Officials voted to expand the first phase of public engagement on Salt Spring’s Official Community Plan (OCP) review, a $40,000 budget addition to augment an undertaking one trustee said needed to be wide-reaching and inclusive — but also aligned with formal process.
Salt Spring’s OCP is one of the foundational documents guiding land use and development, meant to broadly represent a “shared vision for the future,” according to the Islands Trust. The review aims to discover whether islanders think it needs changes to address emerging issues — specifically, for this review, housing affordability, climate change and environmental protection.
The review’s timeline won’t be set back by the additional engagement, according to representatives from consulting firm McElhanney Ltd., which envisioned the expansion running alongside development of draft language for possible OCP changes. That team said it had so far engaged some 600 people through a 40-day campaign that saw 468 online surveys completed — including many that were filled out by hand and entered later, according to Sandra Borton, who presented the consultant’s report to the LTC Thursday, Nov. 6.
But there were hiccups.
“There were challenges, really a range of things,” said Borton. “The ultimate outcome of that is that we don’t feel that the data likely reflects the full breadth and diversity of the perspectives from community members.”
Those issues ranged from staffing shortages related to labour actions — and the Canada Post strike — to what consultants said was a recurring problem of just a few islanders dominating their “pop-up” events.
“Despite efforts to redirect these folks and make space for everyone, the dynamic created an environment that discouraged participation of others,” read the report, “particularly [the] intended audience of underrepresented groups.”
Salt Spring Island trustee Laura Patrick echoed consultants’ concerns over communication between the Islands Trust and local advocacy groups. Patrick noted, for example, that one of those groups had collected petition signatures characterizing the OCP review as planning “major changes” — despite Patrick’s assertions there were no changes yet proposed. And Transition Salt Spring (TSS) efforts to coalesce islanders’ priorities early, through its Common Ground Consensus, might have also caused a mix-up; the consultant’s report said that TSS’ outreach had been perceived by some as part of the official process, leading to confusion among residents and a significant number of “similar or identical” letters being submitted through unofficial channels, according to the report.
Acknowledging all those individual and group efforts, Patrick said the positive sign was that so many islanders really cared about the process. The challenge going forward, she said, was for trustees to learn ways to be “better at working with the community voice.”
“We really want to keep community groups engaged, but we need to make sure it’s coordinated in line with our work,” said Patrick. “We need to establish clear communication channels between ourselves and the community-led groups — if they’re going to be out there collecting information, let’s help them, provide some guidance.”
Borton said the expanded engagement would likely include “enhanced” social media, advertisements in local print media and community posters and flyers — alongside on-the-ground work using those enthusiastic islanders and local organizations as a resource.
“Mobilizing those ‘community champions’ and on-island networks,” said Borton. “Really utilizing the folks we know are interested, and keen on the process.”
Reached at press time, TSS board member Bryan Young said the group was glad to hear that the engagement will be expanded.
“There’s been a lot of work that’s gone on with this, and credit to trustee Patrick for pushing toward a ‘gold standard’ for public engagement,” said Young. “I’m excited, and we stand ready to have further input into this process.”
In response to a question from trustees, project manager Kevin Brooks said despite feeling they might have their place later in the process, he generally didn’t support town halls as part of engagement — and he recommended against using them for communication or consultation.
“Town halls — and we also heard this from our conversations on the island — tend to create conflict,” said Brooks, “and an aggressive approach to conversations that can often deter participation. Our goal with the way that we do engagement is to create low-barrier forms of participation that allow anybody to be able to participate.”
Patrick noted that if the review prompted suggestions for changes to the OCP, there would be a public hearing regardless.
“We’re not trying to remove town halls,” said Patrick. “If we do our job right, when we get to the public hearing, there should be crickets in the audience; we should have been anticipating and responding to what we were expecting to hear.”
The supplemental phase of engagement will take place during six weeks in November and into December, hopefully producing a summary report, Borton said. Two further cycles of presenting and listening for information will follow, with workshops then to develop a draft OCP outline in the spring.
Patrick reiterated that every step going forward must be not only public, but well-publicized — at the end of the day, she said, “there is mistrust.”
“People think we’ve been secretly talking in the back room about our plan to triple the population of the island,” said Patrick. “It’s vitally important that our process be transparent, inclusive and formal.”