At tonight’s (March 14th) Saanich council meeting, council is planning to discuss a change to Cadboro Bay’s Local Area Plan update process. CBRA has concerns about this potential change in process, and accordingly has sent this time sensitive letter to the Saanich Mayor and Council:
To: Mayor and Council, via email
March 12, 2022
Dear Mayor and Council,
Re: For the Council Meeting to be held in Council Chambers: 770 Vernon Avenue
Monday, March 14, 2022 7:00 p.m.
Agenda Item E.3 Cadboro Bay Local Area Plan Update
You recently posted materials for the March 14, 2022, Saanich Council meeting.
From these materials, we see that the Mayor’s Standing Committee on Housing Affordability wants to facilitate purpose-built rentals in Cadboro Bay and increase the range of incomes accommodated by future rental and market strata housing in Cadboro Bay.
To advance these goals, Council is considering whether:
- To continue with the Cadboro Bay Local Area Plan Update planning process, as identified in the project Terms of Reference OR,
- To undertake additional work (lasting 6 months and costing $60,000) to assess an expanded/more intense Village Centre with the purpose of expanding purpose-built rental housing and housing opportunities for a range of incomes.
This is our reaction.
The Local Area Plan was set up as an exercise in community consultation. That consultation was extensive: there were 15 Project Advisory Committee meetings; 260 people attended open houses; hundreds participated in design charettes and workshops; 307 people provided feedback on the community survey. But I need not go on. It is all there on page 2 of the March 3 memo of Sharon Hvozdanski.
The community has given its feedback. The result is the draft you now have.
We think you should respect the process you yourselves set up. It may not have given you all the answers you want. But, it borders on bad faith to pretend to consult the community and then impose a solution that never emerged from this consultation.
What is more, it is unnecessary. Much of the “additional work” in Option 2 can be found in policies 5.4.1 to 5.4.6 in the draft plan. And Option 1 contemplates “some modifications in land use designations”.
Neither option 1 nor 2 address the immediate need for housing that vacant institutional land offers.
The CBRA supports the adoption of option 1 and strongly encourages the immediate development of a master plan for institutional lands in Cadboro Bay as contemplated in Policy 5.5.1 to 5.5.7 of the Local Area plan.
Sincerely
Liz Miller, BA, LLB
Chair, CBRA
Good letter. Hope they listen.
The bulk of the LAP active planning and engagement was pre-pandemic. Things have changed and a lot of lessons have been learned regarding housing security and affordability, indigenous reconciliation and other important social issues we have an obligation to assess in the context of the LAP update.
The pandemic has been going since 2020 and the consult process since 2018. Not sure why they would at the last minute throw sand in the gears after all this work and effort in the part lf the community.