Happy to report that the District of Sooke yesterday issued a call for applicants to the revived Climate Change Action Committee. Interested individuals have until May 31, two Fridays from today, to put their names forward via  the form found at this link.

Chairperson Cllr. Tony St-Pierre, council's appointee to the CRD Climate Action Intermunicipal Working Group, is seeking up to 10 individuals to join him and District staff around the table to identify local actions and broader advocacy campaigns to address the CRD and Sooke declarations of a climate emergency. At a planetary scale, of course, there's also the five-alarm reports of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and, just recently, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity bombshell revealing that one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction.  

Tony is a super bright, engaged, savvy and passionate advocate for rapid action on climate change. He regularly reminds council of the IPCC's call for governments large and small to move to war footing in dealing with the crisis in the immediate future (#2030). Like us all on this council, Tony recognizes that climate change is the big-picture lens through which we must view local issues: housing, local economic development, transportation, Smart Growth, energy infrastructure, hiking/cycling trails and all the rest. Backing us up in this view is the fact that the Official Community Plan (both the current 2010 model and the early public feedback for the next one) clearly cites a healthy environment as the #1 priority for Sooke residents. 

With a mind to doing what we can as best we can locally, Cllr. Beddows and I would both like to participate on the committee as well (however council will need to revise the Terms of Reference to make that possible.) Al is keen in his unofficial and, I reckon, hugely invaluable role as a bridge to a vital sector of Sooke society that he jokingly but respectfully describes as "red neck" (and in which he counts himself; personally, I find him a wholly reasonable, common sense gentleman -- and there's no question that practical, common sense solutions are what's needed as we face what's looming ahead of us.) 

Me, I'm the Transition Sooke alumnus and former chair of the Climate Change committee in the final two years of its six-year existence. The likes of T'Sou-ke Nation solar project manager Andrew Moore, the Rotary Club's Mark Ziegler (a former federal government economist in the Climate Change Secretariat), Solar Colwood's Nitya Harris and the Pachamama Alliance's Michael Tacon were all part of the committee along with council liaison Ebony Logins and such key District staff as Laura Hooper, Brent Blackhall and former fire chief Steve Sorenson. We dreamed big yet didn't accomplish all that much given all the other priorities the District had on its plate then. For the record, our conversations focused on such seemingly achievable undertakings as a community solar project (solar farm, solar parking lot, and/or solar panels at EMCS or/and the Municipal Hall); a yard-waste depot in the District's Kaltasin works yard; EV charging stations (which is one good evolving legacy thanks to the work of the District's Paul Butterfield);  a local compost facility as potentially facilitated by Net Zero Waste that could serve local farmers and backyard growers; and potential collaboration with the BC Sustainable Energy Association on its Renewable Energy By 2050 campaign (with which the District of Saanich is now well underway). 

That was then and this is later (i.e.,now). If indeed you're planning to apply to the resurrected committee, please explore some of these related links: 

* Two foundational documents that guided the Climate Change committee previously 
~ Sooke Climate Energy and Emissions Plan (CEEP, 2014)
~ BC Climate Action Charter (2008), to which Sooke and all BC municipalities are signatories.

* Capital Region District agendas and videos re: this winter's Climate Emergency Declaration    
~ Feb. 13: CRD Board of Directors meeting at which Climate Emergency was formally declared
~ Jan. 23: CRD Parks & Environment Committee meeting at which a Climate Emergency declaration was first discussed following a motion by Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, Saanich councillor Ned Taylor and Sooke's own Mayor Maja Tait. 
​
​~ CRD Climate Change website page 
~ CRD Climate Projections for the Capital Region (2017 PDF report ... in brief: drier summers marked by extended droughts combined with wetter winters featuring heavy storm events) 

* Government of British Columbia
~ BC Climate Action Toolkit + "Sooke's Innovative Town Centre Takes Shape," 2010
~ CleanBC (2018)
~ PDF of the CleanBC plan released in Dec., 2018
~ Community Energy Association of BC summarizes the plan  
​~ Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives analysis of CleanBC  

~ BC Energy Step Code + its new website 

Regarding local governments, CleanBC states "they will play a critical role in areas such as developing new clean energy sources, supporting active and cleaner transportation options and helping B.C. transition to zero waste. Their ongoing efforts to make communities more compact, complete and energy-efficient are essential to this strategy’s success. B.C. local governments are leaders on climate action, managing their corporate and community wide GHG emissions and creating clean, compact, more energy efficient communities." 

* Government of Canada
~ Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change
~ The Paris Agreement
~ Canada's Climate Plan

* Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
~ Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 C (final report)
~ The Guardian on the IPCC report 
~ Wikipedia entry 
~ National Geographic coverage 

* Generation Now & Next  
~ Greta Thunberg's TED Talk + address to COP24  
​~ BC Climate Strike
~ Profiles of Canadian Climate Strikers 
~ Sooke's Finn and Chloe Unger on the Declaration of the Right to a Healthy Environment (the BlueDot initiative passed by DOS council in February, 2015 as a relatively early adopter to a document now signed by more than 300 municipalities across Canada). 

~ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's New Green Deal 
​~ Canada's New Green Deal (May, 2019) 

* Greening Sooke/T'Sou-ke
~ Climate Emergency Declaration (passed unanimously by Sooke council on April 8, 2019) 
~ Plastic Bag Bylaw (draft received by council on May 13, 2019; public hearing set for June 10)  
~ EV Charger Station program (2018/19) 
~ FireSmart program and emergency response preparedness by the Sooke Fire Rescue Department as we in BC prepare to deal with potential local impacts of the "fifth season." 
~ Draft tree protection bylaw (spring 2019) 
~ Environmental due diligence in the development of Sooke's Lot A public lands 

~ DOS achieves carbon-neutral municipal operations in 2015, earning Level 3 (highest) recognition from UBCM

~ Sooke Climate Energy & Emissions Plan approved by council in Oct. 2014. Priorities: 
i) Promotion of home retrofits & demand-side management programs;
ii) Improved walking infrastructure;
iii) Organics diversion from Hartland;
iv) Urban containment (i.e., less sprawl, more OCP-directed town centre development)

~ BC Transit's Sooke Local Area Service Plan review (2019) 

~ T'Sou-ke Solar City
~ T’Sou-ke Centre for Sustainability Housing Innovation
(skills training in the creation of energy efficient housing for BC indigenous communities)

~ Transition Sooke (founded 2010) 
~ Zero Waste Sooke (founded 2015)
~ TS Pesticide Education Group (founded 2016)
~ TS Ecohome Tours (2016/17/18)
~ Planet Earth Party: Earth Day Sooke (April 22, 2018)

~ Sooke Region Food CHI
~ Sooke Farmland Trust Society
~ CRD Foodlands Access Program

 ~ District of Sooke council is among the Vancouver Island councils that have accepted the District of Highlands' 2019 Municipal Survivor Climate Change Challenge. Global Footprint Network's personal calculator here.  
 
Miscellaneous other reasons why it's getting easier to be green and proud of it locally ... 
​
~ Roadside clean-up: The iconic, heroic Sifu Koshin Moonfist (aka Broomfist) 
~ Tradition of litter-busting with Rotary Club, EMCS Youth Engagement Team, Zero Waste Sooke & other community groups
~ First/only BC municipality to vote, via electoral plebicite, for a ban on increased oil-tanker traffic 
~ Youth for Change students fundraise for EV station at Edward Milne Community School, 2016/17
~ Youth for Change group revitalized by EMCS leadership students in spring 2019
~ Tidal power: Accumulated Ocean Energy (in collaboration with T’Sou-ke Nation and academic institutions) 
~ Solar installation: Viridian Energy Co-Operative + Endless Energy & Solar Solutions + independent contractors 
~ T’Sou-ke Nation, Timberwest and EDP Renewables Canada announce intention (2013) for $750-million in large-scale wind power projects on Vancouver Island's southwest coast.  
~ Geothermal heat pumps in select homes at Woodland Creek
~ Built Green Canada Gold standard met by Harbourside Cohousing
~ Green residential builders in the region include Keary Conwright + Frank McKendry + Forest Adam + Tony Johnson + David Dare, among others. 
~ Invasive species removal by the Juan de Fuca Trails Society and the Greater Victoria Green Team 
~ Regional beach clean-ups by Surfrider Foundation Vancouver Island
~ District of Sooke's Subdivision and Development Standards bylaw requires that street trees are planted on new roads 
~ Urban tree inventory is part of the District's GIS mapping system (photographs, caliper size, species name)
~ Community Gardens at Sunriver and the Sooke Baptist Church
~ Food gardens at John Muir Elementary and Edward Milne Community School (the latter being the 2019 winner of Farm to School BC's Polllinator Award) 
​

More Big Picture Links 
~ NASA website: Global Climate Change ~ Vital Signs of the Planet (evidence) 
~ The Royal Society - Climate Change Evidence and Causes 
~ Climate Atlas of Canada - Climate Change: The Basics 
~ "The last five years were the hottest ever recorded" ~ National Geographic, Feb. 2019 

~ Al Gore's Climate Reality Project + "The Green Revolution is Unstoppable" 
~ Heartland Institute on Climate Change (American think tank for the conservative movement) 

~ Climate Change Denial: Articles from The Guardian  
​~ Skeptical Science: "Getting Skeptical about Climate Change Skepticism"
~ DeSmogBlog: "Clearing the PR Pollution the Clouds Climate Science" 
~ "How to Talk to A Climate Change Denier" 

~ International Monetary Fund report (May, 2019) on global fossil fuel subsidies 
"The Canadian government spends $58 billion per year in fossil fuel subsidies to the oil and gas industry. 
That’s $1,600 per person." 

Departing tomorrow for the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities Convention in Powell River, so I thought it best to finish this rough transcription of notes from my previous such learning-curve depth dive  ~  hosted by the AVICC in association with BC's Local Government Leadership Academy in Parksville in mid-February. I was scribbling madly and likely got a fair few things wrong, but I'm capturing it here for future reference and refinement. 
 
109 registered delegates
63% of us newly elected 
37% re-elected 
 
Keynote: Greg Moore, former Mayor of Port Coquitlam
"Lessons for a Happy Political Journey" 
 
* "Stand for what you campaigned on but be flexible and flow with reality ... my mission statement at start of my final term in 2015 was 'end homelessness in PoCo.'  Didn't happen but we worked towards it." 
* "'Politician' is seen to be a bad word ... Be proud. You are serving your community." 
* Enjoy the networking. Real conversations, real people. 
* "Learn how to disagree with your colleagues without being disagreeable." 
* Port Coquitlam budget document - "super document" easily understood by the public 

Challenges 
 1. Massive Time Commitment 
Upside is that the municipal year follows a somewhat predictable cycle 
- January - somewhat quiet
- Feb/March/April - busy (budget)
- May/June/July - busy
- August - holiday break
- Sept/Oct/Nov - busy
- December - quiet-ish
 
2. Random encounters with residents with questions, asks and viewpoints  
 "Thank you, here's my business card, let's set up a meeting, please get in touch with me"
 
3. Hearth and home 
- politicians tend to prioritize politics over family life
- five divorces among council members over his 16 years in office
- vent with your partner!
- avoid losing touch with the people and things that really matter to you  
 
4. Dealing with single-minded people 
 - elevate the discussion to a more expanded, inclusive level
- professional perspective vs. community perspective (job is to rep the community perspective)
- councillors are residents, too. 
 
5. Social Media
- "Eroding the quality of community debate" 
- "Terms of Service" and "Policy of Engagement" for councillor social media pages
-  Be clear with your followers:  Respectful dialogue is encouraged. Three times rule-breakers are out. 

6. Knowing when time's up 
- "Plan your exit before the community plans it for you." 
 
Media relations 
- call press back within an hour if possible 
- tough conversations are to be expected
- they'll be friendly but they are not your friend
- hone in on three messages about any given topic, and stay on message  

Reality checks
- people will eventually want new blood no matter how good you are
- have fun along the way
- you're an individual doing the best you can 
- relax, you're not the Prime Minister
- important distinction:  "residents" not "taxpayers or ratepayers" 
- you can never say 'thank you' enough
 
 Gary MacIsaac, UBCM
"The Local Government Weather Channel"  
 
Major issues currently faced by the Union of BC Municipalities 
 
* Housing/Homelessness
- a UBCM policy paper released in 2018 helped shape current provincial strategy
- focus on seniors and indigenous communities
- housing to some degree has been downloaded to municipalities -- playing catch-up for an entire generation of non-action by the federal and provincial governments
- zoning for rentals and innovative new housing types 
 
* Building Code in BC
- revised in 2018
- major pressures on the system, hold-ups are the norm throughout the province
- a worst-case example are the six cities in Metro Vancouver area, where 115k development and building permits are currently in process 
 
* Cannabis Regulations
- UBCM page here
- May, 2017 federal announcement ... "then Ottawa abandoned the field" and left it to provinces and municipalities to sort out retail and cultivation policies  
- land use issues 
- policing
- ALR land 
- TBD: revenue sharing from Ottawa and the provinces to local government 
- TBD: policies on edibles and manufacturing of same 
- TBD: micro-cultivation and regional sales of "craft" weed 
- A punworthy subject ~ 'hazy/dubious/zoned out/joint committees' 
 
* Opioid Crisis 

* Health & Social Development 
- policy page 

* Environment & Climate Change 
- UBCM policy home page
- extreme weather incoming
- BC Climate Action Charter in 2007/08 
- Wildfire threats: Emergency Operation Centre in the interior was open for six months last year 
- local governments can tap many resources, i.e. BC Climate Action Toolkit 
 
 
Local Government Organizations & Services 
* Association of Vancouver Island & Coastal Communities 
- one of five regional associations in BC
- represents 53 member municipalities and Regional Districts 
- 346 elected officials in all representing 18 percent of BC population
- at annual convention (Sooke in 2013; Powell River this), three sessions are held to debate resolutions which, if passed, are moved up the food chain to the UBCM convention in the fall (where, if successful, they will then be forwarded to the province)
- in discussing resolutions, delegates line-up at a pro or con mic, thus allowing facilitator to get a quick read on the mood in the room and move the process along efficiently 
- BC Ferries ... socio-economic study re: rates and schedule 
- Oil company culpability - passed at AVICC in 2018, defeated at UBCM

Municipal Finance Authority of British Columbia
"Created in 1970 to contribute to the financial well-being of local governments throughout BC. The MFA pools the borrowing and investment needs of BC communities through a collective structure and is able to provide a range of low cost and flexible financial services to our clients equally, regardless of the size of the community. The MFA provides long-term, short-term, and equipment financing, investment management, and other financial services to communities and public institutions in BC."

