Controversy has dogged the Trellis Seniors Services long-term care project since it was announced on June 1 of last year, and its bumpy ride through the District of Sechelt rezoning application process has been no exception.
On June 7, Trellis president Mary McDougall wrote a sharply worded letter to Sechelt mayor and council expressing her company’s disappointment with the district’s handling of its application. She claimed there had been “misinformation” and unnecessary delays by planning staff. In the vernacular, Trellis was getting the royal runaround.
“Our application is complete and we have been ready for over four months to discuss the specific rezoning considerations,” McDougall sums up. “It is unfortunate that staff have worked in isolation when a collaborative approach is efficient and productive, and it is this approach that we and many developers experience with other B.C. municipalities.”
Council, meanwhile, had decided to put the Trellis application on hold in order to “further develop policies regarding long-term care.”
While council members have denied being obstructionist, the lack of progress on the Trellis file has no doubt been good news to opponents of the project, who collected 10,000 signatures earlier this year and had them presented in the legislature by MLA Nicholas Simons. Their issue is with replacing the publicly owned and operated Shorncliffe and Totem Lodge with a privately owned and operated facility.
With the project stalled and an NDP government in power, the outlook for Trellis appeared very grim indeed. That is, until this week when the Town of Gibsons extended a lifeline to Trellis by agreeing to sell the company a property on Shaw Road for $2.24 million.
If the new proposal goes forward, Gibsons will end up with two long-term care facilities and Sechelt will have none. Sunshine Coast families with loved ones in care who live north of Wilson Creek will be adversely affected, with longer travel times likely meaning fewer visits. The district itself will lose out in terms of tax revenue, jobs, economic spinoffs and social benefits, which will all migrate to Gibsons.
Opponents of the Trellis project will lobby the new NDP government to cancel the deal between Trellis and Vancouver Coastal Health, but whether that can happen, as Simons admitted earlier this month, is in question.
In hindsight, it may well be said that Sechelt council was too smart for its own good.
