After four all candidates meetings (the municipality’s on Sept. 29, Tunstall Bay Beach Club’s on Oct. 10, BIAC’s on Oct. 14 and Belterra’s on Oct. 17) and a pub “speed dating session,” here are some quotes and thoughts from candidates on key issues.
The community centre
Both mayoral candidates are on the steering committee for this project and have been firm about their commitment to seeing it through.
An audience question at the Tunstall meeting last week questioned the $14 million price tag. Mayoral candidate Gary Ander responded that this is what any project of this nature will cost and that Bowen’s been talking about a community centre for decades. Mayoral candidate Melanie Mason said that because the municipality doesn’t own its own programming space and is being squeezed out of the spaces it currently rents, its critical to see this project through.
Councillor candidate Alison Morse said at the Belterra meeting that the municipality has been working on a community centre for a very long time (she’s been on every council since the municipality incorporated in 1999) and every proposed design has come out to be about the same size.
Councillor candidate Peter Williamson also noted at the Belterra meeting that the municipality has spent millions of dollars (it will be up to $750,000 by the end of the year) on planning and to go back to the beginning now would be a waste.
Even councillor candidate Robin Burger, who is running on a primarily housing-focused platform has said, “The community centre has taken an epic journey, we need to finish this project and move ahead.”
The candidate voicing the most trepidation on this project is councillor candidate Rob Wynen. While not completely dismissing the initiative, he said at the Tunstall meeting, “I’m concerned by lack of enthusiasm for the community centre.” Wynen had noted earlier in the meeting that he’s “concerned because we’re going into a lot of projects. We had a tax increase last year and we need to be careful.”
Without denouncing any particular project, Michael Kaile too noted at the Tunstall meeting that council needs to watch its projects and spending closely. (Several other candidates note fiscal responsibility in their platforms.)
Wynen’s concern about lack of enthusiasm for the community centre is noteworthy because demonstrated community support is a requirement for federal infrastructure funding that could cover up to 73 per cent of eligible costs. The application deadline for this grant is in January.
Transportation
Candidates have for the most part agreed that transportation on and to and from Bowen needs improvement. The cross-island path outlined in the Transportation Plan adopted by council earlier this year has gotten a lot of traction among candidates.
Among the unique ideas for improved transportation, councillor candidate David Hocking (who sits on the Bowen Island Transportation Committee as chair, along with vice chair Rob Wynen, and current councillors Sue Ellen Fast and Mason) threw out the idea at the Tunstall meeting that the school and public bus services and resources be combined for more complete island coverage.
When the idea of ride sharing emerged at the Tunstall meeting, Mason argued that any potential ride sharing shouldn’t impact the fledgling Bowen Taxi service.
Ander, on the other hand, said that ride sharing is an awesome idea. “[The taxi]’s not a reliable service, not reliable enough,” he said. “If [Bowen Taxi] can’t come up and provide us with a good service, then we need to look at other options.”
Tourism
Candidates have largely acknowledged the tensions of tourism, but have differing perceptions of it.
“We have always been a tourist destination, we will always be a tourist destination,” said council candidate Lawrence Phillips at the Tunstall meeting. “We would not have services we do without summer months.”
“We need to capitalize on our natural visitors,” said Wynen the same night. He said Bowen needs to focus on low-impact visitors and not into fall into Whistler-esque tourism.
“It’s the issue not around people, it’s around cars,” said Hocking. He suggested leaflets explaining ferry rules and courtesies to visitors.
“We’ve got the volume, now we need to have the yield,” said Kaile. “We need to spread the wealth over the seasons.”
“A lot of visitors are our friends and family members,” said Morse. She noted the need for “value-added tourism,” or tourists who buy the art and spend the weekend.
The arts
All candidates waxed poetic about the importance of the arts for Bowen at the Bowen Island Arts Council’s all candidates meeting, only Williamson and Phillips said definitively that they’d support increased funding for BIAC (Williamson is on the BIAC board.) Williamson said that volunteers do a lot of BIAC’s work and that a little more money would go a long way for the organization.
Other candidates didn’t dismiss the idea, but had other thoughts about how to promote the arts.
“Once there’s that space [the community centre], there’ll be more opportunities,” said Mason.
The question of increasing the BIAC budget was posed by comparing the non-profit’s with the larger community and recreation department’s budget. Wynen said he’d like to see budget layering, where recreation and arts could be combined (he used the Mastadon as an example of people being active while enjoying the arts.)
Kaile noted, when asked about the Cultural Master Plan (a ten-year comprehensive plan adopted in 2017), that BIAC has been successful in carrying out its goals partly because it has a good plan. Kaile highlighted that this is an important element for anyone wanting to work with council.
Housing
This is a universal platform issue for Bowen candidates and two (Phillips and Burger) are running with an intense focus on housing.