- it will take six months to get a borrowing bylaw approved
- municipalities must borrow their long-term debt from MFA 
- MFA has a Triple A credit rating
- municipalities cannot run a deficit; if one does, the deficit must be repaid within a year (unlike long-term provincial and federal deficits)
 
Municipal Insurance Association of British Columbia 
- Insurance provider for municipalities
- "we fight frivolous, nuisance lawsuits on your behalf" 
- very real liabilities and risks faced by local governments

- Local Government Management Association
"LGMA is dedicated to supporting excellence in local government by providing high quality, practical training and resources; encouraging the development of professional networking and connections; and facilitating the exchange of ideas and best practices among members."
 
BC Assessment 
- "Meet the Johnsons" video for overview 
- Just over 2 million properties in BC
- $1.99 trillion is total value 
- 4300 percent increase in assessed value between 1974 (year of BC Assement's foundation) and 2018 
- 45 percent of municipal funding, on average, is from property taxes
- Assessments determined as of July 1 of prior year 
- 1.25 percent of BC property assessments are appealed annually; less than 0.25 percent are typically successful
 

DYNAMICS & DECISION MAKING 
Tracey Lorenson 
 
* Advice to elected reps: "if you're made of glass, get over it!"

 * Rule of thumb: Most residents are indifferent to what you're doing until it effects them directly. 

 * Clear, crisp, understandable communications from local government to the public is essential (show of hands in the room indicates that most municipalities have dedicated communications officers). "Don't be shy to brag!"   

 * The media twist: Civic government processes can be boring; therefore the media will find ways to make a story compelling by focusing on  personalities and polarities. Clickbait is their job. "Doing good things well for your community is not news, unfortunately." 

 * "Worry about the opinions of those you respect ... not the average social media critic." 
 
* Business tax rates are not the #1 determinant as to why a savvy business or developer will want to invest in your community; instead, focus on developing a track record of good, effective and consistent municipal governance. 
 
* It is incumbent on council to  ensure that as wide a range of viewpoints and perspectives as possible is addressed and acknowledged in working towards a decision -- even if those representing these viewpoints aren't in the room. 
 
* "You're in the business of disappointment" 
 
* Danger of over-responding to the agendas of others -- especially those who gripe in public, at council meetings or in the local press. Conversely, don't ignore squeaky wheels, " because certain wheels could be about to fall off." 
 
* All decisions need to be filtered through 1. Official Community Plan. 2. Bylaws. 
 
* Councils need to pace themselves. Some are addicted to doing too much too soon ~ a bias for action intended to reveal that the decision-makers are "quick, deep and assertive." Often better to move at a slower pace, be more contemplative, table decisions for further discussion. 
 
* Careful of asking too much of municipal staff. Every report is approximately a $3k to $4k investment in staff time.  Specify whether a minimal, mid-level or in-depth report is desired. 
 
* Taxation: A zero percent tax increase effectively reduces municipal funds by 2 to 3 percent given average annual inflation.  Generally speaking, there is underinvestment in essential infrastructure. Future taxpayers will shoulder the bill sooner or later to replace failing roads, sewers, etc. 
 
* Residents get what they pay for with their taxes. Whether a community receives gold, silver or platinum service is a direct reflection of tax rates. Less cannot deliver more. 
 
* Council relations 
 i) "The essence of strategy is in choosing what not to do" - Michael Porter. Any four-year Strategic Plan must be given an annual update and check-in ... something not enough councils do. 
 
ii) Listen carefully to each other and focus efforts on mutual differences and sticking points
 
iii) Respect each other's views and opinion. "Lean into the circle of council and staff as you move towards a resolution." 
 
iv) Always be ready and prepared to change your mind - fixed opinions are the death of creative, evolving processes.  
 
v) Have the confidence to say, 'yes, I expressed concerns about x, y or z, but now I realize the wisdom of moving ahead having given it further thought and weighed it from multiple angles.'  Or vice-versa in moving to 'no.' 
 
vi) Be curious, not certain. Do not play to the gallery with grandiose or obvious statements. 
 
vii) Choose your battles, use your equity wisely, manage your air time during meetings. 
 
viii) Council as a whole will be characterized by the public according to the worst behaviour of any one of its members. 
 
ix) Read agenda packages. If you've not done so, stay quiet and vote as best you can based on the insights of staff and informed councillors. 
 
x) “Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world." ~ Bill Bullard 
 
 
"We're Got to Stop Meeting(s) Like This" 
Tofino Mayor Josie Osborne & Bob MacPherson, CAO, District of Tofino 
 
Warning Signs 
- councillors who stray habitually off-topic
- take 10 minutes to say something that should take two
- personal attacks on members of the public or each other
 
* Each councillor has the right to shape the process. Always be ready, if a debate is heading off the rails, to call a point of order and ask for a break. 
 
* Motions made on the fly are a bad idea ... must be in writing and available ahead of time for public comment
 
* When in doubt, postpone decisions so that staff can have time to weigh in, address questions and clarify grey areas.  
 
* In the case of complex, double-barrelled motions, split them into component parts and address them in succession 
 
* OFEEDS (acronym for best-meeting practices) 

- Focus (on the agenda as approved) 
 
- Efficiency (watch the clock, keep things moving) 

- Equality (for fairness and informed voting; each councillor to speak once in the queque before having a second opportunity; likewise with public comment period & public hearings)  
 
- Decorum (dignity, respect, Roberts Rules of Order)
 
- Safe (meeting environment for everyone in the room) 
 
* Statement to the public at the start of action-packed meetings: "We have a heavy agenda tonight, and we need your help in running a smooth, efficient meeting." 
 
* Council's job is to collect available wisdom in the room; question, follow-up, focus on the issues/proposals. "Engage the brainpower of those around the table to reach wise decisions ... thoughtful, judicious, balanced and informed decisions ... It is not acceptable to surpress valid and relevant input even when it might threaten your desired outcome of a vote." 
 
* Pay attention during meetings! Do not text, email, check Facebook nor (as in one infamous example) read a newspaper.  
 
* Heckling/booing/applauding during meetings is not to be permitted. Leads to creation of a potentially toxic meeting space where some may be afraid to speak. There are cases where human rights complaints have been filed against municipalities on these grounds. 
 
* Active listening is a good strategy always. Ask the public during hearings: "Does anyone have something new to add to what's been said already? If so, we'd like to hear from you." 
 
* Council members should come to meetings with open minds, not 'empty' minds. "It is a dangerous myth that changing your mind is a sign of weakness and lack of integrity." 
 

Local Government Law 101: Rights, Risks & Responsibilities
Ryan Bortolin, Stewart McDannold Stuart 
​
- Province has authority over local government. Municipal governments were viewed as "junior level of government" 30 years ago, however there is an ongoing shift of power and much less micromanagement from on high
- The federal criminal code supercedes any local bylaws 
- The Community Charter and the Municipal Act grants "natural person powers .. a person at law" status (like a corporation) to municipalities 
- Councillors can be subject to libel (written commentary) or slander (spoken). Section 115 of Community Charter defines responsibilities of councillors 
- Province has "duty to consult" with First Nations. No duty to consult at the municipal level, however it is a good practice to do so always. 
- No advantages to be given to private business in advancing their interests
 
Public Hearings  
- A public hearing, from a councillor's perspective, is actually a "public listening." 
- Often wise not to vote the same day as a public hearing; table the decision to the next meeting so that the public's input can be considered over time. 
- Councillors asked their thoughts on an issue prior to a public meeting are well advised to say: "I'll tell you after I've heard from the public." 
- When a hearing is closed, no more input is permissible
 
Local Governments & Indigenous Communities 
 * 230,000 indigenous peoples (First Nation, Metis, Inuit) in BC 
* 70 percent live off-reserve
* 203 of Canada's 600 First Nations are in BC 
* 46 percent of BC indigenous people under the age of 25
 
* Treaty negotiations: Annual report at www.bctreaty.ca 
* Province of BC draft principles: "free, prior and informed consent" 
 * C2C (Community2Community) Grants available through Ministry of Indigenous Relations & Reconciliation 
 
* First Nations structure 
- Hereditary leadership -- the Chiefs, key to traditional knowledge
- Elected leadership
- Administrative leadership 
- Influential citizens 
 
* "Ask a question, be clear you want a response, wait six weeks before following up" 
* Patience, understanding and respecting cultural differences is key
 
 
Post-Election Assessment - Results, Turnout, Trends
 CivicInfoBc 
- 3,339,483 eligible voters in BC
- 35.7 percent average voter turnout in municipalities & districts, October, 2018
- 27 percent average voter turnout in regional districts, October, 2018
- Approx. 10 percent voter turnout for school board trustee elections 
- Voter turnout was often highest in smaller communities with Wells, Canal Flats, New Denver, Belcarra, Stewart, and Tahsis all reporting turnout rates of over of 70%. Also: Bowen Island (67.4%), Fernie (63.7%), and Qualicum Beach (58.9%).

Local Government Finance 101 
- Assessed Value x Property Tax Rate (aka Mill Rate) = Payable Taxes 
- Five-Year Plans are rolling documents
- look to 10 and 15-year horizons for capital expenditures
- SOFI (Statement of Financial Information) report document staff salaries in excess of $75k along with remuneration and expenses for councillors
- Sooke Property Tax Calculator 
 
- Legislated timeline:
* ideally begin a new 5 Year Financial Plan process in fall (most councils wait until the early new year and face extra stress in meeting legislated deadlines)  
* May 15 
* June 30 (SOFI and Annual Report) 
* July 2 (taxes due) 
* End of September (tax sale) 
* Oct. 31 (permissive tax exemptions) 
 
- Revenue sources
* Property taxes ~ "zero percent increases have come back to bite us" - north island councillor 
* Parcel taxes ~ sewer service 
* User fees (staff meetings, DP and Public Hearing expenses, etc.) 
* Development Cost Charges (see "DCC Guide for Elected Officials") 
* Grants 
 
- Expenditures
* manage expectations of public based on available revenues and reserves 
* strive to keep operating costs within the 2 pecent consumer price index annual increase
 
- Borrowing referendums 
* rules set by the MFABC 
* terms for five, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 years 
* 15 years is ideal borrowing term in terms of burden on residents

Three of our town's, nation's and planet's pressing issues will be discussed at tonight's regular council meeting. It starts at 7 p.m. at the Municipal Hall.  As ever, you're welcome to address any agenda topic during your two-minute (max) turn at the mic during public comment period. And you'll be able to weigh in at length during the evening's public hearing on the regulation of cannabis retail stores in the District. Join us! Best Monday Night Entertainment In Sooke TM. 

Climate Emergency Declaration: The CRD declared a climate emergency in January as advocated by Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, our own Maja Tait and teenaged Saanich councillor Ned Taylor. The CRD Board of Directors is now asking the region's 13 municipalities to do likewise within their own boundaries. Victoria and Saanich have done so already in joining the eight municipalities across Canada that have made declarations to date. They align with 439 regional and national governments world-wide representing nearly 40 million people. If you know any lingering skeptics, point them here ... then ask them to listen to Greta.) 

Cllr St-Pierre made the motion for a Sooke declaration at our last meeting, I seconded it, and yet council decided (rightly, i agree) in its wisdom to let the idea marinate for awhile as we ponder what such a declaration entails. We'll be discussing it further tonight. 

My thought is that making such a declaration would be a renewed, big-picture signal that we in Sooke get it that an established pattern of rising temperatures and unpredictable weather -- a record dry March, to cite the latest evidence, followed by a stuttering start to what should be our traditional April showers -- is reason to act urgently in response to the 2030-or-bust call for action issued by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; full report here; distilled media coverage here and here).

The CRD Board of Directors has identified an advocacy strategy with other levels of government to push for accelerated climate action (open the file at the end of this post for a three-page summary of suggested actions at federal, provincial and CRD municipal levels). There's an overarching call to fully implement the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change and push for effective implementation of Premier Horgan's CleanBC Plan. The CRD also suggests continuing and expanding "direct funding programs and partnerships with regional and local governments related to low carbon building retrofits, zero-emission transportation, waste management and processing, adapted and low carbon community infrastructure and other local government influenced priority areas." 

Of course, it's all hugely complicated and much brighter minds on this subject than dim me are exploring how to truly move the CRD towards carbon neutrality by 2030 (i.e., Highlands councillor Ann Baird, whose insights into carbon offsets and how to count emissions can be found here).  

How might we act locally while thinking planet-wide?  To repeat a few thoughts off the top of my shiny ... 

