This was read out at the public hearing on October 19th, 2006. Since they imposed a 5 minute rule we were able to organize our committee members in a row so that one right after the other sections was read by Serge Planadin, Bula Hess and Lorraine Gallant.

Full credit to Sue Jackel for writing this paper pulling together all the committee thoughts and then some.

 

-- SilverBack Committee of the Sechelt Community Association Forum made up of the three east inlet associations and the Village and supported by the other member associations. --

 

Fifteen reasons for Sechelt Council to say,

 

                     Thanks, but no thanks  to Silverback                                                                   

 

 

  1. The sheer size of the Silverback development will overwhelm the existing neighbourhoods—1600 units compared to 500 for East Porpoise Bay, Sandy Hook, Tillicum Bay and Tuwanek combined. At peak occupancy Silverback will have upwards of 3000 residents--twice the population of Sechelt Village. Add in tourists, shoppers, golfers and visiting grandkids, with cars in proportion, and the numbers could double, especially in summer. There is no hope of “sensitive integration” of this behemoth into the surrounding community.  No other part of Sechelt—not even West Sechelt—has faced a transformation of this scale, in this timeframe. 

 

  1. A two-kilometre swath from Porpoise Bay Park to Sechelt Heritage Forest will become a year-round construction zone for the next 7 to 15 years. The developer insists he will burn all cleared material, affecting air quality throughout Sechelt.   Just who will upgrade and maintain Sechelt Inlet Road is still unclear, despite repeated questions by east-Inlet residents for whom this is their only road. There are safety concerns, and no clear answers on transit service, traffic control, bike lanes and pedestrian paths.  What is clear is that current residents’ quiet enjoyment of their property will soon evaporate, along with the rural sights and sounds they cherish.

 

  1. Nearly three quarters (1127) of the proposed l600 units will be condos in 4 and 6-storey buildings (maybe 12 storeys in future years), each with 50 to100 units, most crowded into a few acres near the water, some on recent fill.  The wetlands along the foreshore can’t help but feel the pressure of so many people; float planes will proliferate, but the herons will move on.  Porpoise Bay Provincial Park might as well close down, and the same goes for the hatchery.  No doubt “Silverback on Porpoise Bay” was picked to suggest serenity and unspoiled nature. Ask the shorebirds and the salmon what they think—False Creek on Porpoise Bay is more like it.

 

  1. Silverback properties will be unaffordable to the majority of current residents of the Sunshine Coast, where the median income is $7000 below the provincial average.  Thus there will be a marked divide in wealth and outlook between Silverback residents and the surrounding community.  Technically, it won’t be a gated community. Socially and psychologically, it will.

 

  1. Resort workers get paid resort wages. Some employees will be year-round, some seasonal. Where will the 350 workers at Silverback find housing they can afford?  Affordable housing that is integrated into the development is a requirement of Sechelt’s OCP and the East Porpoise Bay neighbourhood plan. The Silverback application proposes to donate a 4-acre parcel, 1% of the total site, to the District of Sechelt for someone else to build low-cost housing.  That doesn’t even begin to address the OCP requirements, much less the needs of the development’s own employees.  There is already a current and growing shortage of affordable housing in Sechelt.  Silverback will make it worse.

 

  1. Silverback will be marketed as vacation properties—“second, third or fourth homes,” according to the marketing script—aimed at buyers from Alberta, the U.S. and abroad.  Sechelt, of course, has a long history of vacation home ownership. Typically, weekender houses and cabins have belonged for decades, even generations, to families with Vancouver or B.C. connections. They have a history on the Coast and feel a stake in the community; many are retiring here year-round. Undoubtedly, some Silverback owners will become attached to the place and decide to make this their principal residence. For the majority, periodic visitors, the place and its people will have little meaning.  Sechelt will be another vacation experience, another consumable.

 

  1. The marketing plan also calls for fractional ownership and the placement of condos in a rental pool, revealing Silverback to be essentially a condo hotel.  Operated as such, the resort could accommodate 10,000-plus temporary residents annually, with cars to match.  Many will expect urban standards of infrastructure and services in the area; their expectations will distort the municipal agenda and put upward pressure on all our taxes. And don’t wait for quarter-owners or their tenants to join the volunteer fire department, help with school programs, visit housebound seniors, or get involved in any of the myriad volunteer and philanthropic activities that keep a rural community going.

 

  1. Recreation resort developments aren’t new, and neither are their impacts on the small towns or rural communities they take over. Ask old-timers in Canmore what happened to their town when Silvertip and Three Sisters moved in. The pattern in resort municipalities is predictable and unforgiving:  look at Vail, Aspen and Telluride in the U.S., as well as Whistler closer to home. Intrawest’s Joe Houssian  created the business model twenty years ago, and it has been much copied since. In this model, the recreational amenities act as loss leaders for the real money-spinner, real estate sales. Luxury accommodation becomes the town’s major economic driver, but pretty soon locals can’t afford to live there anymore—not just hairdressers and construction workers, but teachers and health care workers too. So they move away and become commuters. In the downtown, family-owned services and stores get hit by rising taxes and rents and are forced to sell out. They are replaced by upscale boutiques selling goods that middle- and lower-income residents don’t want and can’t afford. Even the intangible attributes of the town—the way people recognize and greet each other, the relaxed pace, the quirky characters—become commodities for sale.  The historic ocean community of Sechelt turns into the Resort Municipality of Sechelt.  Intrawest rules.