Housing diversity has become a popular buzzword as candidates have talked about how Bowen’s homes being 90 per cent single-family residential. Bowen Island Resilient Community Housing’s (BIRCH) lot 3 proposed development of plus or minus 20 market and below-market attached units is also often cited as a promising initiative.
Among Phillips' ideas are tax incentives for those who build long term rentals, making secondary suites easier to build and taxing AirBnB’s (which exist on Bowen, even though they’re not permitted in most of the island.) Burger, who wrote a master’s thesis on the topic of housing on Bowen, says that among other initiatives, she would be looking for a needs assessment and more data about the Bowen housing situation.
Ander has suggested park-model homes.
Fast said that the municipality needs to look at what other municipalities have done and find ways of linking potential renters with rentals.
When it comes to who will benefit from subsidised housing, Mason noted at the Belterra all candidates meeting that it’s sometimes difficult to retain certain professionals on Bowen (such as teachers.) “It’s also about attracting those key community roles,” she said.
“Non market-rental housing should first be to people who live on island but must be based on income level,” said Phillips.
Population growth
Conservation development, or clustering homes and buildings so as to save forest cover, is another candidate buzz word. Candidates have talked a lot about concentrating housing and development in the cove.
Fast (who chaired the Official Community Plan Steering Committee for its last major revision in 2011) frequently cited the OCP in her responses on any topic, and the matter of population growth is no different.
The Official Community Plan (OCP) is the municipality’s long-term vision for Bowen. It’s a legal document, a bylaw, constructed from extensive community engagement and has been reworked several times.
“It’s full of policies and objectives of how we can grow,” said Fast at the Belterra meeting. She said that rather than adopting urban growth models, Bowen needs to look to rural strategies. She also suggests looking to the other islands in the Islands Trust, which are grappling with many of the same issues as Bowen.
At the BIM meeting Fast cited A Pattern Language, a 1977 urban planning book, as being the model through which the committee reached the OCP’s suggested 7,000 person population cap. This number has been cited at all the meetings and by several candidates.
Hocking has pointed out at several meetings that a resident in the cove in a multifamily dwelling would use fewer resources than someone who lives at the west end of the island in a large property, perhaps affecting Bowen's carrying capacity.
But water plays a role in how many people the island can hold, especially with climate change. Wynen noted that there if there is to be more density in the cove, there needs to be the water supplies to support those people.
“We’re getting pretty close to capacity,” said Ander at the Belterra meeting, noting the summer's cove congestion, “and I think we need to monitor that so closely.”
The Community Lands
The Community Lands are six lots totalling about 40 acres in and around Snug Cove that the municipality purchased in 2005. The lot 1 rezoning earlier this year was contentious because of the inclusion of “light industrial” in permitted uses due to the lot's proximity to the community school and the desirability of the land for housing (which is included as a permitted use.) A workshop in June resulted in a report summarizing participants’ wishes for the Community Lands. Among the projects proposed on the Community Lands are the community centre (lot 2), the fire hall (lot 3), the health centre (lot 3) and BIRCH development (lot 3.)
“The Community Lands weren’t fully planned and we started dealing with it piecemeal,” said Hocking at the Belterra meeting. “We really need to look at the Community Lands as a whole.”
At the same event Mason said that Bowen needs, “comprehensive planning of community lands,” and to “get the public engagement in at the beginning.”
“We have so many projects on the go,” said Wynen at Belterra. “We need to pace ourselves properly.” He said that council should to wait and see how the community reacts to one change before progressing to the next.
The question of the municipality’s debt from the 2005 purchase as it’s so far been unable to sell any of the land (which was supposed to be how the municipality payed down its debt) has also come up as a project for the next council.
Islands Trust
Bowen has four candidates running for two seats on the federation of islands. A candidate must be elected to council to be eligible to be a trustee.
Morse and Fast are the incumbent representatives and are running for re-election.
Williamson, looking to be elected to the federation’s council for the first time, said at the BIM meeting that the trust’s “leadership and support on environmental matters is absolutely vital.”
Fast has noted how the Trust helps Bowen when it hits snags, such as not having rural designation so not being eligible for rural grants and facing logging threats.
Morse told the Undercurrent for its candidate profiles that she’s particularly interested in the Trust’s fiscal policies.
Kaile said at the BIM meeting that while he supports Bowen’s participation in the federation, he’s running for Islands Trust in part to revise the relationship between the organization and the municipality.
“This arrangement [between Trust and the municipality] has been around since the turn of the century. It’s also an arrangement that cost us this year $300,000,” said Kaile.
Logging
No one’s come out in favour of clearcutting Bowen. Petitions to the provincial and federal governments to ensure Bowen remains off of the annual allowable cut are popular suggestions.
This is by no means a full report of all the issues covered in all the meetings. If you’d like more information about any given issue and what candidates have said publicly about them (or if you'd like clarification.) please email editor@bowenislandundercurrent.com (or ask the candidates themselves, or read our profiles.)