* #SookeSmartGrowth (i.e. truly making a commitment to keep our density and major thrust of growth in the town centre containment area, which i'll suggest extends east to Kaltasin so that we can entertain the idea of a sewer-system expansion.)

* Alternative energy initiatives in collaboration with the T'Sou-ke Nation

* A yard-waste depot and compost facility (as recommended by Sooke's Climate Change Action Committee to zero uptake nor acknowledgement by council in 2015/16) 

* A bold local food security initiative as recommended to council in February by EMCS teacher Patrick Gauley-Gale involving the purchase of Woodside Farm (possibly through the new CRD Regional Food & Agricultural Strategy and/or in partnership with a post-secondary institution). 
 
I know some of you will suggest hypocrisy: As I said two Mondays ago, it's sadly ironic that we were contemplating an emergency declaration mere minutes after approving a town-centre drive-through here in an already auto-centric Motor City. And yet, as noted above, there are many things this council can tackle while ensuring that we make our decisions through a climate-emergency filter (as we've committed to do through earlier agreements).

Also attached below you'll find the powerpoint of the presentation I made to council in November, 2017 in association with the BC Sustainable Energy Association ~ politely received, instantly filed and forgotten (and I now better understand how that can happen given the crush of mostly micro business that consumes staff and council time -- as it rightly should given, as Metchosin Mayor John Ranns reliably says, bylaws, infrastructure, emergency services and land-use decisions should be the prime focus of local government, not big-picture issues like climate change).

Included in that powerpoint is a slide listing the commitments the District has made over the last decade: 

* DOS signed the British Columbia Climate Action Charter in 2008. <clip> “Governments urgently need to implement effective measures to reduce GHG emissions and anticipate and prepare for climate change impacts.” 

* Climate change highlighted in Sooke’s 2010 Official Community Plan. <clip> “Establish the importance of energy to all aspects of the community’s social, economic and environmental well-being…demonstrate leadership in sustainable energy.” 

* Sooke Community Energy & Emissions Plan (CEEP) endorsed by council in Oct. 2014. Provides guidelines on short, medium and longer-term actions to reduce greenhouse gases. The District's municipal operations are now rated as net zero. The CEEP needs to be revisited and revised, a good task for a reconstituted  Climate Action Committee or some variant thereof. 

Cannabis Retail Stores: Municipalities across Canada have been and continue to craft their own unique approaches to cannabis retail and cultivation under the watchful eye of provincial licensing authorities ~ the B.C. Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch in our case. Council has received a series of reports from the planning department over the last four months, and we've tinkered to the point where a zoning amendment has reached tonight's public hearing stage.

Following best practices from other municipalities, we'd like to add the definition of a "Cannabis Retail Store" to the zoning bylaw and allow four stores to operate in site-specific locations ~ three of them existing stores, the fourth an innovative new hybrid of retail store and post-secondary cannabis educational facility. All are separated by at least 300 meters from SD #62 schools and are spaced out along Sooke Road as far east as Saseenos. We'd initially thought three stores were sufficient for Sooke needs as they've been these last few years, however this latest option is an intriguing one.  

* The two locally run independents are 642 Cannabis (in the site of the former Salvation Army thrift store in the town centre) and Castle Naturals Cannabis Dispensary, run by sisters Lori Ritaller and Lisa Taylor from the east wing of our Sooke River landmark. The two stores opened in June and August, 2016 respectively and have been operating continuously since while selling a wide range of locally grown products. Like all pot stores, they'll need to have switched entirely to federally licensed cultivators (168 from all corners of the country as of the latest tally) once they secure their licenses. (Council will be turning its attention to micro-cultivation proposals once the retail picture is settled. Best idea I've heard to date: A cooperative greenhouse facility in which our various craft-weed producers could grow their various "Best In BC" strains under federal license). 

* Earth to Sky Cannabis Inc. will be setting up in the former Medijuana store at the corner of Otter Point and Sooke Rd. It's owned by Ian Laing, whose many regional holdings include the Sooke Business Park. He's also a partner in Specialty Medijuana Products with the publicly traded Choom (founded in Honolulu in the early '70s),  "dedicated to building a dominant Canadian cannabis company" and now has gathered more than 50 retail shops in Alberta and BC under its wing. Another partner is Michael Forbes, who (as I understand it) has acquired the adjacent former laundromat and will open a related pharmacy (possibly under one or both of Forbes' established brands --  Forbes Pharmacy and/or Clarity Cannabis. A west shore resident, Forbes will operate one of the five Langford stores being allowed by Stew Young and his council. Also in the masterplan is Choom's "marijuana production growth strategy" featuring greenhouse production in the Sooke region. (Choom infographic.) 

* Also now in the frame for Sooke is a potential Cooper's Cove retail shop and cannabis campus that offers post-secondary education for the new wave of employees destined for Canada's cannabis industry. Programs of various kinds are now being offered by McGill University, Vancouver's Kwantlen Polytechnic University ("cannabis career training") and the College of the Rockies in Cranbrook (which combines "science and customer service in the cannabis retail specialist program).  This is a venture between Stickleback and West Coast Adventure College owner Scot Taylor, his education director/partner Phil Foster, and GrowX Global's Jas Basi, a retired RCMP career officer based in Vancouver who has been working with the UBC Centre of Excellence to develop cannabis products to reduce opiod addictions. The master plan calls for a  move into edibles once legislation is sorted. 

Concerns? Questions? Is four the right number for Sooke? Come out to the public hearing tonight and voice them. 

Four Lanes from Connie to Glinz Lake: Eric Boucher and his neighbours from the North Sooke Residents Association are back before council for a third time in six months to express their concerns about the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure's plans for their section of the Sooke Road.

Based on their understanding from negotiations with MOTI staff, the new stretch "will be a four-lane, limited access, divided highway," said Boucher. "We've heard different versions on whether or not intersections will be signalled and if Gillespie Rd. will be signalled or have an underpass ... (the route) is generally a straight line between the intersection of Sooke and Connie Rds behind the 17 Mile to the intersection of Sooke and Glinz Lake Roads." 

Councillor McMath, Interim CAO Don Schafer and I attended an association meeting in the EMCS library last week. The neighbours are frustrated by the secrecy around the project given that matters related to land (as well as legal and labour) are to be dealt with behind closed doors, as i've learned during our council in-camera meetings. As Mayor Tait has said, she and council have not been privy to MOTI plans beyond what we've all been able to read in last summer's Corridor Improvement Study (in which a highway realignment at 17 Mile was cited).  

The North Sooke contingent is back again tonight. Their issues relate to road alignment, emergency service access, the impacts on wells and drinking water supply, and the potentially nightmarish traffic hold-ups during what would be a two-year construction period beginning a year from now through the fall of 2022. They'd also like to see MOTI and the JDF Water Distribution System take this opportunity to extend the water line from Cooper's Cove to Connie -- no small price tag at an estimated cost of $800 per meter over 2.6 kms. 

The most disturbing suggestion I heard the other night was from a North Sooke resident who said one MOTI negotiator called this phase one of three phases ... phase two being a four-lane from Connie Rd. to Langford and phase three being four lanes heading west to Sooke. As Boucher notes: "The Sooke OCP clearly indicates our desire to preserve the small town rural nature of our community. A high-speed commuter route to Langford is not consistent with the Sooke OCP." AGREED and AMEN.  

Following up on last November's bumper Hwy #14 blog post on this beautiful spring day when Sooke is again experiencing some frustrating traffic hold-ups due to Sooke River Road interchange work. My two-part item today references that project as well as the four-lane stretch between Connie and Glinz Lake roads. 

1. Good news: Latest report (Friday, 2 p.m.) from the Ministry of Transportation & Infrastructure is that "we are in the home stretch of the Sooke River Rd intersection project. The community of Sooke's continued patience is very much appreciated while we complete the project, and it is understood that patience has worn thin on these recent delays ... Yesterday's paving impacts were not acceptable under our contract terms, and today's paving is being watched like a hawk. Paving on the highway will stop by 3 p.m. today, when (the work crew) will shift over to some minor touch-up work on Edward Milne off the highway ... a minor amount of paving will be completed on Monday."

(The installation of the stoplight itself and the rush-hour traffic impacts it will generate is still ahead of us. As said before, a roundabout at this intersection would have been ideal, and was, in fact, called for in our 2010 Transportation Master Plan. I was told at the Open House last summer the budget could only handle a signal light, not what would have had to be a two-lane roundabout). 

Looking back over the last three months, MOTI notes: "This Sooke River Rd project has been almost entirely delivered during the day and through the first 3 months of work, delays midday were held below 10min, with free flowing rush hours." (Night work is a considerably more expensive option for contractees - in this case Jacob Brothers Construction of Surrey, BC -- if they anticipate creating traffic delays above those 10 minutes. Yet apart from a handful of "stuff happened" SNAFUs, Jacob Bros. has reportedly done well.) 

Yes, there has been understandable griping from drivers experiencing (on a happily few number of occasions) lengthy hold-ups. (I'm not a commuter, but the handful of five-or-ten minute roadwork delays I've faced over my 15 years in Sooke have made me edgy and impatient  -- I still aspire to master a zen attitude and learn to relax when the blessed normals around here undergo a minor interruption in service).

Yet the happy news is that many locals gracefully have recognized that short-term pain leads to lasting gains in traffic flow and efficiency. In fact, a Sooke River Road pal of mine was so grateful for the way work crews waved him onto Sooke Rd. over the last number of weeks that he splurged on coffeeshop cash cards and gifted them to the crew with much gratitude. 

2. You may have read in the Sooke News Mirror this week that negotiations are underway between the BC Ministry of Transportation and landowners in the 17 Mile House area of North Sooke. To quote the story's misleading opening paragraph, "The process of creating a four-lane highway between Langford and Sooke appears to be moving forward ..."  

The article's points about negotiations and expropriation is true, or so I understand. But the contention that this is a prelude to the full meal #14 four-lane deal is patently false, alarmist and sadly typical of some SNM news coverage of late. 

​As identified in the Highway 14 Corridor Improvements Study released by MOTI early last summer (see the report's third last page, which includes a tentative routing), this is a short realignment of the road from Connie, routing behind the 17 Mile House and going potentially as far as Manzer or Glinz Lake Road in phase one. This plan addresses the potentially dangerous bottleneck at Sooke Rd. and Gillespie.  It will better allow traffic to move on accident days. And the short four-lane will provide easier pullover opportunities for logging trucks and Sunday drivers, enabling the rest of us to establish a safe, steady 70 kmph (optimal, I'll say again) pace along Sooke Rd. 

Council was not officially informed of this plan by MOTI nor is it cited among the actions in the current $10 million improvement program. Personally, I heard about it from Col. Boucher of the North Sooke Residents Association at the Parks & Trails Masterplan Open House in late January. He's one of the effected landowners quoted in the SNM story. He and his association colleagues have visited council chambers twice in the last year to insist that MOTI's plans align with the District's Transportation Master Plan.  

In reading the Corridor Improvements Study, the SNM reporter may or may not have seen its second last page, which is  titled "Why not build a new highway?" (i.e., a four lane from Langford to Sooke). Here he'd have read MOTI's rationale for why it won't be happening in any of our lifetimes, and i quote in full:
 
"The mountainous terrain is a major obstacle in designing and constructing an entirely new highway between Langford and Sooke. Challenges include:

~ Need to route the highway around the higher terrain/mountain peaks
~ Much steeper grades affecting truck traffic
~ Increased snowfall, as some of the route would be above a 200m elevation
~ Need for multiple bridges to span major creeks
~ Environmental impacts
~ Need to pass through one or more regional parks
~ Construction would require major rock cuts and retaining walls
​~ High cost ($20-50M per kilometre)

Okay, let's figure out that pricetag: The distance from the end of the Sookahalla to Cooper's Cove is approx. 12km (if indeed I have worked things out correctly just now with the Google map calculator). The anticipated project cost of a four-lane Hwy #14 along that stretch, therefore, is $240-$600m.

For perspective, the Mackenzie overpass was budgeted at $85m when it was announced in 2016. MOTI also has a half-dozen other major infrastructure projects in BC to fund, including no end of minor ones (but major to the communities involved, of course) ~ all listed in full on the ProjectsBC website. (And here's MOTI's Service Plan from now through 2022.) 

Reality check: it's unrealistic if not absurd to think that a community of our size would warrant these kind of expenditures. I could be totally wrong and Minister Trevena's South Vancouver Island Transportation Strategy will have some huge surprises for us when it's released later this year, but somehow I think we're an afterthought in MOTI's bigger Malahat-centric plan. (Short and long-term mass transit solutions, please and thanks, are desperately needed.) Besides which, the Save The Sooke Hills contingent backed by the Capital Regional District's Board of Directors would reject incursions into the watershed. 

Much wiser to predict that MOTI will continue to make relatively minor tweaks and adjustments as promised along the lines of what we've seen to date: a new Roche Cove bridge, the pullover at Sombrio and dramatically improved road markings and lines (now being repainted twice annually).

Last summer's Hwy #14 Engagement Summary Report (screenshot below) identifies the top three future priorities as passing lanes, wider shoulders and slow vehicle pullovers. This current realignment, if indeed it goes ahead, will address all three priorities, albeit at a cost to be paid in terms of peace and privacy for the effected, hopefully well recompensed homeowners in North Sooke.  Certainly not the first time BC's Expropriation Act has been exercised on behalf of what mandarins and consultants have deemed to be the public good. 

The inevitable conclusion is that we must again recognize that Hwy #14 is a limit to growth ~ which we need to manage and control without letting it spiral further out of control.

