Now that the OCP (Official Community Plan) Update has moved into the realm of things too boring to try to explain it’s time to look at the next $100,000 that we’re going to spend on consultant’s fees. The new project is supposed to be the “Snug Cove Village Implementation Plan” (SCVIP). It’s not only one of the things that the OCP Update requires the Municipality to do it’s also a perfect vehicle for ensuring that nothing ever gets done in Snug Cove.
The SCVIP (maybe we’ll be able to shorten it to VIP or SCIP) is supposed to establish exactly how Snug Cove will ultimately be developed. It will include a final ferry-marshalling plan, a calculation of total infrastructure costs, a zoning plan for every parcel of land, an outline of each building’s form and character, a schedule for construction phasing and a cost recovery plan for the Municipality.
To put a timeline on this process we have to figure that nothing is going to happen until the OCP Update is passed. So the SCIP process should get started in the spring of 2011. A committee of some sort will be struck, a facilitator/consultant will be hired and several months of community consultations initiated. Then there will be an attempt to consult with BC Ferries. While many people on Bowen believe that we might one day get a bigger ferry if we just build a few million dollars worth of roads and parking lots the truth is that BC Ferries has concocted a population projection that shows that Bowen Island is going to grow so slowly and the average number of trips that each of us takes will drop so much that we will never need a bigger ferry. So nobody can predict how long it will take for us give up on talking to them. Then the people who believe that we have to acquire the parkland on the north side of Government Road to have buildings on both sides of our main street will prompt negotiations with Metro Vancouver. This will again take time. Then, because this is an implementation plan it will be necessary to cost everything out. Not only will that cost another chunk of money it will also take more time. And, at the end of the day the costs will be so high that the only way to make it happen will be to start trading rezoning and building approvals to developers with deep pockets in exchange for the money required to bury the power lines, realign the roads and create our little model village. So how long will it really take? Forever. The problem with the entire idea is that there is no consensus on Bowen as to what we want Snug Cove to look like.
Let’s rewind for a moment and ask ourselves what has stopped us from redeveloping Snug Cove up until now. The truth is that nothing has stopped us; we just do things very, very slowly. In the 1980s we upgraded the water system, built a sewage treatment plant and saw the creation of Crippen Park. In the 1990s we allowed Doug Berry and Wolfgang Duntz to build Artisan Square and Village Square, which provided some apartments and the commercial space we needed without disturbing the lower section of Snug Cove. Since 2000 we have acquired the Surplus Lands and amended our OCP to include a Snug Cove Village Plan that provides us with the planning rational to rezone lots in the Cove area. But we shouldn’t be congratulating ourselves that everything is working out as it should. We changed our demographic considerably by failing to provide affordable and senior’s housing. Because we have limited rental housing and virtually no townhouses or condos we have forced off the island not only older people who can no longer maintain their homes but also young families that can’t afford single family homes on large lots.
With the completion of the sewer upgrade next spring we will finally have everything required to move ahead with affordable housing in Snug Cove. And it isn’t arriving a moment too soon; our taxes are rising, we haven’t even started paying off the Surplus Lands loan and we’ve seriously depleted our Municipal financial reserves fixing the roads and upgrading the sewage plant. Now would be an excellent time to start selling some land. If we create lots from the Surplus Land one at a time we can start to diversify our housing stock while slowly recouping our investment. If we make a mistake and one of the lots sold doesn’t work out as anticipated we can change our approach for the next lot. If the needs of the community are greater than anticipated we can speed up development. If the need is less, we can slow down.
While most jurisdictions would agree that comprehensive plans are better than piecemeal development, they have never had to deal with the political realities of Bowen. If the SCVIP process goes ahead we will once again have a Snug Cove Plan as a central issue in a municipal election and affordable housing will be pushed back several more years.
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