Welcome to June and hopefully to a beautiful summer with nice intermittent rains.
The Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc tragedy
I feel it is my duty to acknowledge and address the tragedy that happened at the Kamloops residential school, where recently ground penetrating radar revealed 215 buried children’s bodies. The school closed in 1969, and it is heartbreaking to imagine that many indigenous parents had their children taken away from them to go to this school, and then they never saw them again, or even had it acknowledged or admitted that they had died. I am heartbroken for those families and all those that had any connection with the residential school system, as that left so many emotional, psychological and physical scars that will need many generations to heal. I am sad to say that this is likely not the last time this kind of find will be announced.
It is our duty to acknowledge this tragedy, denounce it for what it is, and to ensure that this will never happen again.
Water
I am as discontent as everyone else that we still don’t have new water capacity added to our Chapman system, but I am hopeful that we will be able to commission the Church Rd well before the summer of 2022. We will be getting an update at our next ISC Committee meeting on June 10th. When I and the rest of the board signed up for this gig we were all determined to add new capacity to our drinking water supply, and we continue to be. Little did we know the amount of red tape and process it would take to achieve that. All levels of government take the safety and reliability of our drinking water supply very seriously, especially after the Walkerton disaster. We have now learned that it takes a while to get these things rolling, so our plan is to get us caught up and to create a plan that has some contingencies in the system, while at the same time trying to be fiscally responsible. We look forward to future dialogue with the community around this.
The Alternate Approval Process (AAP) to borrow up to $7.25 million to install the rest of the water meters in Sechelt and the SIGD is currently underway. Here is the link to my arguments why they are a good idea. There was a “Let’s talk water” event this week dedicated to the water metering program and you can find the recording on the SCRD youtube channel. If you wish to object to the borrowing of the $7.25 million or want to learn more, you can find the links you need here.
Rezoning application for 2284 Pixton Rd
This is an application to add a second dwelling to a 5-acre property on a property zoned CR2. You can read the staff report for this application on p. 3 of this agenda. I have already received a lot of feedback regarding this application, as this is the second time this rezoning has been applied for. If you sent comments to staff the first time around over a year ago, staff will not include the comments for this new application, so make sure to send your comments again if you haven’t done so already. You can also voice your support or concerns at the public hearing at 7pm on June 22nd, which will be chaired by Alton Toth and vice-chaired by myself. You will be able to find the zoom link to the hearing by going to the scrd.ca website.
Rezoning application for DL 1312
The rezoning application for DL 1312 was put on hold for a while, but it is back in the hopper and I expect to see a staff report for first and second reading in June’s PCD Agenda. This is an application to add 12 lots, 2.5 acres each, along Harman Rd and in return the remainder of the property (approx. 26 hectares, or 64 acres) will be donated to the SCRD. The developer Jim Green has given a number of people a tour of the property and if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to him. There will be ample opportunity for public feedback between 2nd and 3rd reading in the form of a public hearing, if it passes the first two readings, and you can also submit written comments to our planning department.
The Sunshine Coast Community Forest Harvesting Plan
The Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SCCF) is a 25 year tenure given to a community by the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resources and Rural development (FLNRORD) and is managed based on community values, with the proceeds from the logging going to the community through grants and other initiatives. Community Forests do have a minimum area they need to log within a 5 year window, the community can merely have a say where the cutting occurs within the tenure. The SCCF just recently released its latest operating plan, and there are several areas where the Community Forest operates in our area. The section that concerns us in Roberts Creek is the East Wilson Creek tenure, and within the operating plan there are several cut-blocks that overlap with the desired park outlined in our OCP, bylaw 641. On the next page is a picture of the East Wilson Creek tenure.
I have spoken to Warren Hansen, the operations manager for the SCCF, and he has made clear that the proposed cut-blocks are at least 4-5 years out, and that the planned land use planning process between the Shishalh Nation and the BC government will hopefully have brought some certainty around what our future parks will look like by then.
The SCCF is looking forward to a dialogue with the community and is certainly going to take input into consideration, which is more than what can be said to other organizations that handle our logging on the Coast.
If you wish to voice your thoughts regarding our proposed Elphinstone Park, you can always email the SCCF here.
Donna’s newsletter
Donna McMahon, our Director from Area E, has outdone herself once again, and if you want to know where to recycle your appliances for free, what BC Timber Sales is up to, watch a 40-minute presentation about the Squamish Nation, why it now costs $100 per ton to get rid of drywall and many other interesting facts you can find her most recent newsletter here.
That’s it from me for now. In case you have any questions or concerns, you can always email me.
This newsletter will also be published to my blog at https://andreastize.com
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