The public is encouraged to weigh in on the provincial government’s exploration of potential ways to integrate local services and gover-nance in Greater Victoria – until the deadline of Dec. 15.

They are using a virtual open house model as part of the Capital Integrated Services and Governance Initiative announced by the govern-ment last June 1. It uses the PlaceSpeak platform at www.placespeak.com/CISGI.

The consulting team from Urban Systems and Circle Square Solutions has dis-cussed the initiative with the 13 municipal councils and the Capital Regional District (CRD) directors. Fact sheets describing how 16 individu-al local government service areas are currently delivered have been prepared and can be viewed on the Place-Speak site. These include Water Services, Transporta-tion, Solid Waste Manage-ment, Sewer Services, Po-lice Services, Government Administration, Housing,

Emergency Dispatch and others.

“The PlaceSpeak web-site will allow for a broader review and discussion of these services and will equip the consulting team with the information needed to pro-vide local governments with potential opportunities for integrated services and gov-ernance,” said lead consul-tant Dale Wall, who has 25 years experience in govern-ment administration includ-ing three years as deputy minister of Community De-velopment and seven years as assistant deputy minister

of Local Government.

“The final report will be avail-able in early 2017.”

The website makes clear what the provincial govern-ment’s initiative is – it is about establishing facts about current service delivery and governance, identifying and discussing the issues, and gathering information about other jurisdictions.

“It is not an amalgamation study; it is not a detailed service review; it is not a detailed financial or capi-tal expenditure review,” the website states.

Community Minister Peter Fassbender was to address the Greater Victoria Cham-ber of Commerce on Dec. 1 (after Saanich Voice Online’s print deadline). His topic was billed by the Chamber as “Hear Minister Fassbender speak on a new report re-garding CRD governance and services.” However, the report will be drafted after the public consultation ends on Dec. 15 and is expected at the end of January, his of-fice confirmed to SVO. The minister was to speak to the “process” on Dec. 1.

When the consultants were announced last June 1, Fassbender said local gov-ernments will make their own decisions about inte-grated services and gover-nance. The provincial gov-ernment’s initiative was to gather facts and facilitate dialogue. “The province will not impose an outcome,” he said, adding that “local governments in the region will decide on next steps,” after the consultants report comes out.

December 2016 ISSUE 06-12

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Nestled between marinas on the downtown Sidney waterfront you’ll find one of the Peninsula’s best-kept and enchanting secrets, Shoal Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary.

The sanctuary was founded in 1931 and is one of the oldest migratory bird sanc-tuaries in Canada along with its sisters Victoria Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary (1923) and Esquimalt Migra-tory Bird Sanctuary (1931).

This year marks the centennial of the conven-tion between Canada and the United States for the protection of migratory birds and Saanich Voice Online caught up with busy co-founders of the Friends of Shoal Harbour (FOSH), Sue Staniforth and resident biologist Kerry Finley, to find out more about this local gem.

The Canada-United States Migratory Birds Convention

came about when it was noticed that bird populations were declining as a result of habitat destruction, and fashion and food consump-tion. There were no regula-tions in place to limit kills or protect fragile habitats at the time so Canada and the US came together to create the regulations need-ed. Over the years Mexico, Japan and Russia have all joined in this collaboration.

Migratory bird sanctuaries

like Shoal Harbour may be lovely places to walk and meditate, and there is so much more going on.

You’ll find a demonstration garden of native plants at Roberts Bay cultivated by the Tseycum First Nation and a local native plant group. Local school stu-dents learn about native and invasive plant species. as they help keep the sanctu-ary free of invasive species.

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S H O A L H A R B O U R : M A K I N G B I R D S F E E L AT H O M Eby Sue Stroud, citizen reporter

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Saanich Voice Online (SVO) is a monthly publication covering people, events and issues in Central and North Saanich, Saanich and Sidney. Our writers and photographers are citizen journalists adding their voices to the community’s conversations. Articles and comments appearing in SVO are opin-ions of the writers and do not represent the official position of SVO. You’ll find SVO in over 100 locations throughout Saanich and the Peninsula and online at www.saanichvoiceonline.ca. We’re always looking for citizen journalists and sup-portive advertisers, so please be in touch if this interests you. Local independent media needs YOUR support. Write to: editor@saanichvoiceonline.ca

SHOAL HARBOUR MIGRATORY BIRD SANCTUARY CONT’D

The older students are also involved in habitat and spe-cies mapping while local plein-air painters like Farrell Boyce and photographers like Suzanne Huot use the space for inspiration.

