Losing Access to Stotan Falls

As recently reported in the newspaper, 3L Developments Inc. (LeMare Lake Logging) is planning to close, on January 15, a portion of Duncan Bay Main which would affect access to Stotan Falls, from Forbidden Plateau Road and of course traffic along Duncan Bay Main between Forbidden Plateau Road and Comox Logging Road.

On their website, 3ldevelopments.com names this project “Riverwood”. It is described as proposing about half or 215 acres of proposed development to become parkland/green space. Development includes 618 lots for single family homes, 9 acres for patio homes, walking, hiking and biking trails, river access for kayaking, canoeing, swimming and fishing. There is also reference to sustainable practices to be incorporated.

There are certainly concerns with this size of development and its location beside Stotan Falls and where the Browns and the Puntledge rivers meet.

Will the intention be that where there now is “public access” to some of this area, will this access be cut off?  Will certain enjoyment of this area be available only to individuals living in the new-to-be developed residential area? 

On their website they state that they are protecting fish spawning channels and hiking trails. Will that really be the case?  Under private ownership what obligations do they really have and for whose benefit?

 A partial way to deal with these concerns would be for the owners of the property to donate enough property bordering the Browns and Puntledge Rivers for public use.  This donated land could become a park perhaps along the lines of Roy Morrison Nature Park.  Also, this donation could take place in the not too distant future.

Developers can turn essentially cheaply acquired (i.e. low cost) raw land into very valuable real estate through rezoning and development applications.  Our local elected officials often are more than eager to make this possibility a reality.

 In a little less than a year there will be local elections.  Now is the time for locally registered voters to start thinking about who will be best to serve them at the start of the next term.  There seems to be more interest shown in making the Comox Valley more sustainable in the future.  Perhaps a coordinating group of various environmental organizations should form, call themselves the “Sustainability Coalition” and endorse future candidates that meet the appropriate sustainability guidelines?

Read more at their site: http://www.3ldevelopments.com

Courtenay Traffic de-Congestion Suggestions

Letter to the Editor:
Now that most of Courtenay's 17th Street bridge traffic flow improvements are nearing completion, consideration needs to be given to tackling the growing traffic congestion downtown. This became very evident by the long delays and lineups when Cliffe Avenue was confined to less than the normally available  three or four lanes.

Whatever the historical reasons are, we are now in a situation where much of the the regional traffic (that needs to go from one side of the Courtenay River to the other) finds itself crossing one of the two bridges. Now, the 5th Street bridge seems as busy as ever.  For practical purposes those are the only two options:

•  Adding additional lanes to the 17th Street bridge

                                               or

• building another bridge in downtown Courtenay 

Building another bridge will just encourage more traffic in the downtown or city centre area with all its related problems and at price tag that could easily exceed $ 10 million.

We need to look at ways to divert traffic away from the downtown Courtenay area.  I am talking about traffic that is "just passing through."

For example, an environmentally-sensitive causeway or tunnel could be built connecting the Courtenay Connector (29 th street) to Comox Road and with a road extending up to MacDonald.


 Also, there is no easy means to by-pass downtown Courtenay in the area north of the city. For example, consider the Inland highway exit at Strathcona Parkway to Mt. Washington and Dove Creek Road or the Piercy road exit. There a bridge could be built over the Tsolum River giving good traffic flow east-west linking Merville and area to both of these exits.

Most growing urban areas allow traffic to bypass their core areas because a good portion of the traffic has no intention of stopping and that is the case with Courtenay: otherwise there would need to be many more parking spaces built.  More traffic congestion results in more fuel being burned, higher risk of accidents, more time wasted.  Emergency vehicles would have more difficulty responding. Public transport, cyclists, electric bikes would all be affected too.

Thus it becomes an environmental issue as well.

Another Dilemma for Courtenay Homeless?

