By JASON MOGUS
Many people were confused by the positive message on housing projects put out by the Capital Regional District (CRD) at their recent housing forum, and even more so with the notes from a recent CRD/Local Community Commission meeting shared as news to a popular local website.
The CRD said “up to 335 units could be developed on 10 properties already designated or zoned for affordable or market housing,” and went on to list nine projects.
A casual reader would have been impressed by the CRD’s list. These are the types of non-profit-led and government-funded projects that even the most ardent opponents of housing action here say they support.
Unfortunately, the list is quite misleading. Very few of the projects on it either still exist, or have much hope of moving forward. Here is a more realistic update.
Two of the best projects on the CRD’s list have been outright cancelled in 2024. The most heartbreaking housing story of the year was when Dragonfly Commons pulled its project, moved to dissolve its non-profit society and sell the property. This was a beautiful project, brought forward by a mission-driven, experienced team who invested years of their lives. The developers shared a surprisingly honest letter as to why it collapsed in this newspaper. It wasn’t possible for them to continue jumping through the endless hoops — permits, water, roads, funding or appropriate support from the CRD, Islands Trust and Province. Who is going to take another run at this when such an experienced, committed, and well-resourced team couldn’t make it happen after nearly a decade of effort?
The second phantom project on the list is Norton Road, where the non-profit developer also walked away, saying they lack the staff capacity to go through the extensive rezoning marathon that is Salt Spring. Both these projects were withdrawn before the CRD’s list was published online.
The proposed Brinkworthy project, a neat farm, food and non-market housing mix planned for under the power lines next to the new fire hall is also receiving bad news. Far from rolling up their sleeves and asking how they can help, rigid and non-collaborative local agencies instead present barrier after barrier to Island Community Services. This project might now also be at risk.
What about Brackett Springs, the abandoned homes on Rainbow Road that have been rotting for the past decade? Multiple banks, non-profits and private investors explored reviving it, but they all walked away because the cost of rescuing it was too high for the possible rent return on 11 affordable units which is what is allowed under the zoning. And even if a mission-driven developer showed up to run a multi-year re-zoning process to increase the density, where would the water for the additional units come from? Remove one barrier and another is revealed. This is the story of non-market housing projects on Salt Spring.
The CRD’s own Drake Road project, promised as an emergency modular supportive housing to be built rapidly during the pandemic two years ago, is still an empty field, although excavator work has begun there, and the Seabreeze Inne also appears to remain abandoned, though in fairness for different reasons.
The sad truth is, many of the projects the CRD director regularly touts as “housing wins” for our hurting community are either not happening or not likely to happen any time soon. Each one will take years and years of effort by as-yet-unidentified non-profits or good-willed individuals. Even then, they are just as likely to fail given our community’s lack of leadership and poor inter-agency collaboration between the Trust, CRD and North Salt Spring Waterworks District.
Most of us working on affordable housing are disillusioned and tired from working so hard to make progress in a system that seems only designed to slow things down, with no inter-agency plan for solving housing, and a passionate local conservation movement organizing in opposition to most solutions proposed by local governments, the most impacted people and housing experts.
I’d like to hear what housing opponents have to say about so many of these projects failing to advance, after working so hard to kill the Salt Spring Local Trust Committee’s accessory dwelling unit bylaw. I would also like the CRD director to be more frank with the community about the real state of affairs. It does us no good to be fed false hope, or information that veers on misinformation.