Bonus: Also worth noting that the District's Paul Butterfield has been working smartly and stategically to expand EV charging stations in town. Level 2 chargers will be installed on Eustace near the Legion, the Municipal Hall, Ed Macgregor Park and elsewhere. And recently he filed a $200k grant application to the FCM's Green Municipal Fund for more. Skyline Retail REIT will install four chargers as part of the Tim Hortons expansion.  

Woke up yesterday morning shaken by a nightmare: I'd voted in favour of a Tim Horton's drive-through in the heart of Sooke's town centre. Pinched myself, and realized it was no dream. Consider me glazed and a little confused, to borrow the title of a Macleans article.  

We as a council certainly did vote unanimously on Monday night to approve issuance of a Development Permit for a single-storey, 6,300 sq. foot retail space in the southeastern, Sooke Road-fronting section of Evergreen Mall. Said building has been customized for a Tim Hortons restaurant with drive-thru lane plus space for two smaller retail shops.  

​Designed in a west-coast style consistent with our downtown design guidelines, the building is positioned at a right angle to the site of the two-storey, mixed-use structure that went up in flames after a dumpster fire in July, 2013 and has since sat vacant ~ a bare concrete pad used by liquor store customers and for impromptu gatherings of the show-and-shine crowd.  

Yes, you're absolutely correct: This will be a second Timbits mecca in town after a history of none whatsoever ~ Sooke being too small to rate as investment-worthy until our latest, fastest growth spurt towards city status. The TH half of the gas bar and donut shop on T'Sou-ke land east of Edward Milne Community School will also be operated by the same franchisee (who also owns a TH outlet in Langford). Chain supply economics make it logical and cost-effective to also operate a larger restaurant in Sooke. (The Sooke PocketNews broke the story of a second Tim Hortons last September.)

All in all, in my opinion, Timmies is a case study in late-stage capitalism at its aggressively expansionist peak, fuelled by mass cravings for sugar-shock treats and caffeine wrapped in red and white branding. Our two outlets will soon join 3,900-something others in Canada. Another thousand locations operate in the U.S. and overseas. Chinese expansion began last month with a first restaurant in Shanghai. This is an iconic Canadian-themed multi-national with majority Brazilian ownership, some bad press of late and yet with a reputation as a community hero. Difficult to believe, but stats say TH serves eight of every ten cups of coffee sold in Canada every day, year round.  

I am not averse to roadtrip patronage nor its maple-dipped temptations, yet almost invariably feel regret after indulging (one donut is never enough, three paradoxically at least two too many).  Likewise, I have regret and second thoughts about my vote the other night. Rather than positively reframing the inevitable, I could, perhaps should, have flatly voted no to a third town centre drive-through (Tim Hortons isn't the primary concern, it's the encouragement of more auto traffic that bothers me most).  True, a nay on my part  wouldn't have made a difference to the final outcome but it would have made it easier to live with myself these mornings after.    
 
Upsides  

* The District's Head Planner Ivy Campbell and her team worked extensively with the new mall owners Skyline Retail REIT (based in Ontario and an emerging heavyweight in the Canadian mall business) to ensure the specs and amenities were right. You'll find design drawings, streetscape images and the full staff report starting on pg. 119 of the agenda package. It makes for fulsome reading and is indicative of the quality and care that staff, in my experience to date, pore into these kind of documents.  

* As my council colleagues mentioned, the development will deliver local jobs and tax dollars while replacing the gap tooth in the mall's fire-damaged layout. Many in Sooke will be delighted to have an up-Sooke Timmies as a hang out. And as much as we all want independent business to thrive, none apparently was knocking at Skyline REIT's door and the new landlords wanted to get busy with creating a suitable home for an eager fast-food client. 

* Unlike the accident-waiting-to-happen drive-thru at McD's across the street, this one is purpose-built with a relatively long serpentine entrance ramp  ~ a set-up that will theoretically handle the expected auto volume (as identified in the required traffic impact study).  The line-up of cars awaiting their double-doubles will be hidden from Sooke Road sight by a berm planted with three dozen red maple saplings.  Four EV charging stations are included in the revamped parking grid along with a new dedicated parking lot across from the liquour store. 
 
* The road access to the mall off the roundabout will be marginally revamped and improved.  There will be a new set of sidewalks; those crossing Evergreen's access road will be slightly raised and will serve as rolling speed humps to slow traffic. Mayor Tait lobbied for interlocking pavers (rather than standard poured concrete) along the full extent of the eastern sidewalk leading into the mall to the edge of the right-turn into the drive-thru and new retail zone.   
 
* The Mayor also noted that drive-thrus are favoured by young families and the disabled. Idle stop-start technology is now a thing with new gas-guzzlers and EVs alike. No idling signage should be posted in reminding drivers of the (effectively unenforceable) CRD bylaw.

My turn at the mic 
 
When my turn in the speakers' queue came around, it was evident that a clear majority of us would be supporting staff's recommendation to okay the Development Permit. Nobody had addressed the downsides of the proposal, so I embarked on a rambling critique. Here are the key points as I recall them, fleshed out well beyond what I'm sure would be a much shorter, considerably more ramshackle verbateman transcript of what I actually said. 
 
* The notion of drive-thrus and chain retail is anathema to Transition Sooke, of which I was president for five years, and so my views are coloured. TS champions local business, human-scale community, Sooke Smart Growth, public transit mode shift, cycling, alternative energy, the circular economy (dollars spent here, stay here), #keepitintheground, and zero waste. (A few scraps  of "roll-up-the-rim" litter from Langford turned up in the Zero Waste Sooke street clean-ups in which I've participated in recent years, but just a fraction compared to trash from our local McDonalds. The ratio will surely change in future clean-ups).

​* The CRD has just declared a climate emergency. Approving as classic a car-culture perk as a drive-through here in Motor City at this time isn't the least congruent with acting responsibly in the face of said emergency. 
 
* A town without a Tim Hortons ... or a Starbucks or London Drugs or any number of other chains you'll find within a 20-minute drive of here ... is a rare and precious thing worth preserving.  Quaint, quirky, off-the-beaten path Sooke! Still with its own sense of itself! Not entirely awash in an A to Z of chain operators! (In my campaign literature, I'd mentioned that a moratorium on new chain businesses, or at least any found as nearby as Langford, was worth investigating ~ exactly what several reps from the Sooke Bike Club mentioned during public comments at the start of the night). 
 
* The new retail-only structure replaces a building that served a variety of useful purposes -- bank, newspaper office, dance studio, insurance broker and a high-tech firm.  It's those kind of office-space uses that we in Sooke are lacking, not more retail space at prices affordable only to chain franchisees. (A fond RIP once more to The Reading Room, which represented Sooke independent business as its best.) 
 
* I said I didn't like contravening the spirit and letter of our current Official Community Plan. As Ms. Campbell's report noted, the OCP includes the line "encourage redevelopment of the Evergreen Mall in a manner that discourages vehicle dependent businesses such as automative services and drive-thrus." (Conversely, it also states, four clauses later under Economic Development Policies 4.4.3A, "focus high-traffic generating businesses on the north side of Sooke Road and pedestrian-friendly businesses on the south side of Sooke Road." I noted that a previous council had approved not one but two traffic-generating car washes on the south side of Sooke Rd., so anything clearly goes.)
 
* As much as many in Sooke are "screaming out" for a TH (as one councillor said in reference to young people), a significant number have been "screaming at' (I believe was my phrase) the prospect for some years now. 
(I didn't recite recent history the other night, but this full-service TH and the T'Sou-ke outlet is the culmination of an extended saga of false starts over the last seven years at least. A gas bar and TH combo was cited in an unsuccessful Belvista Place/Sooke River Hotel rezoning application in May, 2012; the applicant at the time told the Land Use and Environment Committee that TH belonged in a service commercial zone, not the town centre. Nine months later, Three Point Properties proposed a drive-thru TH on the old Haldane family lot at the corner of Dover and Sooke Road; it fell through for reasons I can't fathom after reading the skimpy council minutes of the period. Likely because it was a lousy spot from which to manoeuvre volume traffic off and back on the Sooke Rd.)  
 
Shifting to the positive reframe/concession
 
I noted that council and staff had initially pushed (as per the desire of the Official Community Plan) for a multi-storey, mixed-used structure ~ commercial on the ground floor, office and other uses upstairs. Yet the reps from Skyline Partners REIT noted that i) they're operating a business within their legislated zoning as legal land owners; ii) office space requires dedicated matching day-long parking spaces for employees and there aren't enough spots at Evergreen to handle existing and new customers; iii) they were creating a building that suits the demands of a prospective anchor tenant.  The only solution, we were told, would be an underground lot, and that simply isn't in the cards nor budget at this time. 
 
Evergreen Mall is an important part of our town centre, I noted in conclusion while looking Skyline's two representatives in the eyes, and we're counting on them to deliver on several other fronts in the future, namely ...

i) Facilitating the expansion of the West Coast Family Medical Clinic through takeovers of square footage currently occupied by H&R Block and Subway; and

ii) Redevelopment some day of the Western Foods section of the mall so that Evergreen can become contiguous with and blend somewhat seamlessly into the multiple uses planned for Lot A directly to the north. Silencing the noise of freezer and cooler fans at the back of Western is essential if we're to create a peaceful oasis in the plaza and market area envisioned for the sunny southwestern corner of Lot A. 

And, on that note, I bowed out of the discussion until the motion was called. I voted with the team and have been kicking myself since. 

Related Links

* Skyline Partners REIT
~ Sooke marketing package 
~ Corporate home page 

* Tim Hortons/RBI 
~  The Untold Truth of Tim Hortons 
~  Tim Hortons: How A Brand Became Part of Our National Identity (Globe & Mail, 2014) 
~  11 Very Canadian Facts About Tim Hortons (Mental Floss) 

~ Restaurant Brands International (RBI) was formed in 2014 when Burger King merged with the coffee chain. RBI is majority-owned by the Brazilian investment company 3G Capital. Company blurb: "Restaurant Brands International Inc. ("RBI") is one of the world's largest quick service restaurant companies with more than $30 billion in system-wide sales and over 25,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries and U.S. territories. RBI owns three of the world's most prominent and iconic quick service restaurant brands – TIM HORTONS®, BURGER KING®, and POPEYES®. These independently operated brands have been serving their respective guests, franchisees and communities for over 45 years." 
 
PRO "Vancouver's Drive-Throughs Leave Car Captives Wanting More" (Georgia Straight) "You see all sorts of people of all walks of life gravitate to it. It serves as a community center almost. It’s the antithesis to fancy latte culture, a place where anyone can feel comfortable."

CON "Study Says Restricting Fast Food Drive-Thrus Has Benefits" (Toronto Star) "The study identified 27 Canadian municipalities that implemented full (city-wide) or partial bans on drive-thru windows between 2002 and 2016 for reasons ranging from cutting down noise and traffic, to limiting litter and pollution, to protecting the local economy ... much of the research on the topic identifies obesity and chronic disease as major reasons to adopt a drive-thru ban." 

* Drive-Thrus: Options range from banning new outlets to tightening zoning bylaws to restricting hours of operation (Canadian Press, 2007) 

* Natural Resources Canada ~ Idle-Free Zone 

* Capital Regional District Idling Bylaw 

(my Zero Waste Sooke photo, summer 2015) 

Tomorrow night, Freedom Mobile is back seeking a Sooke council "concurrence" for a 45-metre cell phone tower (aka "wireless mobile base station") disguised within the branches of a pine tree on a parcel of private, rural-residential land just east and north of the corner of Glinz Lake Road and Sooke Rd. I'm writing this blog item as preparation and so I'll have a reference for future recurrences of this matter as mobile networks follow population growth and expand in viral fashion. 

If approved by Ottawa, this would be the approx. 48th cell phone transmission link in the region's cellular network. Any installation of gear below 15 meters is not subject to public process, so we don't hear often about the growing complexity of the mobile network locally ... and nationwide.  

And when citizens do learn about it, they tend to be concerned (as was the case in June, 2012 when Alcatel-Lucent Canada, now merged into Nokia Networks, attempted to plant a 40-meter wireless communications mono tower directly behind the Lazy Gecko in the town centre . I have a supplementary council agenda here dated June 25, 2012 packed with letters of complaint and a petition signed by 613 locals. No, it didn't go ahead, in part on the grounds of Sooke's commitment to town-centre beautification. At about that same time, incidentally, Telus secured a building permit from the CRD for a much less obtrusive 49-meter tower in Otter Point's Sooke Business Park that extended cell phone and wireless coverage west to Kemp Lake Road.)

In the case of tomorrow's agenda, this will be the second attempt by Freedom, Shaw Communication's mobile service provider, to patch up the local network along the rocky portion of Sooke Road in the vicinity of 17 Mile House. They're doing so for their own competitive edge but, as I understand it, Rogers and Telus customers would benefit as well given that Ottawa insists that all service providers play ball together and can tap into each other's infrastructure.

No question this stretch of #14 is known for its service interruptions. Carolyn and I tested our Virgin Mobile phones yesterday afternoon, and we experienced drop-outs near Connie Road. The connection was cut for a matter of seconds and quickly re-established a few hundred meters down the road. Otherwise reception was fine from Sooke to Langford. (Others will have had different, quite likely much more frustrating experiences than us given that we don't commute and are infrequent cell phone users.) 

In July 2017, council honoured the wishes of part of the Glinz Lake neighbourhood by voting 4 vs 3 to send a "non-concurrence" recommendation to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED, formerly Industry Canada) regarding the Freedom Mobile application.