Recent action by Courtenay city council to threaten to enforce Maple Pool Campground to abide by their zoning restriction of not allowing year round permanent residents, is passing the buck: the Province no longer wants to continue to pay flood victim temporary relocation costs. However, flooding is usually viewed as a condition beyond most residents' control, regardless of zoning laws. Who can reasonably predict flooding and the extent of it? First of all, for Maple Pool management, to expose residents at lower levels to be at risk of getting flooded out suggests they should bear some responsibility in the event of flooding. Do they require the residents to sign a waiver in the event of flooding or supply some kind of warning of this possibility? What of BC Hydro last winter? Did they give proper and adequate warning prior to release of water and take proactive action in coordinating that process? Not just Maple Pool was flooded. Can the shoreline of the Tsolum River be built up in the flood prone areas sufficiently to provide some prevention and who should pay for that? Are some areas of the Maple Pool campground sufficiently high enough to allow rezoning for some permanent residents but allow the lower levels to remain zoned just for temporary residents? Recent political processes suggest that local governments are interested in addressing the aspect of homelessness but the decision of Courtenay Council, by being confrontative in the way they have done, suggests the opposite. Thus, we are faced with the question: 'In this situation, who will bell the cat?' Here are some clips of last year's flood: Letter to the Editor published in The Comox Valley Record Buck Being Passed Re Maple Pool Campground The Comox Valley Echo: Passing the Buck The Comox Valley Echo Here is an item from Maple Pool Owners.

What is Sage Hills Really Up To?

Letter to the Editor,

I read with interest Kip Keylock’s letter to the editor September 24 in a local paper regarding growth in the Comox Valley and Sage Hills. On page 5 of the document entitled “Regional Growth Strategies” published by the BC Government is a list of 14 provincial goals for RGS. In other words a regional governmental growth strategy is expected to conform to this list.

Let us see what Sage Hills themselves and Kip Keylock are saying about some of Sage Hills goals. On page 5 and page 20 of their (Sage Hills) December 16, 2009 to the RGS is the following statement: "Sage Hills is planned to open with 700 full-time (“permanent”) jobs, many of which are skilled/professional positions, placing Sage Hills as the 5 th largest employer in the Valley. As such Sage Hills will function as a significant employment and settlement node, and not just a residential development or subdivision." Kip states that "the initial estimates for student enrollment are 500-600 students". How is it possible for only 500-600 students to financially support the initial 700 (most likely high paying) skilled/professional jobs, pay off the huge capital it will take to build a university with all its infrastructure and housing units from scratch plus pay off the investors (it is a private for-profit undertaking)?

Kip states that Sage Hills “has modeled itself in part, after a successful Sports Academy in Bradenton, Florida.” That appears to be IMG Academies, a multi-billion dollar facility. One of Sage Hills' management team includes Peter Johnson, who “worked with Mark McCormack for 30 years to build IMG into the global sports business it is today.” I am not aware that any of the management team live close by. Also, their listed “project team of specialists” are based in Vancouver, Toronto and various cities in the United States.

Kip says “decisions must be made in order to keep any momentum going.” Who is the momentum for? There is plenty of momentum already going on elsewhere: Trilogy, Kensington Island Properties, Harbour View Landing, 300 new proposed homes on 73 acres between Fraser and Buckstone Roads, a 143 residential lot project at Saratoga Beach, Longlands and other smaller ones of course. Kip states that Sage Hills will “contribute greatly to our economy.” Translation: this will be a large project.

Will Sage Hills (or for that matter these other projects coming on stream) meet the Provincial goals for RGS: avoiding urban sprawl; settlement patterns that minimize the use of automobiles; the efficient movement of goods and people; protecting environmentally sensitive areas; maintaining the integrity of a secure and productive resource base; economic development that supports the unique character of communities; reducing and preventing air, land and water pollution; adequate, affordable and appropriate housing; adequate inventories of suitable land and resources for future settlement; protecting the quality and quantity of ground water and surface water; settlement patterns that minimize the risks associated with natural hazards; preserving, creating and linking urban and rural open space including parks and recreations areas; planning for energy supply and promoting efficient use, conversion and alternative forms of energy; and good stewardship of land, sites and structures with cultural heritage?

The bulk of the population at Sage Hills will be made up of international students and some short term contract personnel that will “turn over” and have no vested interest in being part of our community but will be of a somewhat transitional nature. Many of the jobs, because of the specialized nature of the facility, will be filled by outsiders.

The 2083 acres owned by Sage Hills near Royston currently are basically raw undeveloped land not zoned for such a large project. IMG academies only has about 400 acres in Bradenton, Florida for their large facility. North Island College, here in Courtenay, has over 5,000 registered students but only needs a few acres of land in which to accomplish that.

Why does Sage Hills need such a large tract of land? Will this be like having an American city created in our back yard?

*published in the Comox Valley Echo September 28, 2010 under "Opinions" and with the header of "Sage Hills: American City?"

