Hey everyone - I've been doing a lot of reading these days; most notably I've waded my way through the reports for the OCP Review. For those of you unfamiliar with the subject, the OCP is Salt Spring's Official Community Plan, and the Islands Trust are currently examining the plan to see if it still meets our needs. They've had focus groups working for several months to come up with recommendations, and now those recommendations are up for discussion before anything is passed into bylaws.
And wow. There are some very interesting changes proposed. Among them are plans to limit the sizes of homes on the island, increase setbacks on oceanfront land, institute a tourism tax, make moves to ban backyard burning, and possibly make it so any building project of any kind (including a new driveway, garage etc) on the island would need an environmental assessment. There are also changes recommended that will hopefully increase the amount of lower income housing on the island.
I think there are many good points in the proposed changes, and I think there are many extreme proposals that will unnecessarily burden islanders. There are also some ideas that will likely backfire and create the opposite effect they are hoping for.
The meetings to discuss the matter are starting tomorrow afternoon at 1pm at ArtSpring, and there are several more meetings scheduled in different locations on the Island in the coming week. I would highly encourage every islander to attend one or more of these discussions, to support what you think is a great idea, and to let them know in what ways you do not agree with it. These issues are complicated, and need clarification in several ways, and all of us are having a hard time understanding exactly how these changes will effect us. So come on out to these meetings, and let's figure this out.
See you there! - N
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