ISED staff has the final say in all decisions yet they are also mandated to listen closely to citizen input and local government recommendations. When no community approval is forthcoming, the applicant is encouraged to try, try again, and so Freedom is back for an encore bid. (The company was inspired, in part, by another 4 vs 3 vote, this time for concurrence, re: a Sept. 17, 2017 application for a tower in the Otter Point Rd and Laronde area, where only a few residents raised objections. Last September, Freedom also won council thumb's up for a tower on the Butler Bros. industrial lands behind EMCS; that same night council also approved a Rogers tower at Otter Point & Wadams Way to boost town-centre coverage).  
 
The Glinz Lake 'no' vote two summers ago respected area neighbours who voiced concerns. This same posse is back with a new 25-signature petition representing, it states, "every property surrounding the proposed tower site except for two properties (from) which the occupants are on holidays." Writes one resident: "In short, (the tower) is not wanted here ... I find it very hard to believe that this is the only suitable location for your communication facility." (Edit: As Neil Poirier notes below, not everyone in this area is opposed to the tower.) 

As in examples from numerous communities in Canada, the fears are at least threefold:

i) Health concerns about electromagnetic radiation
ii) The tower's impact on real-estate values.
iii) The aesthetics of a steel monolith (aka eyesore)  

The regulators do take seriously the public's concerns about the latter two points ~ house equity and landscape aesthetics. Hence Freedom is returning with the proposal for a "monopine" tower, one disguised as I said at the outset to look like a pine tree so as to blend into the surrounding forest. (This in contrast to the narrow smoke stack Telus tower that rises above the drive-thru lane in the Village Foods plaza ~ a utilitarian model in an era when disguising cell towers has become an industrial artform ... as per the examples here, which will either be cool or kitchy depending on your perspective).

Real-estate values? This US article states that potential buyers are more wary of homes near towers and that list prices will suffer. Ottawa's Report on the National Antenna Policy Review (modified Aug. 2012) discussed real-estate impacts. <clip> "In 2001, the assessed values of sixteen residential properties located in Colwood, British Columbia were reduced by BC Assessment by an average of 7.2% (approx. $9,500 each) due to the aesthetic impacts of a broadcasting antenna tower installation that had been recently upgraded." 

Health Canada does not regard radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) as a threat to human health. Like the American Cancer Foundation, it figures that the "risk perception" by the public is far worse than the dangers.  Other nations adhere more closely than Canada does to the "precautionary principle," which dictates that we humans need to go slow with new technologies given potentially unpredictable, long-term outcomes. 

Links 
Government of Canada
~ Facts About Cell Phone Towers 
~ Licensing procedures ~ Radiocommunication and Broadcasting Antenna Systems 
~ Guide to Assist Land-Use Authorities in Developing Antenna System Siting Protocols 

Health Issues
~ Canadian Cancer Society: "Current evidence doesn't show any short-term or long-term health effects from the signals produced by cellphone towers. Ongoing research is still looking at the relationship between cancer and radio frequency exposure from all sources."  

~ WorkSafe BC 101 on non-ionizing radiation 
~ World Health Organization 
~ Safety of Cell Phones & Cell Phone Towers (Health Canada) 
~ Generation Zapped (screened at Sooke's Awareness Film Night two Decembers ago).
~ Physicians for Safe Technology 
~ C4ST (Canadians For Safe Technology)
~ PDF file of case studies from Electromagnetic Health.org 
~ CBC Marketplace episode (March 2017( ~ "The Secret Inside Your Phone: Cellphone Safety" (detailing health risks to those who use hand-held phones) + related consumer survey 

~ Best Cell Phone Coverage in British Columbia (Nov. 2018) 
<clip> "Populated areas of Vancouver Island have good coverage by Bell, Telus and Rogers. Signal is strong from the Greater Victoria Region travelling along the Trans-Canada to Nanaimo, and continuing north through to Campbell River. Coverage goes inland towards Port Alberni, but aside from that the interior coverage on the island is largely absent by Bell and Telus. Rogers has inconsistent spots of service, but service does exist. On the west coast of the island, signal drops about 30 km west of Victoria along Highway 14, but there's coverage for a stretch along the ports around Tofino and Ucluelet. To the north, Rogers has a slightly larger coverage area around Port Hardy and Port McNeill. Bell and Telus both have better coverage on the mainland side of the straight, especially in Port Neville where Rogers has no service." 

Another long council meeting on Monday evening. We filed out into the frosty night at approx. 11:30. A half-hour earlier I'd publicly confessed to creeping brain fog and lessened ability to engage in a complicated discussion (which at that point related to how we should be proceeding on the matter of council remuneration; as the Economic Development Group's Doug Wittich noted in a fulsome report the EDG prepared independently and submitted earlier in the evening, council and Mayor pay is pretty lousy by any municipal standard ~ for council, approx. $9.77 per hour for a 20-hour week = $10,100 and something per year. Councillor Parkinson would like us to strike a committee or task force to ensure hands-free transparency; Councillor Logins says we should get on with it, use the materials we have -- namely, the EDG's study and a compensation review of Van Isle and Lower Mainland council salaries conducted in Nov. 2017 by the District of Central Saanich -- and make some prompt decisions (as SD #62's board does, for instance, re: its own compensation). I believe we tabled the matter for the next meeting. Fact: I'm not going to get rich any which way from public service, but no question we need to up the pay scale so as to, in future, attract talented individuals of all ages and working circumstances who might, for instance, be more resilient  and less prone to meeting fatigue than me. The least we can do is reinstitute the automatic annual adjustment tied to the Consumer Price Index that was in effect in the last of Mayor Evans' terms and has been frozen since the start of Mayor Milne's term seven years ago).

There is much about the evening that I could address here, of course, but time is tight as I have my first meeting with the Victoria Family Court & Youth Justice Committee to prepare for later today. Instead I'm cutting-and-pasting the comments and the printed-out portion of the research notes I prepared for the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of non-conforming businesses in the Gateway Residential area. I spent hours replaying and transcribing the three-hour Oct. 1 public hearing that led to the OCP amendment and a subsequent set of related decisions. As it turned out, we again voted 5 to 2 in favour of moving forward as we gave third reading to the zoning amendment that will allow said businesses to apply for Temporary Use Permits.

I was intending to read some of the wise comments from Oct. 1 back into the record along with my own pre-prepared thoughts. In the heat of the moment, however, I opted to wing it and rambled rather ineffectively, I feel in hindsight.  Rather than just let these notes go fallow, here they are in full for whoever might be interested. As Derek Lewers pointed out, municipal insurance will cover any potential court costs, so my fears about the loss of big bucks are not entirely warranted. (Though as municipal expert Tracey Lorensen said during the CRD councillor orientation sessions, "the law is a crude way to resolve issues.") And if you're familiar with the myth about the 'sword of Damocles,' you'll realize it wasn't apt in the context I use here or when I referenced it on Monday night. The point I intended to make: Dropping the axe on a particular non-conforming business is unfair given all the inconsistencies and imponderables at play, especially when a process has been identified by the District's lawyers and professional staff that will ideally lead to an as fair-as-it-can-be resolution. 

​
COMMENTS/NOTES for PUBLIC HEARING,  Jan. 14, 2019
 
TOP CONCERN -- Good governance + keep the District out of court on this matter ... to do that we are seeking the fairest, best possible solution ~ one that accepts that we as a District have had, and continue to experience, what the Mayor has described as growing pains ... ones much like those experienced by every community no matter how small or big. Now we're dancing as fast, intelligently and fairly as we can in trying to broker a solution. That's commendable and the right thing to do given the history and complexities. 
 
Yes, Sooke's non-conforming businesses ~ however few or many there are, and no matter where they're located in the District ~ should have been read the riot act long ago .... cease-and-desist notices should have been both issued and enforced. They would have been and will in future if Sooke switches away from a complaint-driven system and allows its bylaw officers to act as required when they spot offences ~ as Councillor Reay said at the Oct. 1st hearing: "I think it is time that the District move into a new phase of being proactive in ensuring there is compliance with zoning rather than reactive. Waiting on complaints will the bane of future councils. This will not stop."
 
The fact is our bylaws haven't been enforced evenly ... or entirely ... or even (who knows) partially.  ... and that perhaps reflects the attitude of the people who lobbied hard for incorporation back in 1999 .... the 1400 or so who voted in favour of our exit from the CRD ... those with a libertarian, don't tread-on-us attitude towards government oversight ~ who were quite happy to be operating in gray zones and wanted to carry on doing so.
 
I spent a fair bit of time transcribing the videotape from the Oct. 1 public hearing ... more than three dozen people spoke that night, for and against and straddling the middle ground. It's pretty amazing document of a community that is split in a number of ways ... and it led to a tight 4 vs. 3 vote that has brought us to tonight. 
 
Here's a telling quote from Councillor Kevin Pearson: "We're a rural community that has transitioned into an urban community. That transition brings with it a lot of historic wrongs. Deals were made -- wink/nod/go ahead and do these things -- and it continued on through our history. It's time we need to start growing up, applying the rules and regulations, and acknowledging what our history has been."
 
Wielding the sword of Damocles at this point may seem just and right in 2019 ~ and the Lewers family, other business owners who've played by the rules and various speakers on Oct. 1 have certainly given us a long list of reasons, rationales and valid arguments to do so ~ yet there are also the matters raised by Ms. Faulkner, Mr. Drivers and those who supported his business at the previous public hearing ... Laurel Faulker-Killham: "This is the case of a landowner who has been doing something for a very long time with what appears to the approval, blessing, knowledge of the local government." 
 
Following the letter of the law and enforcing it in 2019 after letting things slide for nearly two decades is not the answer here, and this is in the opinion of the District's professional staff, its lawyers, the Mayor, the three other councillors who voted for this current process on Oct. 1 and the five of us who have been voting to continue down this road in recent months. 
 
Whatever happens, as Councillor Kasper said back on Oct. 1, we're likely not going to walk away without paying a fortune in legal bills. We have better things to spend our limited public monies on ... as we'll hear tonight, there's the matter of a new $800k fire truck + $150k for washrooms and water fountains at John Phillips and Whiffin Spit + of course, a huge want list of sidewalks, street lights, an east-west connector road, sewer system improvement and expansion + all the other wishes identified in strategic plans and our latest Five Year Plan.  
 
I believe that the recommendations from District staff and the District's lawyers is that best way forward. 
 
2010 OCP (pg. 76) section 5.2 Gateway Residential 
 
Under Policies ... item g) "Permit, by temporary use permit, the continuation of historic non-conforming, non-residential uses that are outside the scope of home-based business regulations." 
 
Under Action Items item 5.2.4, item d) "Review the need for a highway commercial-type land use designation in the area adjacent to Highway 14 to accommodate historic non-residential land usesand appropriate new non-residential uses." 
 
That latter action item hasn't happened yet but it will during the OCP review this year ... 
 
We, the people, get to determine what "commercial highway-type" zoning might look like in Saseenos, by which I mean specifically from Cooper's Cove to Ayum Creek. 
 
C1 - Neighbourhood Commercial-- artisan industries, micro-breweries, bakery, restaurant. 
 
C2 - General Commercial-- which includes auto service, amusement facility, bank, funeral home, hotel/motel
 
C3 - Service Commercial-- body & paint shops, machine shops, vehicle repair ... 
 
Or some fresh Gateway-specific, Cooper's Cove to Ayum Creek-only zoning that will arise from the process? That's for the open houses and focus groups to determine in the months ahead. 
 
 I'd like to take us forward 18 months or so into the future ... 
 
1. Non-conforming businesses ~ at least one of them, at any rate ~ have continued operating in the interim with Temporary Use Permits whose strict-parent conditions re: noise, operating hours, etc. etc.  are enforced and regulated. 
 
2. OCP review has taken place and our vision for the community as a whole and its neighbourhood parts has been refreshed. 
 
3. Vision for Saseenos and its commercial node has been analyzed and extended into the future
 
4. One idea I'm fond of ~ If and when Sooke Road is straightened as per one of the suggestions in the Ministry of Transportation's Hwy #14 report last year and the constant thrum of traffic has been diverted, and even if not  ... involves the Coopers Cove to Ayum Creek zone evolving into a prime south island daytrip location-- 40 minutes from the Inner Harbour, a nice downhill glide from the Galloping Goose.  
 
Cooperative marketing efforts by Saseenos businesses, which I understand did take place once upon a not-that-distant time ago, are drawing visitors to a whole range of activities: Kayaking tours departing from Cooper's Cove ... outdoor adventure education workshops ... an overnight stay at one of the local oceanfront lodges or a revitalized Sunny Shores ... time well spent in a brewery tasting room ... shopping at a farmgate with a petting zoo and tea garden ... a walk along Ayum Creek out to Goodrich Penninsula, which one day could be home to who knows what -- perhaps, as some have suggested, the headquarters for some kind of outdoor adventure operation -- perhaps a national headquarters for Surf Canada with an artificial wave machine as one local wise guy has suggested ... or, as former fire chief Steve Sorenson has dreamed, a Great Wolf Lodge family waterpark. One of the latter is planned for someplace on the west coast -- Powell River and Surrey were potential locations, but both have fallen through. Why not Sooke?   
 
 Daytrippers might also have the opportunity to visit a hot-rod museum and check out vintage cars in a one-of-a-kind used car lot dedicated to vehicles that pre-date the Beatles. We are a town that's proud of its vintage cars, and this along with the car show on the Flats each summer fits our history and identity.

Possibly, perhaps quite likely, C3 welding activities would not pass muster during the OCP review and the new commercial highway zoning would exclude it. If that's the case, then this one particular non-conforming business will need to relocate to other industrial lands in the Sooke/Langford region. 
 
