This past week (April 3,4,5,6 2018) in Cowichan Bay the Cowichan Valley Regional District (henceforth, simply CVRD) hosted a Design Charrette with the purpose of bringing various stakeholders together to determine challenges in our community and begin to arrive at some solutions.
Most people that I’ve talked to did not know the meaning of the word “charrette” and had to look up its meaning in a dictionary or on the internet. It seems like it is a common word in the industry of Urban Planning. The use of this word and the surprise given to its unfamiliarity to most attendees is indicative of the bubble that both the CVRD and their hired consultant are living and working in.
Nevertheless. An uncommon word is not a problem. The bubble is a problem and the surface of this bubble, it seems to me, is made up of two related assumptions:
1) The structures in Cowichan Bay will require expensive replacement in the coming years
2) The expense will be high enough that both more residents and also more tourists/visitors are needed such that business owners can survive in the face of increased rents.
Parking is already an issue in Cowichan Bay and so much of the presented design focused on this. Ideas of short-term only parking within the village core with longer-term parking moved to the boat ramp parking in Hecate Park seems like a good idea – though one that many people will need to get used to. Other ideas of visitor shuttles via both land and water sound good, but I question how much these would be used in practice and how these shuttles would fare businesswise.
Of course, increased numbers of residents on both sides of the street (it’s important to the consultant to use the word “street” instead of the word “road” or worse “highway”) and the increased numbers of tourists/visitors will further aggravate the parking problems. The parking idea of carving 3 story structures into the hillside and paying for this expensive proposition with condominium sales on the second and third levels is cute, but it won’t be housing for low or medium income people. Similarly, the replacement structures on the water side of the street may have condominiums on the upper levels. I would not expect these to be low income housing – to say the least.
Other suggestions involve building a large breakwater encircling all of the marinas of Cowichan Bay with a walkway on top with places for looking and fishing. The consultant says the fish can be brought back so that there is something to catch. I assume he was being lighthearted.
In order to brighten up the village and make it more attractive to tourists and visitors, a design guide is recommended. An architect could be made available to to help people comply with the design guide even down to the detail of colours. It seems to me that the CVRD wishes a high degree of control in Cowichan Bay. Despite their catchphrase “funky not junky”, an eclectic neighbourhood is not born out of regulation and design guides.
Solutions that come from developers always involve more development. I’ve been told that canadian municipalities are primarily interested with increased development and this seems to be true of the CVRD. We need to ask ourselves if the underlying assumptions that I perceived are true and even if they are true what we can do to ensure that our existing businesses and residents have a healthy and happy place to call home. It makes no sense to me to build a new village to help the people here and yet use a plan that will inevitably price most of us out of the village.
The Charette process is alleged to have cost the CVRD around 140,000 dollars.
It appears that the future of Cowichan Bay and the development of Cow Bay are synonymous, at least in the belief of the local politicians and the businesses they support. As you point out the regular `Joe’ or `Jill’ won’t have an effective voice.
Planning meeting, this council trying to confuse people or perhaps intimidation is the order of the day.