Property ownership in the Capital Regional District (CRD) is going to get even more expensive with a new regional transportation service.
The CRD says the service will “align transportation with growth planning and advance the CRD’s priority of supporting residents’ access to convenient, green and affordable multi-modal transportation systems.” The plan comes with a price tag of $10.3 million per year to start; $339,00 for Salt Spring and $51.12 for the owner of an average-assessed Salt Spring residential property. The proposed bylaw allows for almost twice that amount to be requisitioned. For comparison, Salt Spring has its own transportation service requisition — for sidewalks, bike lanes, etc. — which was $171,000 (about $22 for an average property) last year.
Salt Spring’s CRD director Gary Holman and Local Community Commission member Brian Webster are convinced the plan is not a good fit and asked the CRD Board to exclude us from the service. The request was denied.
The 2024 CRD budget had Salt Spring property owners pay almost $1.3 million for 16 different “regional” CRD services, from general government services to community health to regional goose management. The largest chunk of Salt Spring’s regional contribution was to regional parks, at $602,000, and that’s doubled since 2020. It’s been pointed out by Holman and others that the last CRD regional park created on Salt Spring was the Mill Farm Nature Reserve back in 1996, with the CRD, provincial and federal governments, and private donors coming up with the $800,000 purchase price. One CRD contribution to a park with no amenities almost 30 years ago is hardly good bang for that particular Salt Spring buck.
Some Gulf Islands residents do make use of parks and trails in the rest of the CRD, of course, so contributing something to such services is not unreasonable. And some CRD Board members have suggested that Salt Spring is more likely to fund significant active transportation improvements with help from a CRD transportation service than its own taxpayers going it alone, as has been the case so far. That may be true too — if future CRD boards can put aside their own constituents’ priorities and support a Salt Spring proposal.
Will that ever happen? As director Holman says, past experience makes it hard to believe it will.