It was a particularly uneventful Bowen Island Municipality regular council meeting March 8. However, a recommendation from the Parks, Trails and Greenways Advisory Committee for BIM to create a development permit area to protect Bowen’s coastal areas did prompt not only a discussion of the feasibility of such protections but lively debate about the roles of BIM’s dozens of committees. (Development permit areas are designated spaces where one must get a permit before conducting any kind of work, theoretically protecting the land therein.)
The only protection in the “important interstitial space” between the sea and land on Bowen is a 30-metre maximum building setback, said Coun. Sue Ellen Fast. The setback is only for buildings (erecting fences, tree clearing and other activities can happen in this area) and depending on the distance of neighbouring properties to the water, the setback can be smaller. “There’s nothing to protect the plants there, the natural drainage, the sand and gravel that might find its way to the beach to be spawning grounds,” she said.
“We’re in a climate emergency. And we’re in a biodiversity emergency as well. Extinctions are climbing,” said Fast. “We’ve been setting aside parks, nature reserves, and little areas. But are we living in harmony with nature?”
Mayor Gary Ander opened the discussion saying he thought this was outside the purview of the Parks, Trails and Greenways committee (he would rather it come from the environment committee). Ander added that a development permit area for the entire shoreline would be extremely hard to do. “There’s private property, there’s government strips, there’s Crown land,” said Ander, adding that he doesn’t see the urgency as there is the 30-metre setback.
Coun. Maureen Nicholson pointed to council’s draft strategic plan for this year, which lists “identify possible tools for ecosystem protection” and “develop an ecosystem protection policy” among its priorities. But, took issue that this proposal was coming from a committee and not council.
“While I agree that ensuring ecological and aesthetic shoreline assets is essential for an island community, I don’t like the process here,” she said. “I think the committee was probably quite aware that there was something a little irregular about what they were doing.”
While Nicholson said she wouldn’t support this recommendation from a committee, she said she’d support it as part of the strategic plan. “Because that’s where we take into consideration all of [our] other objectives,” she said. “And where we consider the costs and where we consider the impacts on staff.”
Fast defended the committee in that “greenways” is part of its mandate and that part of the committee’s mandate is to help with planning.
CAO Liam Edwards said he thinks that a big function of committees is to suggest work council should consider but wondered if there was a way to have committees understand the implications of work for staff time.
Coun. Rob Wynen and Coun. David Hocking while theoretically supportive of the DP area were concerned about the level of difficulty of imposing such a bylaw and the staff time that would be required. Wynen particularly wanted more information about the feasibility and usefulness of such a bylaw.
Coun. Alison Morse pointed out that this would mean amending the Official Community Plan and the Land Use Bylaw – which would be long and contentious like the environmentally sensitive areas bylaw that was never adopted.
Councillors also noted that there was a site alteration bylaw in the works, which could cover off some of this concern. Councillors Nicholson and Michael Kaile are also working on a review of all of the municipal committees.
Council put off the development permit matter until its strategic planning was done.
“This is something that I know a lot of islanders are really interested in, especially since the clearing and the big tree at the firehall site,” said Fast. “People are stopping me on the trail, saying, ‘How could you let that happen?’
“I think people are…looking to me to protect nature.”
On another note, slight changes are coming to some of BIM’s planning department fees.
The most notable changes affect realtors and home buyers as the bylaw imposes fees for comfort letters (letters provide “comfort” that the municipality isn’t aware of any outstanding issues with the property) and property record searches. It will cost $150 for the comfort letter and $75 for the property record and a further $75 for every hour spent on it.
However, as councillors discussed the fees, they compared them with the fees for freedom of information requests (fees imposed a couple of years ago). There’s no charge for the first three hours of work on an FOI request then there’s $7.50 for every 15 minutes afterward. There was a general suggestion that this is low and maybe needs to be changed.
Council passed first, second and third readings of fees update bylaw.
