A town hall on housing might not have generated rooster-level buzz on Salt Spring, but a smaller group of islanders nonetheless shared plenty of ideas at the Local Community Commission’s (LCC) facilitated community workshop held Thursday, Nov. 27.
From the roughly two dozen attendees came just as many suggestions to address the shortage of affordable housing on the island, as the LCC works to co-develop a new Integrated Housing Strategy and Action Plan.
Thursday night’s gathering at Gulf Islands Secondary School capped off two days of small-group meetings facilitated by CRD service delivery manager Justine Stark and consultant Urban Matters’ community health and wellness planner Isha Matous-Gibbs.
Matous-Gibbs explained the process wasn’t being crafted from whole cloth, but was building upon decades of work already done by islanders. A study of that work suggested a jumping-off point of some shared values, she said — such as a desire to increase housing supply while preserving the environment, or incentivize affordable housing development while finding ways to optimize current housing stock.
Specific ideas put forward Thursday night included promotion of shared and co-housing, creation of a “new Brinkworthy” affordable housing development and incentivizing redevelopment in Ganges, focusing on more — and perhaps, taller — residential buildings in such already dense neighbourhoods.
Earlier planned workshops included two for “Housing Providers/Operators [and] Service Providers,” a third titled “Employers and Economy” and a fourth focused on “People with Lived Experience.” Matous-Gibbs said that last had brought renters from a wide range of experiences living on Salt Spring, and had highlighted the challenges of “informal” housing solutions across the island.
Organizers said input and feedback gathered across both days of engagement will be used to generate a “long list” of action items; that will then be brought back to the LCC for its consideration in the new year.