“They came, they got angry and they left,” MLA Nicholas Simons said last Saturday, summing up the reception in Pender Harbour to a long-awaited draft dock management plan for the area.
An estimated 400 people crowded into the Pender Harbour Community Hall for an open house on the draft plan, which sets out four zones, including a “red zone” where no new dock tenures would be issued once a moratorium on new dock construction that’s lasted almost 12 years has been lifted.
Concerns ranged from the impact of the plan on property values, the status of docks that have never had tenures, the inadequacy of a 30-day comment period, and the exclusion of the community from the process of developing the plan, which was the result of more than a decade of negotiations between the province and Sechelt (shíshálh) First Nation.
“I think the community has certainly felt left out,” Frank Mauro, Sunshine Coast Regional District director for Egmont/Pender Harbour, said in an interview.
“This has been a long process. It’s been ever since 2002 or so that this moratorium has been on again, off again, and the community’s kind of unsure where things are going.”
Mauro said he had some concerns about the proposed red zone (designated as Zone 1) that includes Gunboat Bay and Oyster Bay and the west side of Francis Peninsula.
“In particular there’s old-time residents here that have built docks before tenures were even conceived of and they’ve never bothered to get tenures,” Mauro said. “It would seem inappropriate for those people to be thrown off because of something they didn’t do that wasn’t required when they installed it. In my mind, that’s an issue.”
Kevin Haberl, one of seven provincial government officials fielding questions at the open house, said he “picked up a lot of concern from the public,” including some expected concerns over the proposed zones.
Haberl, who is acting regional director of authorizations for the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, confirmed that under the current draft plan some docks in Zone 1 would face removal.
“In Zone 1, if there’s docks that have been built illegally and have never had a tenure, the draft plan that we have today would not accept those docks and they would have to be removed,” he said.
He added, however, that docks serving properties with water access only “would have to be considered, for sure,” and that he hoped none of the more than 300 docks in the management plan area would have to be removed.
“Seeing where the plan goes from here, I’m hoping we can issue tenures to all of the long-suffering folks who have been trying to get a tenure from us for all these years and have been delayed. There’s over 300 — I’m hoping we can get them all tenured.”
Sechelt Nation councillor and hereditary chief Garry Feschuk (?ákístá), who attended the event with two of the band’s directors, said he heard “a lot of good questions that came from all of the residents and I think we can incorporate some of their comments” into a revised draft.
Laying out a step-by-step process would “go a long way in removing the confusion of what exactly has to happen once they make an application,” Feschuk said.
“The intention is just to protect the cultural and ecological values to the area, not having to remove the docks, but to have them done to a standard that’s acceptable to the band, the government and the area.”
Construction and maintenance requirements under the draft plan appear to be consistent with existing standards in the province, Mauro said. “I don’t see anything that’s particularly onerous, based on the guidelines province-wide.”
While Mauro and Simons both said they would ask the province to extend the May 11 deadline for comments, others took a much harder line.
Former SCRD director Jane Reid said she rejected the entire plan and thought it should be scrapped.
“I absolutely oppose this entire process. I feel it was non-inclusive,” said Reid, who was Area A director from 1992 to 1998.
“I personally believe, and so do many others, that any acceptance of this plan today is an acceptance that this territory belongs to the SIB. This territory does not belong to the SIB until it is deemed by a Supreme Court justice that it does,” she said.
While Reid said she would “not greatly” be affected by the plan because of her dock’s location, she added there is “probably a lot of mistrust for any plan” in the community because “once a plan like this is adopted, we all know that many amendments can be made.”
Resident Tom Sealy echoed that view, saying a future chief and council could have a different agenda, and residents would have no recourse at the ballot box.
“There’s a lot of things that are really uncertain,” Sealy said. “I’ve even lost sleep over this, believe it or not. Me and my wife have both lost sleep over it.”
On the plan, Sealy said it would be “really, really bad for people who’ve owned property for a long time and find out they can’t have a dock,” and noted there’s “a lot of money involved.”
Simons acknowledged the anger and frustration expressed by many residents, and said he’ll be asking the government some of the same questions, including how the zones are defined, what succession rights would be permitted and the costs associated with the new rules.
“I think there’ll be more meetings for people to provide input. Whether people are satisfied with the process at that point remains to be seen,” Simons said.
Under the draft plan, the area designated as Zone 2 would limit tenures to multiple-use or commercial docks. It encompasses virtually all islands in the plan area and the foreshore between Joe Bay and Duncan Cove, plus most of the south shore of Francis Peninsula.
Zone 3, which includes Bargain Bay and Lee Bay, would allow new dock tenures of all types, but only if the project footprint does not overlap with critical habitat, while Zone 4 would allow dock tenures of all types in central Pender Harbour, provided they are consistent with the dock plan.
The dock plan would not apply to applications for replacement tenure, except in cases where no archeological assessment or approved management plan had been completed.
Speaking to a group of residents during the open house, Haberl cautioned, “This is very much a draft, so I hope people in Pender Harbour don’t run out and start hiring engineers and doing a bunch of work this summer.”
After a final draft is approved and a policy is in place, Haberl said, the province “will be able to roll over and renew, especially this first round, without having everyone go out and do that.”
The province, he said, would not share lease revenue from tenures with Sechelt Nation under the draft plan.
“Not at this time, no.”
The plan could be implemented by fall.