Keeping the process alive as we move forward with the OCP review will allow businesses to continue to operate and, most significantly, will keep us out of court.  Rick Kasper on Oct. 1: " I do not want to see this community go through a long protracted court case that could cost thousands and thousands of dollars. It's not an issue I would want any council to wrestle with. The legal steps that would have to be taken to stop this operation are lengthy, time-consuming and expensive. Is that in the public interest in the long run? I don't think so." 
 
The way forward ... 

1. Non-conforming businesses apply for TUP

2.District to receive TUP applications. First & second readings + public hearing.
 
3. Strict, enforceable conditions re: operating hours, riparian measures, noise abatement, buffer zone, lighting of the site, etc. 

4. TUP for a one-year period (?) that can be pulled if non-compliant. 
 
5. Full proviso that the OCP review is going ahead and that the TUP may well NOT be renewed should the community determine that a particular use is not wanted in this area. 
 

****************************************************************************
 
Random notes ... 
 
TUP for a three-year term with option of a one-year renewal ... clarify ?? (one year?) 

Ivy Campbell ~ if this amendment is approved and a TUP will come soon thereafter after a minor zoning amendment, there is still a chance through the OCP amendment that this is not the appropriate place for heavier commercial or industrial, then it would have to be reassessed. ​
 
Taxes: Classification is determined by BC Assessment. 
Assessed at $621k as of July 1, 2018
Shell across the street (5529 Sooke Rd. ~ $958k)
Lewers (5526 Sooke Rd. ~ $382,300 ... farmland) 
 
Driver now assessed at a split rate -- 50 percent commercial, 50 percent residential. 
 
2014 forward has been paid at this split rate. 
All years previous have been paid at agricultural rate. 
 
Brent Blackhall: "BC Assessment uses a highest and best use of the land. 
They've determined that this is a commercial vs. an industrial use. 
They may not be aware of this current TUP if it were to be granted. 
They do desk audits all the time. 
They are aware of the hot button properties around here.
 
If it didn't have commercial classification, we'd be concerned about that. 
It is up to BC Assessment. Change the proportion of it. Or consider it to be industrial." 
 
Laurel Faulker-Killham: "In my review so far of information, the evidence discloses that from the start that these uses were considered to be within what is permitted, and over time there has been a thinking shift.   In cases where there is ambiguity ... courts will generally protect the land owner. 
 
Kasper: 10-year span between 2007 and 2017 ... No record of any activities or action taken by the DOS against this property.  
 
Kilham: Driver interfaced with the District, inquired at various times, and had the status of his 'lawful non-conforming' status confirmed, and continued to do business with the District
 
Lewers: pollution, odor, noise, light, traffic, viewscapes, parking or loading.  Empathy.  What a nightmare. 
 
CRD Zoning Bylaw #2040 was applicable when Mr. Driver took over
lot size = .86 hectare (less than one) THEREFORE the CRD Home Business definitions did not apply (must be one hectare or more) to this property 
 
Oct. 1 comments from Langford's Mike Wignell: "Mr. Driver has started a business and has now grown beyond its original location. We have had situations like this in Langford ... and when they get successful, they have to move.
Set up a process where Mr. Driver can continue to operate where he is, but on a defined time frame ... longer-term he will be moving to a new location. A consultative process, as long as Mr. Driver recognizes that long term it won't work there ... get what guarantees you need and support him/encourage him to move to a better location in Sooke that is more industrialized." 
 
Maja Tait: "Part of the growth -- it's painful. We are a young municipality and we're hitting pain along the way.  How do we grow and evolve? We are not the only community faced with this -- everyone struggles with this at one point in time.  It is not a problem unique to Sooke. We are looking for fairness right across the board."I would support a text amendment to the OCP for a Temporary Use Permit. It is fair to a business that needs to have a transition period.  The terms and conditions of that transition period must be clearly stated." 
 
Bev Berger: "As stated by our head planner and respecting the legal advice staff have received, I support the staff recommendation to afford all the residents in the OCP as designated as Gateway Residential the opportunity to apply for a permit."
 
Rick Kasper: "I want to see this community move on and ensure that the activities that do occur are on a temporary basis until future deliberations occur regarding the community plan ... stringent conditions attached to whatever those uses shall be.
 
Tait:"The OCP does need to be re-done. We see where it falls out of sync with a dynamic, growing community like Sooke and it provides that opportunity for the community to weigh in and see how these uses find their home in our community"

​

[Updated (12/18/2018) ~ My tally of housing starts and upcoming projects now includes the newly resold Notts Brook property off Otter Point Road on the western third of our old 18-hole golf course (whose covenant was controversially deep-sixed in the mid-'00s to facilitate, I suggest with a positive reframe, exactly this ~ 127 homes on 20 acres, as the original plan stated, not far north of our currently designated Town Centre and within easy walking distance of services, shops and, the best legacy of that egregious covenant shred, John Phillips Memorial Park) + the two new BC Housing projects that will bring 244 genuinely affordable rental apartments to Sooke, i.e., 49 shelter-rate rooms (ranging from $375 to $660/month) for those on income assistance along with 195 nice-priced options for renters variously priced at $875 per month (1 bed), $1,100 (2 bed) and $1,300 (3 bed).

Also newly added is the first of what will surely be an ongoing series of "surprise" projects ~ i.e., the 16 or so home sites likely destined for 2445 Otter Point Rd., a little northeast of Helgeson Rd. Currently a sleepy forested property with two homes hidden in the woods, it suddenly popped up on the radar last month when McElhanney Consulting -- acting on behalf of Valley Remediation Ltd. (which I assume is an ironic name if in reference to the adjoining green jewel of a valley that holds the Helgeson farmbelt and needs wise stewardship, not remediation) -- filed an upzoning request for 27 single-family homes (with potential 3600-sq. foot building envelopes) squeezed into its 2.07 hectares.

We stood our ground as council and insisted the developer stick with the current zoning. In the process, we began asking questions about Sooke's lack of a Community Amenity Contribution Policy (the 2010 version was repealed on May 23, 2017 with a recommendation by council that staff utilize the BC Ministry of Municipal Affairs & Housing's best practices guidelines for amenities and density bonusing in determining fair payments). Basically, the sense (rightly or wrongly) is that we're  being shortchanged by developers compared to, say, the City of Langford, in terms of contributions to  our town's current and future infrastructure needs. As councillor St-Pierre has noted, we want to creatively partner with investors in ensuring win-wins all around. And 'win' in my mind means congruence with the spirit and letter of the Official Community Plan. (Reference: DOS Development Cost Charge Imposition Bylaw #202, Rev. Nov, 2012). 

As I asked in this article originally, how many more of these potential new developments are ready to be birthed? In its first decade, the District upzoned untold numbers of parcels for future development. How many? We won't know until the Transportation Masterplan is underway next year. The conclusion for now: #SookeSmartGrowth is anything but until we get the numbers and anticipate as best we can the x, y and z of future growth.] 

As you'll see in the list I've created below, there are more than 1,000 (revised: 1593+) new single-family, townhouse and low-rise apartment homes in the works for Sooke at the moment. There are also an unknown number of properties in town that have been zoned for development by the District of Sooke since incorporation in 1999 but which, for any number of potential reasons, have yet to file development permits and seek final approval to break ground.

Prior to the 2014 election, I was led to believe that as many as 4,000 "doors" had been pre-approved for construction. I was curious to know how far that total has shrunk during the building boom of the last four years in tandem with how many new approvals had been added to the tally since then. 

Candidates for municipal office can request information from the District during the campaign period. If available, it's shared with all candidates. (I asked for a meeting with Fire Chief Kenn Mount last month, and his notes from that hour-long chat were made available to us all; you'll find it along with my thoughts about our first-rate emergency response services here). 

My latest request (for which I developed the summation of current activity below) was denied on the understandable grounds that i) it would burn up too much limited staff time; and ii) the numbers will be compiled for baseline use in the creation of next year's update of the Transportation Masterplan (recently awarded to the BC consulting firm Urban Systems along with affiliated work on our next Parks & Trails Masterplan.)  

I asked because It strikes me that we need to be aware of how much potential growth is incoming (and where) before we can effectively consider further new development applications.  Each "door" is liable to house one or two adults plus x number of children and an additional cohort of renters occupying any potential secondary suites. And each of these doors represents a likely minimum of one, or perhaps two or even three vehicles that will add volume to an already busy Hwy #14 and our secondary road network. 

Good to know, however, that staff recognize that we already must factor in more than 2,500 more residents once these homes are built-out, taking our current 13,001 residents (2016 census; link to Sooke page) to a number approaching 15,600 and beyond as we reach official city status.

I trust our next council is equally aware of what's coming before it approves additional upzoning in response to development and market pressure while also honouring the spirit and letter of our Official Community Plan. 

Town Centre
*  133 Aragon Properties homes and townhouses at the northwest corner of Wadams Way & Church
*  42 Knox Vision Society affordable rental units at southwest corner of Wadams Way & Church 
*  31 apartment units at West Wind Harbour Cohousing on the waterfront west of Mariner’s Village
*  16 single-family lots 6829 Grant Road/Stone Hearth Lane (R3 zone)
*  34 units total of duplex, cluster dwellings or town homes at 6829 Grant Rd/Stone Hearth Lane (RM2 zone)
*  36 units/three stories stories of seniors’ cohousing rentals above the multi-use community centre on Lot A
* 10 townhouses on Ayre Road 
* 123 (potential) single family and duplexes at Notts Brook (Otter Point Rd. across from Speedsource Fitness)
(425) 

Otter Point Rd. North
* 41 single-family homes in phase 1 of West Ridge Trails (Burr Road at eastern edge of Broom Hill) 
* 72 single-family homes in phase 2 of West Ridge Trails
* ? at Farrell Estates (40 hectares of small, medium & large-lot residences in the Blanchard/Sellars Rd. area) 
* 16 single-family homes maximum at 2445 Otter Point Rd. (east side just past Helgeson Rd. ~ potential; upzoning request for 27 homes rejected by council on Dec. 10)   
(129+) 

Sooke ~ East of Otter Point Rd. 
* 22 townhouse units at Grasslands (2119 Charters Rd.) 
* 75 (15 units at shelter rate, 24 affordable units and 36 near-market units) at Throup Road
* 169 (34 units at shelter rate, 52 affordable units and 83 near-market units) at northwest corner of Drennan/Sooke Rd. 
* 60 more single-family homes to build-out at Woodlands Creek
* 50+ more “patio-style homes” to build-out at RiversEdge Village/Sunriver
* ? more single-family homes to build-out of Sunriver (its website references “a community of 715 homes”)  
(376+)

Sooke ~ West of Otter Point Rd. 
* 24 (?) town homes between Brailsford and Melrick Place
* 137 single-family homes planned for the remaining phases of Viewpointe Estates
* 34 single-family homes in phase three of Stone Ridge Estates
* 22 single-family homes in phase four of Stone Ridge Estate
* 27 condos at The Residences on Sooke Harbour, 1820 Maple Ave. South 
* 10 single-family homes in phase seven of Heron View
* 14-lot potential at 7057 West Coast Road 
* ? single-family homes to build-out in future phases of Erinan Estates
* ? rezoning on southside of Grant Rd. west of Maple 
* 11.5 cluster homes at 1923 Maple Rd. (potential; 2 homes approved on Nov. 26) 
* 6 single-family homes on southside of 6000-block West Coast Road across from Sooke Harbour Resort
(661+) 

Sasseenos 
* Five strata homes at 5651 Woodlands Rd. (upzoned on Nov. 26 from previously permitted one home) 

Sooke Pointe 
* 127 building sites 

TOTAL: 1593 + unknown number of potential homes in existing zoning

PS Land Use Best Practices: The Union of BC Municipalities' Local Government in BC textbook identifies "the three objectives of land use regulation -- greater certainty about the future, avoiding negative external effects, and assuring adequate infrastructure for new developments -- have corresponding regulatory activities: planning, zoning and subdivision control." (pg. 156; PDF copy available). 

We've got all that's required in terms of well-crafted planning, zoning and subdivision bylaws. Application is the issue. To me "greater certainty" means that a homeowner can sleep easy at night knowing that an adjoining property or one down the road won't be upzoned and that the version of the 'good life' they bought into originally won't be radically changed. Sooke Zoning Bylaw No. 600 (revised: 2013) should effectively be written in stone save for occasional common-sense revisions. But it has been amended no less than 61 times over the last five years ~ often for good reasons, I'm sure, but certainly not always in ways that are consistent with these UBCM guidelines. 

More from the UBCM textbook: "The underlying assumption is that, unless adjacent land uses are controlled, undesirable external effects will abound." And this is why the Community Charter insists that rezonings undergo public hearings at which neighbours get to document these potential undesirable impacts. We need to listen to them closely and, certainly, not shame anyone with a NIMBY label.  

It's also important to recognize what we've approved and where it might fit on BC Housing's continuum of housing types. Developers in Sooke have seemingly been focused on market demands for single family detached dwellings, of which there were 2,290 in the District according to the 2016 census. (FYI, we also have 350 units in five low-rise apartment buildings; 335 semi-detached homes; 245 row homes; 340 flats or apartments in duplexes; and 170 movable dwellings, i.e., mobile homes, houseboats, RVs.)

* As Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute pointed out in the Victoria Times Colonist this summer, there's a growing need for the "missing middle" in housing options for those who can't afford big ticket homes. Affordable, smaller-footprint homes and rentals are in demand.

