Our Local Trust Committee is considering Bylaw 530. If passed, this would rezone most residential properties to allow a second residence, even on properties less than an acre, in drinking lake watersheds, in areas short of water and in groundwater recharge areas.

We all agree there is an affordable housing crisis and we support various remedies, but not this. Bylaw 530 provides almost every landowner here the ability to develop a second residence. By allowing more development, this bylaw would throw flames on an already overheated real estate market. It will increase illegal vacation rentals making the housing crisis even worse. Some well-meaning individuals, concerned about the housing crisis, see draft Bylaw 530 as a partial solution. We see it as a huge mistake.

Please ask that the bylaw be withdrawn. Below are suggested speaking points:

1. We all agree that there is severe need for more affordable housing. The best way to assure affordability and rental to island workers is to build housing specifically for that purpose in appropriate areas with sufficient water and near bus routes. How many should be based on how many workers are needed to support essential services and businesses. This crucial information has not been gathered.

2. It isn’t worth the risk of the long-term growth and sprawl that this bylaw enables, in exchange for the possibility of a few, new legal rental units. Such poorly planned growth will undermine the very protections that the Islands Trust is supposed to provide.

3. More illegal short term vacation rentals are likely to result from allowing more properties to get a building permit to build a suite or a cottage. The financial rewards are too tempting. Effective enforcement is too expensive to be realistic.

4. The so called “protections” in the bylaw for water, sewage, etc. are meaningless because enforcement is lax. Current standards for proving adequate water for a well do not test for effects on neighbouring wells. Property owners who are now renting illegally are unlikely to make expensive repairs to bring their units up to code.

5. This bylaw is not about tiny homes. Depending on the zone, it allows second residences to up to 56 m2 (603 ft2) on lots less than 1.2 ha (3 acres) and 90 m2 (969 ft2) on lots greater than 1.2 ha.

6. The climate emergency demands that limited growth be along bus routes. More sprawl causes more car trips, more tree clearing for septic fields, buildings, driveways and parking areas, and more stress on roads, ferries and other services.

Please attend the public hearing Thursday, August 18th, 2022 at 4:00 at the Harbour House Hotel

If you cannot attend: No later than 4:00 on Wednesday August 17th, 2022, send an email to our trustees at ssiinfo@islandstrust.bc.ca with “Bylaw 530” in the subject line.

Maxine Leichter
Positively Forward