The current Official Community Plan (OCP) focuses primarily on preventing an increase in density and the future plan should as well, past Islands Trust (IT) Trustee, Gail Lund declared at the Feb. 9 meeting of the OCP Volunteer Review Committee (VRC).

Lund said that this was an important consideration in meeting the IT “preserve and protect” mandate.

Lund agreed with the idea of a density transfer mechanism (moving the ability to build a dwelling from one lot to another) for the purposes of creating affordable housing, and thought that affordable housing should be subsidised. Lund said that legalising illegal suites would not necessarily make them affordable, noting that it was unlikely renters on minimum wage would find any housing for one third of their income.

Lund said that she would like the community to focus its housing efforts in the service of Gabriolans with physical and mental challenges. In making those provisions, she noted that ensuring subsidised housing is limited to those for whom it is intended would need some thought, as zoning can only be legislated for the kind of use a property may have, and not for who uses the property.

Lund thought that the OCP needed to take water and sewage issues for subsidised housing into consideration. She noted that due to some lagtime between new sewage and water treatment technology, and what regulations allow, some common sense solutions to these issues might not be possible.

Lund said that there was a population explosion in Gabriola in the 1970s, with many “independently-minded” people moving here to get away from urban problems. She noted that historically people have moved from more expensive and developed areas to less developed areas in search of a better and more affordable lifestyle. She noted the expanding bureaucratic exercise necessary to build on Gabriola, making it more difficult and expensive to build a house here, and said that the need to move to less expensive locales is “going to happen to our children too”.

Lund also said that whatever goes into the OCP must be enforceable, noting as an example that because there is no enforcement preventing the use of illegal suites, bylaws are now in place preventing toilets in workshops.

Lund also said that in the last OCP trustees had, against the planner’s wishes, made density provisions in the current OCP very specific. She noted that when the Province changed the forestry regulations, Gabriola had zoning while many others didn’t.

Lund said that the current pressure for housing is not going to be here in 50 years. She said: “I don’t want to pave Gabriola and put up enough housing for anybody who wants to live here (to deal with) a demographic anomaly (that will no longer be there) when the boomers are dead - and they’re going to die – they think they’re not, but they are”.

Meeting attendee Liz Ciocea said that when she moved to Gabriola, the provincial government would help people to buy homes by giving them second mortgages. She pointed out that sort of support was no longer available for young people.