Salt Spring’s Local Community Commission (LCC) is steering clear of an advocacy group’s proposal to place interpretive signage at an island beach that has become the centre of escalating land use litigation, voting to wait to act until the legal dispute over Baker Beach is resolved.

Back in September, local advocate Philip Grange had brought a proposal on behalf of the newly formed Concerned Citizens of Baker Beach, seeking to install an interpretive panel at the beach’s two access points — one near Quarry Drive and the other at the end of Baker Road. Each would show information about the flora and fauna of the beach, and would be built using grant funding — corralled by the interest group in partnership with Transition Salt Spring’s marine stewardship division, according to that delegation.

While the group insisted the signage would be “apolitical,” that delegation came days after news reports that several residents owning property above Baker Beach — homeowners Ethan Wilding, David Demner and Heidi Kuhrt — had petitioned B.C.’s Supreme Court for judicial review of the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee’s decision not to issue a permit for a shoreline stabilization project in front of their waterfront parcels. 

On Thursday commissioners agreed with staff that proceeding with the signage project before the court has ruled on that petition could be interpreted as taking a position in an active legal dispute — undermining expectations that public officials remain impartial during the legal process — and indicated they had no intention of wading into what has become a protracted conflict.

“There’s some stuff that needs to be resolved there,” said LCC member Brian Webster. “Information panels there are a good idea, but it doesn’t make sense for us to be acting until that happens.”

Staff said they had no sense of a timeline for the legal case to be resolved. After a hearing that spanned multiple days, a judge indicated only they would return with a decision at a later date. Wilding told the Driftwood last week he expected the decision would not be released for several weeks or even months.

A standing-room-only crowd filled the Crofton Room at the Harbour House Hotel last Tuesday night to learn more about the Islands Trust Policy Statement (TPS) Amendment Project and give feedback. 

It followed a meeting held for the same purpose but attended by fewer people at Fulford Hall in December, and with similar dominant messages heard. 

Several of the 16 people speaking at the Harbour House on Jan. 13 felt the draft TPS did not give enough priority to environmental protection, with a few suggesting the updating process be halted now and passed on to a new set of trustees to be elected in October, in effect making it an election issue.

Phil Dearden observed the high level of interest signalled by the full house and said, “I don’t quite see the need to rush this before the elections, when there is something that’s so pivotal to the future. It might be wise to have this after the elections, because then that will have the democratic process endorsing this policy, rather than it being something already in the bag.”

Ronald Wright, of the Keep Salt Spring Sustainable group, agreed. He said the draft was an “extremely flawed document, which has enough loopholes in it to drive a developer’s bulldozer through” and should not be rushed to passage when a new Trust Council might have a different view.

Clare Frater, the Trust’s director of Trust Area Services, told the crowd it was ultimately council’s decision, but said “an awful lot of political, public energy has gone into this project, and I think there’s a desire to honour all of that work, because there’s some uncertainty after the election about what the priorities of a new council might be.”

Frater outlined how work to revise the 33-year-old TPS — the guiding document to which all Trust Area bylaws must be aligned — had been underway since 2019, and that attempts made before then had not gotten off the ground. An estimated $335,000 has been spent on the process since 2019, she told the Driftwood later. Frater stressed that trustees are listening to all the feedback being provided “and there is a desire to really honour what’s being heard and to run a good process that actually results in an outcome.”

Salt Spring trustee and Trust Council chair Laura Patrick said she welcomes the range of input being provided.

“If you find language that you think needs to be specifically changed, please, please give us those examples. That’s what I want to hear.”

Some speakers criticized the lack of definitions in the draft TPS, including for critical terms like “environment” and “unique amenities.”

Lawyer Jack Woodward said the Trust should have had a unique amenities list made 50 years ago, since that term was put into the original legislation creating the Islands Trust. 

“They should have been doing this. This is the hard work. This is the actual hard work of sitting down and saying, ‘what is it that’s unique and special about the islands?’ and putting that into words . . . We’re not talking about homogenizing things. We’re talking about identifying and preserving and protecting the uniqueness.”

“This has been a topic since day one,” said Frater, “so we welcome continued dialogue about the meaning of ‘amenities.’”

Speaker Mary Richardson pointed out that the current TPS iteration actually talks about amenities and the history and rationale for the Islands Trust in its first few pages, and suggested something similar be included in the 2026 version.

Regarding the “environment” definition, Patrick said Trust staff were seeking a published definition that will be included, but confirmed “trustees are thinking ‘natural environment.’” Patrick also said trustees had asked for a handbook to be created to accompany the document, and stressed that it was important to read the document as a whole.

Elizabeth White was one speaker who had read the document and also felt it lacked legally enforceable policies in areas such as affordable housing and environmental protection. 

“The TPS draft, in its present form, in my view, is toothless and inadequate and unfit for purpose,” she said. “I’m sorry to have to say that. I do think it can be fixed. I don’t know whether its fixing would result in a document that would be approved by Trust Council.”

Bryan Young of Transition Salt Spring (TSS) said his group felt the draft was “a thoughtful balance between protecting what makes the islands unique while allowing trustees to respond to local needs in the context of the mandate,” and applauded its inclusion of Indigenous rights. TSS felt the document falls short in areas of forest and freshwater protection, and growth management.

