Bowen Bulletin

Over the last few weeks I’ve been asking people about how they see Bowen. While I’m not quoting anybody specifically, here are a few of the more thought provoking comments that came out.

——————————————————————–

First we have the position that Bowen can become a sustainable community; the greatest problem facing the world today is global warming. Overuse of the automobile is a major contributor to the problem. If communities were more self-contained people would have less need to drive long distances and the problem would be significantly reduced. As a side benefit people would experience a greater feeling of community and enjoy improved emotional health. To accomplish this Bowen must encourage entrepreneurship and provide the infrastructure required to allow people to work and play near where they live.

Another proposition is that we should wake up and smell the coffee. Vancouver is going to become a world-class city with all of the wealth and sophistication and crime and congestion inherent in that definition. Residential areas within a one-hour commute of downtown are going to be sought after. Areas that offer a safe rural family orientated community less than 90 minutes from downtown are going to be golden. For Bowen Islanders to ignore the global context and think that they can create some kind of little eco friendly, self-contained classless society is delusional. At the end of the day property values will get so high that the old-timers who like living in small towns will sell out, take their money and move further away from the city. They will be replaced be well-heeled urban professionals who are looking for a bucolic community with family oriented amenities.

Large cities devour the small towns around them and Bowen isn’t any different than anywhere else. Small towns being encroached on by big cities typically renovate the entrance to their community and the commercial core to make it look as wealthy and desirable as possible. The planned overhaul of Snug Cove is no different.

We’re feeling pressure to create more affordable housing so we’ll build a bunch of condos or apartments in Snug Cove. Then more commuters will move here. They’ll think of Snug Cove as an extension of West Vancouver and rarely even venture to the other side of the island.

How do you retain a small town environment and still deal with all of the challenges of a growing community? You need housing for seniors, affordable housing, recreation facilities and a myriad of other amenities. After trying various things and arguing for years about the best path to take you finally give up and call in the experts. Unfortunately there is no such thing as small town planners specializing in developing communities in forests. There are urban planners and in this part of the world they are promoting the “new” urbanism or “rural by design”. Basically they have a global perspective. They see small pieces integrated into larger pictures. The areas around a city are influenced by the city and those influences have to be acknowledged in new developments. They have studied models that have worked elsewhere and can’t help but be heavily influenced by them.

There is supposed to be a Master Plan for Snug Cove that will be unveiled in November. Almost nobody knows about it but when it does comes out it will be the most controversial proposal to come along in years. Senior staff and council are working with the consultants drafting it so you can expect them to move quickly to put it forward at public meetings. Those should be fun.

Bowen is an island. It is protected by the Islands Trust. Anybody who tries to turn it into a suburb of Vancouver is going to have to deal with those of us who still believe in the trust’s preserve and protect mandate.

If council’s Sustainability Working Group is supposed to be creating criteria that will guide council in all future decisions, shouldn’t that have been done first?

If you want enough people to make public transit feasible why don’t you build affordable housing away from Snug Cove? People who live in the cove never take the bus.

Redoing our Official Community Plan will be a difficult job but the longer its left the more difficult its going to be. Think about how many contradictions there will be in it if the new Snug Cove Plan is incorporated into it.