The Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) will strike a new affordable housing committee, but board members want to see results.
The SCRD planning and development committee begrudgingly accepted terms of reference for the committee on Jan. 13 after several directors raised concerns that such a committee would cost taxpayers money, but wouldn't likely result in the construction of affordable housing.
"What you've done here is created a love-in session. It's nothing more than a session where a bunch of well-intentioned people are going to get together to pass the time talking about how great it might be to have some affordable housing -whatever the hell that means," said Gibsons Mayor Barry Janyk. "This is crazy. You can't do it this way. I don't see this working at all. Until I can see where the bricks and mortar are going to come out the back end, I'm sorry, I don't think this thing is going fly in the Town of Gibsons if we can't see how it's going to work."
Roberts Creek director Donna Shugar countered that while a previous affordable housing feasibility study recommended that the SCRD not form a housing corporation citing overwhelming costs, a group meeting to co-operatively produce new ideas for the board would be appropriate.
"Eventually maybe we will end up with an organization that will do the bricks and mortar or come up with the grant to do the P3 or whatever it is, but if we don't have a committee like this, we're all just working by ourselves," Shugar said.
After making some changes to the terms of reference to include direction to produce "deliverables," more information on financing and a one-year timeframe, the committee did accept the terms.
Cottage Farm
The SCRD has received a deluge of letters from Langdale residents voicing opposition to Cottage Farm's proposed therapeutic community in the area.
Directors had only just received the letters prior to the start of the meeting, but passed a resolution to contact Cottage Farm's board of directors to check in on plans for the project in light of the fact that the province will soon be opening a mental health care facility at Kiwanis Village in Gibsons.