He summarized the TSS position by saying “building the right housing in the right places is not in opposition to Indigenous rights, food security, forests, water and climate resilience. They are one and must be treated together.”

Some people asked why Salt Spring’s official community plan (OCP) update was being done at the same time, when the TPS is a guiding document for all Trust islands’ OCPs.

Patrick responded that the OCP project will not be completed before the end of the term this fall, so the next Local Trust Committee will be in charge of completing the process.

The draft TPS, more information and a survey are available through islandstrust.bc.ca/programs/islands-2050/ or local Trust offices. The survey deadline is Feb. 2. 

The TPS will next be considered by Trust Council members at their  March 10-12 meeting.

BC Ferries has released a “what we heard” report summarizing the company’s Salt Spring Island engagement for the Crofton and Vesuvius terminal upgrade projects — a 90-minute event with a dozen participants.

And despite assertions the Dec. 2 session at Harbour House was an opportunity for the ferry company to inform the public of its plans, that handful of islanders clearly came with the idea they would be heard as well. 

From 12 participants, according to BC Ferries, “key themes” included homeporting concerns — plans to keep both of what will soon be two vessels overnight on the Crofton side, a change that has met with strong opposition from the community — as well as worries the ferry company was insufficiently prioritizing local traffic over tourism. 

BC Ferries said there were questions “outside of the project scope” of the engagement session, and so provided “consolidated” responses Thursday, Jan. 16, which were emailed to the 64 people currently subscribed to the project’s occasional newsletter. 

Ridership data show the ferry company carried 309,708 passengers and 180,912 vehicles on the Crofton-Vesuvius route last year.

On the issue of prioritization, the ferry company said its system is not designed to screen passengers based on where they live or their reason for travel, and that as a publicly funded part of B.C.’s transportation system it strives to serve “broad public interest” and meet the needs of all travellers.

“Prioritizing residents or certain types of travel could improve service for some users, but it would reduce access for others,” according to the engagement summary report response. “Tourism operators and business owners have raised concerns that limiting visitor access could negatively affect local economies and people travelling to see family and friends.”

BC Ferries has neither enumerated that feedback, nor said from what businesses — or from what part of its service area — those concerns were raised. 

Along with its responses, BC Ferries included several paragraphs explaining the intended nature of the engagement session, which it said was framed around the IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation’s “inform” level; IAP2 is a professional organization that accredits and trains engagement facilitators. The “inform” level of engagement, according to that organization, has the least impact on a decision being made within the spectrum.

The ferry company said it expects construction to begin mid-2026 and be completed by early 2027. 

For updates  visit bcferriesprojects.ca.

Permitting for construction projects within the electoral areas will soon be more straightforward, according to Capital Regional District (CRD) officials, but projects valued at over $1 million will see slightly higher fees — unless it’s for affordable housing.

Starting in March, building permits for the Salt Spring Island, Southern Gulf Islands and Juan de Fuca electoral areas will be issued through a simpler scheme that’s something of a prix fixe arrangement: the permit fee will now be inclusive of fees for demolition, plumbing and fireplaces.

In the past, builders seeking those permits would calculate and submit each based on variables such as the measurements of a demolition area or the number of plumbing fixtures, adding that to a permit fee derived from a table within the CRD bylaw. 

Building inspections manager Calvin Gray said the system was a response to building industry concerns the current system was confusing; the intent was not to raise fees, although he admitted many projects will cost more to permit under the new scheme.

“We expect some changes depending on the construction value,” Gray told directors at the CRD’s Electoral Areas Committee meeting Wednesday, Jan. 14. “For smaller projects, the permit fees will actually be lower than what we presently charge; in bigger projects — more than a million [dollars] — they will actually be slightly more.”

Every project will begin facing a flat $300 non-refundable application fee, followed by a permit fee of 1.4 per cent of the construction value of the proposed work. Changes also include extending the permit period from two to four years and the permit activation period from six months to one year.

“That allows owners and builders more time to get financing, place orders and line up their trades,” said Gray.

Also included in the bylaw amendment is a reduction of permit fees by 50 per cent for affordable housing projects — specifically multi-unit residential projects with five or more units. The bylaw does not define “affordable,” but clarifies an “affordable housing unit” in the context of the new structure must be owned and operated by a non-profit or government organization for the purpose of providing “below market housing” — or, if a project is privately held, the owner is encumbered by a binding agreement to do so. It also must be subject to a separate housing agreement with a government agency restricting use of the units to “affordable or below market” housing. 

CRD staff forecasted an approximately one per cent reduction in revenue resulting from those half-price permits, which they expect will be well offset by an anticipated five per cent increase as a result of a new minimum $300 “information request” fee. 

The new bylaw also gets more specific with potential penalties for contravening it; where language in the old bylaw set a cap of $10,000 in fines, the new one lays out a mandatory minimum of $1,000 and a maximum of $50,000 — and notes each day an offence continues constitutes a separate offence, each subject to its own penalty.

A communications plan will help the bylaw amendments be “understood and socialized” before the bylaw comes into effect March 1.