* Sooke is home to a number of first-rate mobile-home parks, including Lannon Creek (Blythwood in Saseenos), Rustic Acres (off Grant and Henlyn Rds.) and Woodside Estates (adjacent to Woodside Farm on the West Coast Road). All provide affordable alternatives to traditional single-family homes in attractive settings. More please!  

* Housing is dealt with in section 4.7 of the 2010 Official Community Plan (pp. 45-48). Its goals: 

         ~ Provide a variety of housing options and densities for diverse populations; 
         ~ Create a population that supports a range of businesses and cultural activities in the Town Centre; 
         ~ Ensure residential development reflects the small-town character of Sooke;
         ~ Develop housing that has a minimal environmental footprint. 

* Councillor Ebony Logins' Affordable Housing Committee is off to a strong start these last four months. District of Sooke staff produced a white paper for its first meeting in July. It included complete copies of the CRD Regional Housing Affordability Strategy (2018) and the District of Sooke Housing & Social Housing Policy (Policy #13.2, adopted Oct. 9, 2007, not available online). The latter, by the way, anticipated much slower population growth in Sooke than we're now experiencing. It projected a 2026 population of 14,730 (based on 11 percent growth between 2001 and 2006).  

* Transition Sooke's Ecohome Tours have demonstrated the range of possibilities for alternative, natural (cob, straw bale, rammed earth) and micro housing. One tour highlight the last two years has been the Harmless Home, an East Sooke aerie built by local company Ridgeco Developments with revolutionary, lego-like blocks made of a durable, highly energy efficient (R-40) blend of hemp fibre and lime.  Also involved with the project is Nanaimo's Jack Anderson, who is currently overseeing construction of an innovative "cluster home" development on the site of the former Quamichan Inn near Duncan that will use these same JustBiofibre blocks. Might this Calgary-based company be wooed to Sooke to start-up a Vancouver Island division? We'll need to develop light industrial land before we make the pitch, of course. 

* Advocacy groups like the Tiny Home Alliance of Canada and the Tiny House Advocates of Vancouver Island are championing true alternatives for 21st-century micro lifestyles.

* Sooke PocketNews "Affordable Housing" archive 

* Link to Canada's National Housing Strategy 

The council meeting of Monday, Nov. 26, our third including the ceremonial inaugural, was the true into-the-fire initiation for the new crew ~ a challenging, engaging, mildly contentious and, above all, suitably educational and enlightening marathon for the newcomers and a longer-than-usual epic for the three incumbents.

We began in-camera at 6 pm for an hour.  I now realize why such meetings must be private given how they involve sensitive, process-oriented, suitably redactable matters concerning staffing, land and legal. In confirming what I've grown to understand in recent months, there was no advance discussion about the night's agenda. The Local Government Act dictates that we must conduct business entirely in public when four or more of us, i.e., a quorum, have gathered. Council agendas are assembled by the Corporate Services team without our input and are based largely on the current flow of municipal business. (I have little idea about what's ahead of us this coming Monday night, for instance, until the agenda is published later this afternoon.)  
 
The council meeting proper began as usual on the dot of 7. We adjourned four and 3/4 hours later. Not sure about the record length of a Sooke council meeting to date, but we may have been flirting with it. (A couple had gone past 11 pm during the previous council's term, I recall.)  For me at least, the time flew and I held up well enough minus any caffeine nor stretch breaks (the latter wouldn't be a bad idea;  I might follow Councillor Logins' lead by getting up and stretching as required). I confess I lost the plot a bit during the hour-long conversation about the sale and cultivation of cannabis locally, but that's not unusual for me when meetings slip past the three hour mark (or when binging on a compelling mini-series for that matter; as I've experienced in some other contexts, it might be wise to put strict time limits on open-ended discussion items in the interest of our staying somewhat sharp.) 
 
Overall, I reckon from my seat on the far right of the council table, we functioned well under the quality leadership (yes, I'm all the more a fan) of Mayor Tait. We passed most items unanimously while also revealing we have some diverse views and opinions via a pair of 4 vs 3 votes and some useful dissent about a proposed tree bylaw that generated healthy debate.  Contrary to the write-ups,  the "honeymoon" is assuredly not over for the new council (we seem to genuinely get along, like and respect one another). Neither in the least were/are we "bedevilled" by the prospect of the Lot A charrette as another reporter suggested. (As a number of council veterans I've spoken to have advised, I must relax, enjoy the unpredictable ride and not sweat the small stuff if I'm to survive these next four years.) 

It was a good night: We got some business done, heard from a range of constituents, questioned staff intelligently enough, absorbed a fair bit of information and emerged on the far side with smiles and good grace intact. No molotov cocktails have landed on my and Carolyn's doorstep just yet, so I take that as a good early sign, haha. 

The reliable Ms. Santowski did a smashing job with her summary as ever (even with the clickbait fin-de-honeymoon headline, bless her), however here's my take on the night ... 
 
* CAO Search Begins: The headline news was delivered late in the proceedings when Mayor Tait offered a "rise and report" (i.e., she publicly announced a matter that had been finalized in-camera) about the fact we've selected a recruitment firm (Waterhouse Executive Search of Vancouver) to begin seeking the District's (and council's only) next hire ~ Sooke's next Chief Administrative Officer. Further details on the process TBA. 

* 1923 Maple Road rezoning/public hearing: No major hesitation from any of us in approving a pair of micro-lots (250 sq. meters each for a pair of 1200 sq. foot homes that will sell in the $300-400k range) at the street-front edge of an acre lot. The property, about 100 meters north of Buffy's, was already zoned Medium Density Multi-Family for 10 homes; it's part of a west-end residential area that shapes up as a future commercial node with its existing clusters of row homes and the eventual arrival of The Residences at Sooke Harbour at the Government Wharf.

A number of us were curious about how residental parking would be handled ~ just one car is allowed per home in a shared driveway, and yet this is the era of the two-income/two-car household. Good news is that a West Coast Rd. bus stop is not far away and one or more residents in these homes may be tempted to mode shift given the inconvenience of parking a second car elsewhere. There's certainly no room to park on Maple Road itself. 

I took the opportunity to pay due respect to developer John Brohman, who I first heard about obliquely not long after arriving here in a passing reference to 'Brohmanville'. I've since seen him routinely appear in council chambers regarding land development matters and it was interesting to learn that he's also a landlord who built Sooke's first apartment block back in the day.  

And I couldn't resist mentioning the fact that when Maple Road South was repaved in 2012 and transformed from a sleepy secondary road into a fast track, no consideration was given to also creating matching sidewalks or installing a rolling speed hump or three. A strange way to encourage a walkable community, either for local residents or anyone using the unofficial street/off-road network that links through Millennium Park. 

 * Woodlands Road rezoning/public hearing: Held at the night's outset, the public hearing ended with a 4 vs 3 vote that spelled doom for my first windmill tilt at "pressing pause" (as promised) on new residential upzoning outside the town centre until we get our masterplans and infrastructure needs sorted. Councillors Logins and St-Pierre also disagreed for their own excellent reasons, I think. You'll find a snapshot of their thoughts and those of all participants in this Sooke PocketNews summary here. My perspective in brief: 

In permitting the switch from RU4 (Rural Residential) to RU5 (Neighbourhood Rural Residential), council has greenlighted five new strata homes on a five-acre parcel of raw land where just one dwelling was permitted previously. The subject property is in the v-shaped wedge bordered by Harbourview and Woodlands. This area is largely rural with large lots (mainly one or two acres, with larger ones of five and 12 acres respectively). There are several new-builds at the roadside frontage of panhandle lots. Other tracts of forested bare land still exist, and there are agricultural properties nearby (Laughing Duck Farm, for one). Not a single five-home compound among them, however. 
 
Drainage issues, increased traffic, the loss of neighbourhood character, and (worst) the fact that area landowners will be tempted to seek their own subdivisions with this precedent were cited by area residents, either in person or through written submissions. 
 
Councillors who voted in favour cited the staff report's mention of an OCP passage that allows "low density infill" in the Gateway Residential area. The applicant had crafted his ask so that he'd meet the 2500 sq. meter minimum lot size (while still finding room for five homes likely to be valued at $500k-plus each on a property whose 2018 assessed value was $430k). This portion of Sassennos is evidentally also in the "Community Growth Area" (the parameters of which I'm still unclear about ~ questions to DOS staff pending.) 
 
When it was my turn to speak, I acknowledged I was a greenhorn on land use issues, then cited a passage from the Union of BC Municipalities' Local Government in BC textbook outlining (and I quote) "the three objectives of land use regulation -- greater certainty about the future, avoiding negative external effects, and assuring adequate infrastructure for new developments." (pg. 156; PDF copy available) 
 
I noted that the dissenting neighbours had done a good job in listing the "negative external effects" of this rezoning. As for the word "certainty," I pondered (rightly, wrongly, perhaps naively) that it might mean that best municipal land-use practices would honour, not rewrite, established zoning bylaws. (I noted that Sooke's zoning Bylaw 600 has been amended 46 times since its passage in 2013 for reasons both good and logical, I'm sure, yet also to maximize profits in some cases.)  "Certainty" would ideally mean that I, if I was a homeowner in the area, would have the confidence that local zoning would remain intact. Not so in this case, however. 

* Cains Park Staircase: I was puzzled about this $55k spend by the District on a steep-slope staircase descending from Water St. (due south of Kennedy St. South in the town centre) to the shoreline atop Cains Park, a wedge of green space dedicated to the city by the Cains family. (As Ms. Peers notes, the family's Sooke Rd. gas station, the first of its kind in Sooke, is due north of the park and is now the home of West Shack Auto, run by my neighbour Steve Christiansen.) 

My concern was that this location isn't cited among the nine priority seaside access spots identified in Sooke's current Parks & Trails Masterplan, most of which are "kayak/canoe pull-up spots" at sea level (such as Whiffin Spit's Possession Point, which is set for a short staircase to the beach next year). Nor, for that matter, is Cains Park one of the seven secondary "if funding/desire permits" recommended ocean access points.

It was good to learn, however, that nearby Sooke Elementary students and their teachers enjoy field trips wandering through this part of town and they needed a spot like this by which to beachcomb. The theory of "build it and they'll come all the more often" is solid in this case. Yet with no public parking opportunities whatsoever and a surrounding terrain suitable only for mountain goats or the very fit on this portion of Sooke's high-bank waterfront, I opted to vote against. Result: I again came out on the short end of a 4 vs 3 vote. (Paradoxically, I was still pleased that Sooke was serving the youngest end of our age-friendly community and so have no lasting concerns apart from the nagging thought that we need to do a better job of heeding community plans built through full public process.)   

* Mick Rhodes Delegation: Sooke's valiant and effective Mayoralty candidate is staying the course with his big-picture vision of saving Sooke's last, best remaining town-centre waterfront viewpoint for this and future generations. As he stated again, and I concur, we need a creative, fluid approach moving ahead in discussions with the new landowners. 

* SEAPARC: All systems go for the swank new entrance and long-awaited weight room. After 40 years of steady evolution, the CRD's community fitness centre, pool and arena complex continues to move from strength to strength under Steve Knoke's leadership. 

* Cannabis Regulation:  District staff produced an excellent, exhaustive report (see the website version here) as a prelude to public engagement (likely through a to-be-scheduled Committee of the Whole discussion) on how the District opts to regulate production, sales and consumption. We can draw on a growing number of working examples in BC and nationally; the night's report featured a comparison between policies and approaches in Victoria, Nelson, Courtenay, North Van and Nanaimo.

Good to know that our local RCMP have no issues with the fact that (like in many communities) two of our three stores remain open for business without a formal license while awaiting the finalization of provincial and municipal guidelines. Personally, and without knowing much at all about the nuances or complications, I like the idea of Sooke continuing with a maximum of three independently owned and operated stores. There's apparently been many inquiries from small-scale "micro-cultivation" (aka "craft weed") growers locally, so perhaps we'd like to keep things as local as possible and perhaps say 'no' (if we indeed we have the option) to a BC LDB Cannabis Store pedalling so-called "corporate weed" from across the country. A reputation for being home to a connoisseur array of 21st century BC Bud  wouldn't harm our tourist and daytrip trade, I imagine. 

* Tree Bylaw: Full credit and praise to Councillor Parkinson for introducing the motion and eloquently arguing why it matters; we voted (six in favour, one against) for a staff report into how such a bylaw might look here where,  in a former logging community, every other home has a chainsaw.  My thoughts from last month on this blog capture my position. I've since learned that the District has a policy (#11.6, Jan. 24, 2005) for trees on municipal property (but it's conditional on oversight by our Municipal Engineer and that position has been vacant since Elizabeth Nelson's departure in early 2016). The DOS also has created an "urban tree inventory" through its top-drawer GIS mapping technology and has an established "Street Tree Strategy." One of the District's parks employees is training as a certified arbourist. Ideally, we'll come up with a bylaw that does the job of protecting important, significant and/or character trees without any undue hardship to homeowners concerned about dangerous limbs and dying trees on their private property. Further investigation:  

i) CRD tree protection bylaws (in 10 of the region's 13 municipalities; thanks for the link to Heather Phillips)
ii) "Love of Trees, Not Bylaws" ~ survey of 400 Canadian communities by Garden Making Magazine 
iii) Creatively United's Community Trees Matter Network. 

* Grantwriting: Kudos to Chief Mount and his team for doing the legwork in lining up the second in what will be a series of  UBCM Community Emergency Preparedness Fund grant applications for Sooke ~ in this case for a $25k study exploring evacuation options for Sunriver, Phillips Road and Sooke River Road residents. Other District staff are tapping into the UBCM Commuity Child Care Planning Program for a local child-care needs assessment study. Both documents (like the Affordable Housing needs assessment approved at our second meeting) are essential planning tools going ahead.  

