A Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI) right of way on Garden Bay Road, near the Meadow Creek bridge, has become home to four temporary residences. Sunshine Coast Regional District director for the area (Pender Harbour/Egmont) Leonard Lee stated that people have been living at the site for about two years despite the fact that long-term camping on a road right of way is not allowed. He said it is the province that needs to rectify the situation.
“I believe MOTI is attempting to resolve the issue but success is never guaranteed,” Lee stated.
Lee was not sure how many people live at the site but acknowledged the encampment has raised the ire of other area residents. Concerns about sewage, waste disposal and potential leakage from vehicles impacting nearby Meadow and Anderson Creeks, dangers that the encroachments on the right of way pose to road traffic, community safety and the precedent being set by allowing the temporary homes to remain there have been voiced to him as well as others, including MOTI, Vancouver Coastal Health and the RCMP.
“I don’t quite understand what people are expecting the SCRD to do," Lee said. "We are not like a municipality...regional districts don’t own roads or road right of ways… There is nothing the SCRD can do but lobby the appropriate agencies to take action.”
MOTI 'optimistic' a solution can be found
In an Oct. 21 email statement to Coast Reporter about the situation, a spokesperson for MOTI wrote, “people’s safety is our top priority – and we are aware of safety concerns regarding the encampments at this location. Right now, the focus is on connecting people in encampments with outreach and supports to find more suitable shelter and services.
“Ministry staff are working closely with Ministry of Attorney General and Ministry responsible for Housing, Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction and BC Housing to provide outreach and to find safer, more suitable housing options and supports.
“We are optimistic that government and the campers can work collaboratively to find more suitable housing and safely move the RVs and structures.”
Local spokesperson for Capilano Highways, MOTI’s road maintenance contractor on the Coast, Tyler Lambert said their offices have received “several complaints” related to the encampment but he declined to comment on whether it was a road safety concern. When asked if actions to address the encroachment on the right of way were planned, he said “we take our direction from the province on how we undertake our maintenance activities, and at this point [the encampment] has been brought to their attention, but we have not been provided with direction on how to proceed.”
MOTI has the ability under the Trespass and the Transportation Acts to have parked vehicles and other structures removed from provincial road right-of-ways.
BC Housing to visit the site
“We were recently made aware of individuals sheltering and living in RVs on Garden Bay Road near Pender Harbour, and we have a site visit planned to connect people with safe, indoor shelter or housing that is appropriate to their individual needs,” a spokesperson for BC Housing stated in an Oct. 26 email. No details on when that visit will take place were provided.
As for its record on addressing homelessness issues on the Sunshine Coast, BC Housing stated since 2017, it has opened 115 supportive homes locally.
“That’s 115 people who are no longer sleeping outside and have homes with 24/7 support services such as daily meals and connections to health care, life skills and employment programs… In that same time period, we have also opened 43 affordable rental homes on the Sunshine Coast for people with low to moderate incomes, and have 233 more in development,” the email detailed.
SCRD’s position
“The SCRD doesn’t have any authority whatsoever in that area. We can’t collect taxes to do anything about it, so we can’t assign staff to it either,” Lee stated, noting that he has met with the Pender Harbour Residents Association to hear their concerns and to provide information.
Lee, who was acclaimed to his second term as the area’s director on the SCRD Board in the recent local government elections, said advocacy work to seek a resolution to the situation is being done on a number of fronts. He said SCRD representatives “meet quarterly with MOTI and it has been brought up to them several times.”
He also noted that the situation was discussed when board members met with several of the appropriate ministers and senior RCMP staff during the 2022 Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) conference hosted in September. In Lee’s words, “They all say they will work with MOTI to try to resolve it, but there were no firm commitments.”
Since 2014, the SCRD through UBCM, which is the collective voice of BC’s local governments, has lobbied the province to give regional districts authority to regulate parking along roads in their areas. In 2019, UBCM adjusted its request to read “to either provide regional districts with the authority to enforce parking regulations within their boundaries or to adequately resource rural [RCMP] detachments to ensure that community safety issues related to illegal parking are addressed.”
MOTI’s response to UBCM in 2019 was that “Ministry staff are undertaking work on this issue.”
Asked for his assessment on having the encampment removed, Lee stated, “I believe those living there have been asked to voluntarily move, and have said no.” In his view “the only legal resolution is for someone to get a court order to move them out, and that becomes expensive... and of course, the responsible government agencies should be trying to find them places to move to. So it’s a tricky thing.”
Inaction spurs talk of incorporation
Area resident Jim McNeill has watched the encampment grow over the past two years. “There used to be one guy in there, then it was two….and it’s multiplied from there….They must have hung a sign out somewhere that read ‘Come to Garden Bay’,” he told Coast Reporter on Oct. 22.
A key concern for McNeill was that enforcement personnel from the variety of authorities involved aren’t getting a true picture of the encampment’s impacts. “They may come up to Pender between 9 [a.m.] and 3 [p.m.]… they should come up here around 8 o’clock at night and see what’s happening and how many people are in there” was his comment.
Along with the frustration over what he views as inaction by various levels of government, he also voiced concerns about the value Pender Harbour area property owners receive as part of the SCRD. In his opinion, “the SCRD has their hand out all the time and nothing really comes back. When it comes to tax base, maybe Area A should look at incorporation, again. We looked at it once, years ago, but maybe the time has come to look again.”
A referendum on incorporation of the Pender Harbour area to create its own local government outside of the SCRD was held in November 1999. It failed with 644 voters opposed and 535 in support.