Please see the preceding editorial: The Fools on Sage Hills

The Fools on Sage Hill

Letter to the Editor:

Sage Hills Development, (a wholly- owned subsidiary of IAC Independ- ent Academ- ies Canada Inc.) made a submission to the CVRD (Regional Growth Strategy) dated December 16, 2009 in order to persuade the committee to reclassify their project as “Compact Nodal Growth with New Settlement Areas.” Sage Hills took issue that the RGS consultants had classified Sage Hills as only “Compact Nodal Growth”.

There are several issues concerning the Sage Hills plans. The shear size of the project should be raising a number of concerns. They own 2,083 acres in the Royston area by the Trent River and the Inland Highway. From page 5 of their proposal: “Sage Hills is planned to open with 700 full time jobs.” On their website is mention of “3500 housing units.” These figures suggest a student population of 5,000-10,000. This suggests a community maybe more than twice the size of Cumberland or approaching the size of Comox or approaching half the size of Courtenay.

The development is planned for land that is currently undeveloped. There is no infrastructure in place. Imagine starting from scratch to build a city a little smaller than the size of Comox out of the ‘Sage Hills desert.’ On the subject of water, from their proposal: “Sage Hills takes the view that connections to existing systems and/or support for new, proposed systems is preferable.” However, just obtaining a permit to tie into the Cumberland water system has become a rare occurrence recently. Also, try to image where all the sewage and garbage will go in such a highly concentrated population.

There are 14 provincial goals for RGS including: “Avoiding urban sprawl and ensuring that development takes place where adequate facilities exist or can be provided in a timely, economic and efficient manner.” Currently there are other large projects that will be competing for currently scarce infrastructure resources: Trilogy, Kensington, the possibility of one at Longlands, each of which individually may build out 1,500 to 2,000 housing units (so times three) let alone other ongoing housing that will normally be built. Recently the number of housing units being built in the entire Comox Valley has been averaging about 500 per year. Now imagine what this will do with the already poorly designed traffic flows we now have--too much traffic funnels over the two bridges in Courtenay.

As an economic model Sage Hills doesn’t make a lot of sense either. >From their website: “Sage Hills is proposing the world’s only community destination integrating education and sports with a healthy balanced approach to living.” Becoming the only one-of-a-kind in the world suggests that it is unproven. Dr. David Strong, a former President of University of Victoria, founded Canada West University in Victoria as the first private, for-profit university in British Columbia. He is on the Development Team for Sage Hills. After a few years, in 2009, the Vancouver Sun reported that University Canada West had been losing $300,000 per month and was sold by David Strong to Eminata Group, who owns small colleges in Vancouver.

Also, the amount of money to be raised to build the housing, the facilities and infrastructure will be enormous. Just to build 3500 housing units, at, say, $ 125,000 each, would require $ 437 million-- and the available labour force, service and trades contractors will be very limited given all the other plans for proposed projects.

From the point of view of sustainability Sage Hills is a poor candidate. It is the “white elephant in the room.” There is no room for Sage Hills in the sustainability room. From an economic point of view it does not seem viable. How will the Comox Valley look both physically and politically, should a project of this size begin and not get finished?

Read the Follow-Up Editorial: What is Sage Hills Really Up To?

**image from http://www.imgacademies.com/all-about-us/around-the-world/vancouver-island/

**published in the Comox Valley Record on September 16, 2010 http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_north/comoxvalleyrecord/opinion/letters/103103584.html

Another Modest Proposal

Letter to the Editor:

There has been much discussion and criticism of the BC HST (a.k.a. ‘hated sales tax’). Most of the criticism is directed toward the Provincial government having misled the citizens as to the fact the it made a 180 degree turn in deciding to bring it in, especially so soon after having won the previous election and previously expressing that it wasn’t considering the HST. A second area of criticism is that there are about 25 % more items now taxed that weren’t taxed by the former PST. Other areas of concern include the unevenness of the application of the HST: lower income earners will receive an HST rebate that higher income earners will not receive; depending on spending habits some will be affected more than others; through the input tax credit aspect businesses, as a group, will save about $ 2 billion in costs; certain businesses will now have to charge a higher tax on revenue (previously it may have been zero or just 5 %, as in the case of restaurants) and this may negatively impact those businesses.

The option to rescind the tax and to go back to what we had (i.e. the PST) unfortunately, is not as simple as it sounds: The Federal Government is supporting the new HST to the tune of $ 1.6 billion; businesses have incurred a variety of expenses in switching over and it would be unfair to have them switch back; refunding HST already paid would be very difficult and expensive to do; the government is currently saving costs in not administering a PST division.