* Committee appointments: My 2019 daytimer is on order.  In addition to the Vancouver Island Regional Library Board,  I've been assigned a seat with the Sooke Region Community Health Network's Age-Friendly Committee. It's a good fit for me, logically, given that I'm a geezer of a certain age myself who has his (euphemism alert) sunset years to anticipate. I'm looking forward to joining SRCHN's Rick Robinson, Christine Bossi and others in helping shape "a community where everyone enjoys a safe, enriched and dignified life." The group can trace its roots to a 2008 "age-friendly dialogue" held at the Community Hall, following which Marlene Barry and other local VIPs got busy in doing the hard work (launching the Sooke Region Volunteer Centre, for instance) that led to official recognition for Sooke as a BC Age-Friendly Community in 2015.  (reference: UBCM page)

My other role is as Sooke council representative to the Victoria Family Court and Youth Justice Committee, a one-year appointment that opens up a new world to me. I have some modest understanding of issues facing youth-at-risk through my years with the EMCS Society, but I'm sure this will be a real eye-opener. Monthly meetings begin in the New Year with a big group that features front-line restorative justice workers, police department appointees and reps from the CRD's 13 municipalities and four school districts.

Okay, long meeting, long post. Onwards to prepare for tonight's opening round of the Lot A charrette.  No guarantees, but my intention is to continue writing these recaps in the months ahead as a way of tracking lessons learned. 

[Update: Dec. 17, 2019: The Malahat Segment Detour Route Planning report has been released, and it delivers a resounding 'no' to any possible escape routes on forestry roads through the Sooke Hills. See pages six and seven of the report for all the reasons why the seven best-possible options have been rejected. And so the one alternative route out of Sooke is on the Pacific Marine Circle Route to Port Renfrew and onwards to Lake Cowichan. Not a comfortable situation anytime, especially in the event of some earth-shaking eventuality like the Great Quake, but there you have it for now.  Key takeaways are that the Malahat has been closed for extended periods just once a year on average over the last decade; and enhanced policing (19 speeding vehicles were impounded during a crackdown two Sundays ago) will curb the hellbent accidents-waiting-to-happen.]

[Update: Nov. 27, 2018 ... A road report following my first rainy night drive on the improved Sooke Rd: "First time this winter driving #14 in somewhat lousy conditions last night and happy to say it was a breeze for me. The broadened white perimeter lines were my guide and a ton of strategically placed roadside posts, reflective lights and markings carried me smoothly from one bend to the next. Such a dramatic difference to a few years ago, or even last year at this time. Last night, the wipers were working hard on the way to Royal Roads, and there were fog patches on the return. Nonetheless, it was a relaxed, flesh-toned knuckles drive while listening to CFAX for a time (BC legislature speculation, natch) and some pleasure with a mix CD featuring a few classics like this one. So yes, go Johnny go, drive cautiously, always and ever, but do so with renewed confidence that the pros at the Ministry of Transportation are doing a superb job in making it a safer route."]

Hwy #14 (like health care, death and taxes) will always and ever be an ongoing obsession for us locally. 

Dedicated local social media sites buzz with daily updates about road conditions, accidents and, in recent weeks, McKenzie exchange construction crawls. Strategies on how to deal with our two lanes-that-could-be-four were a prime issue in the 2017 provincial election. And some locals wanted to highlight #14 in this fall's Sooke election even though it's a provincial, not municipal, matter ~ not that this distinction downplays our essential role as advocates, officially as a District and as individual citizens. (Locals are the true, real-world authorities on the subject, more so than MOTI's Nanaimo-based civil servants). Apt, then, that Gord Phillips' "Sooke Highway" is our unofficial civic anthem. (Such a pleasure to singalong with him and it during the recent Sooke Talks #2).

As everyone knows, phased highway improvements have accelerated, deservedly so given the problems, with our MLA's ascension to the Premier's job. Yet the growing number of cars on the road and its in-built shortcomings remain a matter of deep concern, especially now that the early nightfalls and heavy rains are back for another season of winter drives ~ white-knuckle ones, in my and many experiences on certain downpour nights, when navigating a happily rare few tricky twist-turn-and-dip stretches (especially when contending with new-breed headlights that beam unpredictable degrees of brightness and intensity).  Result: Some heart-in-mouth scares I remember vividly as 'this could be it' moments. Again, this hasn't happened often - it takes a certain combination of darkness, rain, rush hour lights and fast-beating windshield wipers to get me off my 70 kmph (dry conditions, traffic dependent) Sooke Rd. game. I like driving this road: Minus the heavy traffic, it's pure car commercial country. (As I've said before, there is pullover, slow-track tourism potential with basin and Goose access should MOTI's Connie-Harbourview straightening of #14 one day proceed ~ pending negotiations with landowners and the North Sooke Community Association).  

Anyway, while there have already been notable safety improvements, a fresh wave of alarm has nonetheless arisen on social media about the relative ineffectiveness (for some drivers) of the newly repainted, broader perimeter road markings during foul weather. The common theme: "They're too indistinct, they vanish in the rain, we don't feel safe, and something tragic will inevitably happen without a lasting fix" 

I shared a sampler of these concerns in a Nov. 1 email to the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure's Kristen Reimer.  At the Hwy #14 Open House in June at EMCS, I'd suggested to her and other MOTI staff that the engagement process would be improved if ministry staff routinely tracked the steady flow of comments, concerns and bright ideas posted on Sooke social media. (I also suggested MOTI honour Sooke's Transportation Master Plan in making its decisions, i.e.  heed our roundabout-first policy at Sooke River Road rather than installing a signal light -- the cost for what would have had to be a double-laned traffic circle would have been prohibitive, I was told, so we must accept what we're given with good grace.)  

Not long after that open house, I sent Ms. Reimer (with a cc to MLA Horgan) a file of Hwy #14 Facebook comments that I'd collected over the years. And, in the wake of the latest concerns after the season's first torrential downpour just before Halloween, I did so again.  

She replied the other day with the following email: 

"I chatted with Shawn Haley, our Road Area Manager responsible for this section of road, about your concern and he let me know that  Highway 14 has been painted twice already this year with a reflective beaded paint. He also informed me that, going forward, we will be painting our major numbered routes twice a year (as opposed to just once, which we historically have done). 
 
As you may be aware, the province historically used lead based paint, but due to environmental issues, we have switched to a material that’s water based. We are working on finding the perfect balance between being environmentally friendly, and highly reflective and durable. Here’s a link to a blog outlining our quest for the perfect paint: https://www.tranbc.ca/2017/09/27/new-tool-shines-a-light-on-line-paint-brightness/
 
We’ve also recently installed street lights at key intersections along the route – which went active on Oct 31, 2018. We expect at least three more to come online very soon. 
 
It’s also important for all drivers to remember that when conditions are wet, it’s dark, and there’s oncoming traffic, motorists need to slow down and drive to conditions.
 
If you have any further questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to let me know. I also really appreciated hearing your positive feedback on the work being done to improve BC Highway 14 J
 
You can also connect with us online by clicking on any of the icons listed below my signature.
 
Thanks again for connecting with us. Safe travels.
 
Kristen Reimer
Information Officer, iPAS Business Manager
Web and Social Media Services
Ministry of Transportation & Infrastructure
PO Box 9850 Stn Prov Govt I Victoria I BC I V8W 9T5
778-974-5305  Kristen Reimer@gov.bc.ca

So that's where things stand at the moment. Essentially, we must all heed the message of "drive safe, slow down, take care."  Wise advice always! Personally, I've not yet experienced a daunting drive this winter, but I can certainly relate to what some FB commentators have said about how 'muscle-memory' and 'pure faith' have helped them through the worst passages. Driving slow works to a degree, though only if everyone else is being patient and doing likewise. 

Which brings me back to the subject of advocacy: It's critical that the District, council and citizens alike maintain the pressure. Phone or write MOTI Area Roads Manager Shawn Haley at 778-974-2627; Shawn.Haley@gov.bc.ca. And cc our Mr. Horgan in the process: john.horgan.mla@leg.bc.ca. 

Meanwhile In Sooke member Susan Jones has been sharing the following useful contacts as well:  

* Main Road South Vancouver Island: 1-877-391-7310; corporate@mainroad.ca
* Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Claire Trevena:  250-387-1978;  Minister.Transportation@gov.bc.ca 
* MOTI Deputy Minister Grant Main:  250 387-3280 

As she says, phoning and emailing "will get action if enough people do it."  ​


Further Background (Misc)  

Perspective
* Elida Peers documents history of Sooke Road
* MOTI, regional districts, municipalities and logging companies are variously responsible for nearly 50,000 km
​of paved + 22,000 km unpaved roads in BC
* Canada's National Highway system
* Canadian Encyclopedia: Roads & Highways in Canada
* Province of BC's Driving & Transportation home page 
* BC's 12 Deadliest Highways (#14 does not feature on this list based on ICBC stats from 2004-13)  

Highway 14 & Regional Studies
* BC Ministry of Transportation Highway 14 Route Study (1991; viewable by request at Sooke's Municipal Hall)
* District of Sooke's Transportation Master Plans (2000, 2009 and now being revised for 2019)
* MOTI Highway 14 Corridor Study (2008; copy in the agenda package dated Sept. 27, 2018 on the District's website.)

* Capital Regional District's Regional Transportation Plan (1990s, revised 2014)
* CRD Origin Destination Travel Household Survey (2011) 
* CRD Pedestrian and Cycling Master Plan (2015)
* CRD Household Travel Survey (2017)
​* Drive BC Road Conditions + BC Map + #14 updates here

Highway 14 Improvements (2011-present) 
* Aug. 2011: "Sooke-tacular Improvements Come to Highway 14" (MOTI newsletter) 
* 2012: Highway 14 improvements (MOTI newsletter re: fixing the flood zone west of Kangaroo Rd.) 
* Jan., 2018: "Mayors Call for Action" (Maja Tait, Stew Young)  
* Jan., 2018, Premier Horgan announces $10m in funding for road improvements.
* June 2018: This preliminary report from MOTI kickstarted the Sooke community engagement process
* Aug., 2018: Engagement Summary Final Report.

Topping Sooke's consensus wish list: i) Improved paint lines; ii) More roadside delineation/reflectors; iii) Highway realignments; iv) Additional passing opportunities; v) Improved street lighting; vi) Improved intersections; vii) Speed-reader boards and more RCMP traffic enforcement.) 

* Sooke PocketNews Highway 14 archive 
* Advocacy by the #DividedBy14 initiative of the Sooke Economic Development Group
* Advocacy by the Otter Point and Shirley Residents & Ratepayers Association
* Advocacy by the Sooke Chamber of Commerce
* Westshore Voice News article on Transition Sooke's "Rethinking Traffic As Usual" workshop (Nov. 2017)
* CRD Transportation Committee minutes (2017/18)  

* ICBC Crash Spots Van Isle: 2013-17 (search: Sooke) 
​* "Surveillance camera catches Sooke Rd. crash" (Sept. 14, 2018)

Sooke Local Road Issues 
​* District of Sooke Business Case Phase Two (Phillips to Charters) of Connector Road Project
* Sooke Borrowing Referendum 2005 backgrounder
* Wadams Way opening (Oct. 2014) 
* "Roundabout part of $9 million in Sooke roadwork" (July 2015) ​
* "Sooke's new Brownsey Blvd. Now Open" (June 2016)   
  
Colwood (and Malahat) Crawl
* Westshore Parkway Langford
* Jack Knox Times Colonist column: "Is the Colwood Crawl Driving You Crazy?" (Nov. 2018) 
​* "New 'Urgency' to find Malahat Highway Alternative" (CBC interview with Minister of Transportation Trevena) 

Alternatives: Light Rail & Rapid Buses 
* Victoria Regional Rapid Bus Project (BC Transit, spring 2011) 
* Premier Horgan: "Rapid-bus system from Westhills to downtown Victoria would be a better bet." (May, 2018) 
* "Region's Politicians Laud Movement" re: Langford-Victoria LRT (May 17, 2018) 
* Better Transit Alliance of Greater Victoria
* Victoria Region Bus Lanes Project (BC Transit, updated 2018)

​* Island Corridor Foundation (reviving the E&N Rail line from Victoria to Courtenay)
* E&N Rail Reports & Studies (Province of BC)
​* "Rail for Vancouver Island" Facebook group
* MOTI Trans-Canada/Malahat Corridor Study (2007)    

​* Victoria Transport Policy Institute  
* Regional Transit Funding Options (CRD, 2012) 
* Transportation Service Feasibility Study (CRD, 2014) 

BC Transit
​* BC Transit "Advantage" Newsletter 
* Sooke Local Area Transit Plan study begins (Fall/Winter, 2018) 
* Westshore Local Area Transit Plan (completed 2014) 

A few key facts about #14 
* Annual average daily traffic volume = 16,000 cars per day (up 25 percent since 2007)
* Hwy #14 is closed an average of six times a year (usually for two hours, but as long as seven hours or more, as per the early October closure this year)
* Most dangerous spots: Gillespie Rd., Cooper's Cove, Parkland, Otter Point/Murray, Sombrio
 
Source: 2018 MOTI report. Clip: "Annual average daily traffic (AADT) volumes along the corridor have increased by approximately 25% over the past 10 years. The corridor is experiencing increasing platoons of commuter traffic (where congestion causes vehicles to travel closely together), and areas west of Sooke lack shoulders, pullouts and pavement conditions are of concern for this important tourism and commercial route."