 

  1. Speaking of recreational amenities, Silverback is betting heavily on the attractions of its golf course.  Has anyone read the business news lately on the golf industry? Golf courses in the U.S. are closing at a net rate of 400 a year. Courses on the lower mainland recently reported shrinking memberships and rising losses. Local courses are operating well below capacity. Apparently, Late Boomers and Generation Xers prefer Frisbee and yoga to golf.  Moreover, futures analysts note that 2013 marks the year the last Boomers turn 49, signaling the end of the vacation-home frenzy. If these analysts are right, the market for golf-course-based resort developments isn’t sustainable, and investors know it. And if the golf course component of Silverback goes, what’s left?  More than a thousand pricey condos in a so-called “seaside village” on the shores of Porpoise Bay, created for tastes and income levels that are on their way out as we speak.

 

  1. With its appeals to investors, Silverback will create a huge pool of speculative real estate, introducing runaway price inflation and volatility to the local real estate market.  Property owners throughout Sechelt will find themselves drawn into an unpredictable global real estate market driven by fads from afar.  When Sechelt is no longer flavour of the month, a sudden flood of “for sale” signs in Silverback could blindside property transactions across the Coast. Even normal turnover rates in a 1600-unit development will noticeably distort the local market. Mortgage lenders and insurers will put the red flag on anything with a Sechelt address.

 

  1.  Strata councils in Silverback, whether one or many, will create a virtual mini-municipality—a shadow-government, as one critic calls these bodies as they operate in large Arizona and California developments.  Silverback residents’ allegiance will be split—primarily to their strata council, secondarily to Sechelt Council.  Even with the restrictions governing non-resident property owners, Silverback could have 2000 or so voters who, if roused by their strata boards, could seriously affect municipal votes on civic expenditures and other issues. Finally, their presence as a potential bloc vote is certain to make Council elections even chancier than they already are. All in all, Silverback represents a major threat to Sechelt’s established democratic culture and processes, and lays the groundwork for serious civic division and dissension.

 

  1. The development plan for The Terraces, which preceded Silverback on this site, included a fiscal and community impact study, assessing the development’s costs and benefits to the District of Sechelt and its current taxpayers. The study was part of the public record, and helped build support among neighbouring community associations for that project.  There is no such study in the Silverback plan. As the planner’s report acknowledges, “The full range of financial implications is unknown.” And again: “The impact of this scale of development on such services as fire protection, library, public recreation and health care has not been analyzed.”  Without a comprehensive and current impact study, how can residents assess the merits of this development? How can District staff expect to negotiate a development agreement that is fair and reasonable, if nobody knows the true costs? Sechelt residents and Council should see a comprehensive fiscal and community impact study, paid for by the developer but done by an independent consultant chosen by the District of Sechelt, before this application proceeds any further.  In its absence, this public hearing is premature.

 

  1. Also missing, in contrast to The Terraces, is a clear, concise summary of the Silverback proposal written for the general public.  Instead, there is Silverback’s 100-page development application, along with its stack of supporting studies, available only upon request from the planning department. But wait -- there’s also the planner’s report to Council, which weighs in at 36 single-spaced pages. How many people who have attended meetings on Silverback have read any of these? Clearly, Council’s current process for public consultation is not designed for an application of this size and complexity. At the very least, Council should require the developer to produce a concise, candid, accessible summary, and if he won’t, then find a staff member or consultant to do the job. Disseminate it widely and create opportunities for citizens to understand and debate it. Then and only then, hold a public hearing.  Again, this public hearing is premature.

 

  1. Sechelt Council has launched a visioning process, asking current residents what they want the town to look like in 2031.  Consideration of the Silverback bylaw should wait for the results of that process. If the people of Sechelt say that a condo resort hotel on Porpoise Bay is part of their vision, then Council can proceed with confidence.  Sending the Silverback bylaw forward for second and third readings before the visioning committee reports will say, in effect, that the committee is wasting its time, and so are Sechelt residents who are thinking of participating in the visioning exercise.  It will be too late; the horses will have left the barn.  For a third time: this public hearing is premature.

 

  1. Finally, it is clear from the pace of applications for small and medium-sized residential developments that Sechelt has another option, that of incremental, manageable growth over the next decade or more.  Infrastructure, community development, governance, environmental protection, economic diversification—these can all proceed hand-in-hand, without the displacements and distortions introduced by mega-projects such as Silverback. As Councillor Thirkell memorably said, echoed by Councillor Allan, it’s too much, too big, too soon.

 

In short, Silverback needs Sechelt, but Sechelt doesn’t need Silverback.  Council should consider the costs, and take a pass—or at the very least, give it the hoist until Sechelt residents have a clearer idea what impacts this development will have, and whether they want to embark on this new and hazardous path.  The decision on Silverback is far and away the biggest one this Council will make.  Make it the right one for Sechelt.

 

-- SilverBack Committee of the Sechelt Community Association Forum made up of the three east inlet associations and the Village and supported by the other member associations. --