Unmoved by an appeal, Salt Spring’s land use officials voted to uphold a staff decision that leaves a controversial shoreline erosion mitigation project at Baker Beach without development permits.
That decision came Thursday, July 10, after a consultant team engaged by the proponent property owners came to support the project, speaking before the island’s Local Trust Committee (LTC).
In May, through authority delegated to them by the LTC, staff had decided not to grant a permit to the project, sidelining the proposed “nature-based” climate adaptation plan that centred on erosion mitigation using non-uniform rock clusters, revegetation and application of engineered sand and gravel “beach nourishment” material at the toe of an eroding slope above Baker Beach.
Alongside an application for a licence of occupation from the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship (WLRS) to do work within the Crown land at the shore, the Islands Trust required a permit for the project, since the land lay within a development permit area (DPA) laid out by Salt Spring’s Official Community Plan (OCP).
In the appeal, through extensive documents and their own in-person reporting, the team addressed an itemized list of concerns staff had cited in choosing not to issue a permit for the project and warned the beach itself was in danger from the same erosion processes that threatened the proponents’ homes.
But ultimately the LTC deferred to its own staff, noting trustees’ lack of specific scientific expertise, and to public sentiment.
“Founded or not, public concerns are important,” said LTC chair Tim Peterson. “They are something that, as decision makers, we need to take into account.”
Continuing a pattern of public opposition to the project, several islanders spoke on Thursday to voice their concerns over potential habitat damage from the proposed deposit of hundreds of cubic metres of aggregate materials — across more than 500 metres of shoreline — and whether a nearby Penelakut shellfish tenure would be affected. Some said they did not believe the beach was degrading at all; housing advocate Eric March said he “failed to see the public good of shutting down a public beach” to do work to protect “four wealthy property owners” from the “natural process of erosion.”
For its part, the consultant team argued the project would protect the habitats there rather than harm them, and showed data they said indicated the erosion taking place at Baker Beach was anything but “natural.” Registered professional geoscientist and agrologist Thomas Elliot said teams had conducted extensive soil sampling and observation in and around the site — including “novel” work involving a diver offshore — and lay blame for the advanced erosion taking place at the feet of human-caused processes upstream.
“The [natural] system is failing,” said Elliot. “There are more than 20 trees along that coastal bluff that are in a precarious scenario and [when they fall] will deposit the exact same volume [of material] the proponents are seeking to import, but with a deleterious component to it.”
“It certainly does attract a lot of attention because of the size,” said trustee Laura Patrick, although when pressed admitted she didn’t know what a reasonable amount of material for such a project might be. “Our job is to try to interpret and understand the OCP, the objectives and the reasons these guidelines were placed in here; my interpretation is that the OCP was [envisioning] more small projects — that it was designed for one property doing something.”
“Ultimately, our decision is about interpretation of the information that’s available to us, from your professional reporting, from our understanding and interpretation of the bylaw, and our own staff and their work,” said Peterson. “I don’t think this is easy for anyone in any part in this situation.”
The ministry had previously indicated that if the LTC decided to uphold staff’s rejection of the permit, the province may consider disallowing the existing Crown land use application — although it noted that would not prevent proponents from submitting new application documents “for a phased approach” to the erosion mitigation, according to a letter.