And, if you’re lucky, you might find Finley counting Bufflehead ducks and re-cording changes in their migration patterns as they return from their favoured summer feeding and breed-ing grounds in the interior of BC. “This is my 20th year of continuous monitoring and the 17th year I have followed them from their breeding sites to the sanc-tuary,” explains Finley.

Keeping the sanctuary safe is an unending task. There are four marinas in and about the sanctuary and although in practice they are fairly green, occasion-ally someone will bring up the subject of dredging. “The pressure to dredge for additional marina space is enormous,” says Staniforth who serves as the chair of FOSH. She goes on to ex-plain that such activity would kill the mud shrimp and the tiny green zooplankton, which make up part of the 63 species of birds’ diets. Housing developers have shown interest in expand-ing into more fragile areas, taking down trees and thus

reducing nesting areas and driving away the insects that the birds feed on.

While you might think oil spills from the marinas would be the most serious concern, it’s actually run-off from the land with its gar-den fertilizers, pesticides, and building waste that is a more frequent problem. A spill entering the ocean from Mermaid Creek was traced to a household pe-rimeter drain, doing serious damage in 2012. This spill served to alert local munic-ipalities who erected signs to encourage the immediate reporting of spills in any of the local creeks.

Local conservation and stewardship groups such as FOSH, Peninsula Streams, Shorekeepers and Habitat Acquisition Trust work with all levels of government to protect the area and to gar-ner funds for needed ongo-ing water quality testing. But if you ask Staniforth about the best way to protect the sanctuary she’ll tell you it’s outreach. “You have to reach the people, let them know it’s there, teach them what its function is. We try to do this through inspiring and celebratory events like All Buffleheads Day, the kay-ak tour this past spring and The Great Canadian Shore Cleanup. Getting people in-

volved is the key.”

“The Bufflehead ducks,” Staniford says, “are like the famous swallows of San Capistrano. They have al-ways returned on the same day – October 15 – which is the 298th day of the year, so we celebrate their return. They are the smallest diving ducks, but they have the biggest feet and they like to nest in woodpecker holes.” Staniford is a marine biolo-gist who was studying large marine mammals when she became part of the Citizens Coalition for Conservation group, which morphed into the FOSH.

A new initiative is underway called the Urban Sanctuar-ies Project, a promotional project initiated by FOSH and supported by the Rob-ert Bateman Centre, Nature Canada and Jacques Sirois of the Victoria Harbour Mi-gratory Bird Sanctuary. “The public is definitely more aware of the sanctuaries, but as new people arrive we have to keep that in-terest growing, we have to increase awareness of what local habitats mean to mi-gratory birds,” says Finley.

“We are also working with UVic Environmental Law Centre on creating new leg-islation regarding develop-ment along the waterfront. This involves many overlap-

ping jurisdictions that gov-ern such diverse things as federal airspace and wildlife trees. We’ll be trying to help Environment Canada live up to our environmental stan-dards,” explains Finley.

“The other thing that is not often mentioned are the so-cial and health benefits that people derive from having wildlife and wildlife habitat surrounding them, and in this we are deeply blessed,” says Finley. He’ll tell you that what inspires him most is the fact that you can walk off a BC Ferry and be right in the heart of some of the rarest bird ecosystems on the planet.

Shoal Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary encompass-es 150 hectares of coastal marine environment. The stunning array of wildlife that it serves safe harbour to are probably best viewed from the nearby Resthaven Park. The next time you go for a walk in the naturehood give some thought to the effort and dedication behind this magnificent treasure. You might even consider con-tacting the Friends of Shoal Harbour, attend one of their meetings and lend your support.