However, I have a modest proposal. The first step would be to totally eliminate the HST and not go back to the former PST tax system. This, I am sure would make many happy. However, we need to replace the taxes somehow. Well, the good news is that there are segments of society that currently do not pay taxes and we can learn on how to make them pay from what is done in other parts of the world.

Illegal drugs in BC are big business. The State of Tennessee taxes the possession of illegal drugs. According to CNN, “you have 48 hours to report to the Department of Revenue and pay your tax” on any illegal substance you purchase in Tennessee, after which you will get “stamps to affix to your illegal substance” which “serve as evidence you paid the tax on the illegal product.” Tennessee does not require any identification whatsoever to get the stamps, and “it’s illegal for revenue employees to rat you out.”

Taxes on cow flatulence have been proposed in several European countries in recent years, including Ireland and Denmark. The outcries for these taxes came on the heels of a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization study claiming that 18% of the greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming can be traced back to the unsavory “byproducts” of livestock. The Danish Tax Commission took it even further, estimating that “a cow will emit four tons of methane a year in burps and flatulence” while an average car emits just 2.7 tons of carbon dioxide during the same period.

Alternatively, perhaps a more practical way to satisfy the general taxpayer in BC is to lower the HST from 12 % to 10 %. The lower rate would offset those many extra items that we are now paying the extra 7 % on. Those businesses that have to charge higher sales taxes will see less of a negative impact. The BC government is touting the HST will create more jobs in the business community so a lower HST (i.e. lower tax revenue) will be made up by a more healthy economy generating more taxes in general.

____________________________________________________

Published as: Why not lower the HST or abolish it altogether? Ed Zirkwitz, The Nanaimo Daily News Published: Saturday, September 04, 2010

in the Victoria Times Colonist, August 30, 2010

WHO says? WHO says Canada is way down the List...

Letter to the Editor:

The headline for August 24, 2010 in a local newspaper read “Morale plunges at hospital say nurses.” Reading the details of the article left me unclear as to what “low morale” really means. How many nurses are demoralized and to what degree? Does that mean nurses are unable to provide good care because they are demoralized? Is this affecting other employees at the hospital? Are the patients suffering because of this?

We as patients and consumers pay through our taxes (about 40 % of the total provincial budget in BC) for what is becoming a very expensive and less than adequate system. In 2000 The World Health Organization ranked Canada as 30th among 191 member countries.

Last year Dr. Brian Crowley, the Founder and President of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies in Halifax, Nova Scotia, described the Canadian healthcare system this way:

“Canadian Medicare operates in an unregulated, tax-financed, pay-as-you-go model. Our provincial governments are our monopoly provider. They not only pay for necessary care, but they also govern, administer, and evaluate the services that they themselves provide. They define what we call “medically necessary services” and pay for 99% of all physician services. They also forbid the use of private insurance for medically necessary services. They set the budgets for nominally private healthcare institutions. They appoint the majority of their board members and have explicit power to override management decisions. Under these circumstances, no hospital or hospital administrator can be expected to take any responsibility or initiative because decisions will always be second-guessed by those in political power.”

Several years ago the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the healthcare system violates Quebec’s charter of rights because it collects taxes, promises healthcare in return, forbids competing suppliers and then often doesn’t deliver the care. The justices summarized the situation this way: “A place in a queue is not healthcare.”

WHO ranked France as number one. For starters, the French system is not what most Americans imagine, says historian Paul Dutton at Northern Arizona University, author of Differential Diagnoses: A Comparative History of Health Care Problems and Solutions in the United States and France. "Americans assume that if it's in Europe, which France is, that it's socialized medicine," he says. "The French don't consider their system socialized. In fact, they detest socialized medicine. For the French, that's the British, that's the Canadians. It's not the French system."

Don’t get me wrong. I am strongly in favour of the idea of a publically funded health care system. The problem we have in Canada is in the delivery and the accountability. We by and large have a monopoly that doesn’t and hasn’t responded to the needs of those it professes to serve for a long time.

I wouldn’t go as far as wanting the French or American versions. The fact remains that much of the health care delivery and services are done privately (naturopaths, acupuncturists, dentists, message therapists and many other practitioners). Health food stores are flourishing. Drug stores are selling many health products as well. This is an illustration that our publically funded system often treats the symptom (e.g. prescribing drugs) and and not often enough the cause. More focus on treating the cause would make us a healthier nation.

The infighting at our local hospital is the symptom. Maybe both sides can get at treating the cause.

________________________________________________

Published by the Comox Valley Record as Health monopoly ineffective August 31-2010