt council’s planning and community development committee supported the conversion of the Upper Deck Guest House in Sechelt to a homeless shelter. The Upper Deck has been operating as a hostel at 5653 Wharf Ave. since 2002. BC Housing’s decision to explore the option of leasing the Upper Deck was prompted by the fact its proposal to lease a District of Sechelt lot at Ebbtide Street and Trail Avenue took longer to work its way through the approval process than anticipated.
• HiBaller V, the largest barge ever built on the Sunshine Coast, was launched Nov. 20 at Port Mellon. Constructed by H.L. Enterprises in Gibsons and commissioned by HiBaller Transportation, the barge measures 100 feet (30.5 metres) long by 36 feet (11 metres) wide. HiBaller V is the third barge that has been built by H.L. for the company and is more than twice the size of HiBaller IV. It was designed to be transported in two pieces and was moved in the middle of the night to the launch site.
• Rev. Clarence Li said he wants to “reframe” the public discussion around Sunshine Coast’s homeless from ‘Do you want a shelter in your neighbourhood?’ to ‘Do you want to save lives?’ Li is rector at St. Hilda’s Anglican Church in Sechelt, which accommodated the area’s only homeless shelter in its annex building for the past several years. BC Housing and shelter operator RainCity Housing had been trying to find other sites for at least two years, and came out with a proposal earlier this year to lease District of Sechelt property at Ebbtide Street and Trail Avenue for a temporary shelter using modular buildings. The plan would require zoning amendments. At an Oct. 3 public meeting on the proposal, Upper Deck Guest House owner Tanya Hall said she’d be willing to lease the travellers’ hostel to BC Housing as a shelter site for the winter months while the rezoning was finalized.
• Sechelt councillor Doug Wright delivered a blunt assessment of the Sunshine Coast Regional District water strategy at a Nov. 22 committee meeting, calling it “out to lunch.” The 25-year plan, adopted by the SCRD in 2013, has four main strategies: universal metering and conservation; the Chapman Lake expansion; finding new sources; and finding storage. The SCRD hopes to double the accessible water supply through a reduction in demand, fixing leaks in the system, and tapping into new sources. The estimated cost of implementing all the measures in the plan was pegged at $36.3 million.