And if you’re really lucky on your next visit, you might even see an eagle take an old merganser – for lunch.

Saanich Peninsula

Come on out & meet some like-minded

people for a pint, a chat, and hear a speaker.

The Waddling Dog Last Tues of the month 5:30-7:30 pm

by Michele Murphy

If your home is located in such a place that you’re not spending money on trans-portation to get to work, school, or amenities, then your housing is just that much more affordable.

Affordability is the word of the day, especially when it comes to the biggest ex-pense faced by most of the families in the Capital Region – housing. With the recent release of the Saan-ich Peninsula Affordable Housing Needs Assess-ment it’s become clear that affordable housing is not just a downtown problem. SVO continues our conver-sation with Saanich and the Islands MLA and affordable housing advocate Gary Holman about the situation on the Peninsula.

The affordability needs as-sessment was done by housing research expert and (now) Executive Director of the Community Social Plan-ning Council, Marika Albert. It was overseen by an advi-sory committee comprised of Christine Cullham, man-ager of CRD Regional Hous-ing, Gauthier Holman with representatives from each of the municipal councils.

What the study revealed is that almost 8,000 people on the Peninsula are consid-ered housing insecure.

“It’s clear that something needs to be done. More

affordable housing needs to be introduced on the Penin-sula,” says Holman.

While housing is being built, it’s not necessarily enough nor the kind of housing that will make a significant differ-ence in the affordability cri-sis. Over 600 housing units have been built on the Pen-insula in recent years but most of these are ownership units and affordable only for higher income households. And even though the three municipalities have contrib-uted over $1 million to the CRD Housing Trust Fund to help build affordable hous-ing throughout the region, none of that funding, until very recently, has gone to the Peninsula. But Holman says that this situation is starting to shift.

Sidney Council has just ap-proved a 56-unit affordable housing project, and sever-al more in other Peninsula municipalities are planned or proposed. The Sid-ney project, being built by the Greater Victoria Rent-al Development Society (GVRDS), has established a possible model for others to follow. Through munici-pal incentives in the form of density bonuses, tax relief, parking variances, plus se-nior government funding, truly affordable rental hous-ing is being created that will remain affordable over time because of a housing agreement placed on title.

The GVRDS project in Sid-ney will help to establish a useful benchmark for mu-nicipalities considering de-velopment proposals.

But who and how to build affordable housing isn’t the only issue, where it’s built will makes a difference too.

Holman, an economist by background, believes that housing agreements are the key to ensuring affordability over the long term and that simply building more market housing without covenants to keep them affordable won’t improve the situation.

The needs assessment indi-cated that while the Penin-sula has about 10% of the Capital Region’s population, it only has 5.6% of the so-cial housing stock. Holman feels that the Peninsula needs a permanent stock of affordable housing, partic-ularly rental housing, to di-rectly benefit low and mod-est income families, workers and seniors, but also to sta-bilize overall market housing prices and rents.

An often-overlooked aspect of the affordable housing is-sue is the role of settlement patterns and public tran-sit. “Keeping communities compact and within walking distance to services and jobs is essential to preserve the rural areas of the Penin-sula,” says Holman. Building affordable housing in or near villages, commercial, and

industrial areas can help to prevent urban sprawl which helps to support improve-ments in transit, reduc-es traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions, and enhances affordability. “If you don’t have to drive your car as frequently, or even better, can give up your car because you can easily walk or take the bus to shopping and work, it reduces your costs and in-creases your disposable in-come,” notes Holman.

Housing in or near commer-cial and light industrial areas is happening in all major cities in an effort to bring homes and work closer to-gether, again. Holman be-lieves our goal should be to build housing in or near al-ready developed areas, not to apply a “quota” to each municipality. He explains “Each municipality makes its own contribution to the landscape – forests, agri-cultural land, riparian areas are treasures that must be protected for a whole num-ber of reasons, not just aes-thetic. In the future, these lands will become even more precious. The good news is that by applying smart growth principles, the development of affordable housing does not have to conflict with preserving the very special, rural nature of the Peninsula.”

Go online for the complete article

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