Transcript: Council - 2026-09-21

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Prioritization, like existing. Capacity, We like to. Fill gaps and ctv. Of main. Are able to prioritize, which we will see in a moment here. So we've had a look over the next 20 years of infrastructure replacement needs. And so over that 20 year period we see that there's about 34 kilometers of pipe recommended for renewal. That's about 50% of the total network in Esquimalt. One of the good news stories here is that from a capacity perspective, the system's operating very well. About less than a kilometer of the network has been identified for upgrades due to capacity. The majority of this is coming from condition driven replacement needs, in particular under the existing conditions. So under Today's condition, about 27 km are identified as condition deficient or requiring upgrades because of condition drivers.

And within that 34km of pipe, 26km of main are informed by CCTV results, which gives us confidence in making that recommendation or determination. When we start to rely on age and material, there's a bit more variability and it's more of a proxy indicator for condition. But again, 26 km is triggered by CCTV records. In terms of what that means from a financial standpoint, that's about $130. 5 million over the 20 year time period. It's worth noting that the cost that you see there reflects full replacement of the pipe. In some instances other forms of renewal metrics might be applicable. So for example point repairs or lining a pipe might be applicable, but that's needed to be determined on a case by case basis. So conservatively, 130.

5 million is carried forward. When we look at that distributed that capital need over the next 20 years. What we've done here is priorities that have been identified under existing conditions, those have been evenly distributed over the first 10 year time period. So between years one to 10 and any priorities that were identified in the future scenario were distributed over years 11 to 20. We can see especially as we look at the gold colored bars there, that's representative of condition driven priorities and infrastructure replacement. And on that graph we also show the budget for stormwater spending. So it starts at 250,000 and increases by 250,000 until we reach 2 million in about year eight.

So one of the things that that shows us, if we continue on with that $2 million range, what that means is that we only are addressing around 13% of the projects that exist today, indicating quite a significant backlog, and that there would be over a 20 year time period, nearly 95 million in infrastructure deferral.

The other line that we see there, the 3. 6 million, that's the average annual lifecycle investment cost we chatted about earlier. And so if we were to do and look at an alternative scenario where we continue to invest annually by 250,000 until we reach the average annual lifecycle investment cost, the deferral amount over a 20 year time period reduces to about $83 million.

And that's just to say that even if we achieve the L key or the average annual life cycle investment cost, we're still be contributing or there would still be a backlog at an even more aggressive funding rate. All right, looking into stormwater quality. As I mentioned, stormwater asset management plans and master plans have traditionally been thought of a pipe capacity exercise. But communities are starting to integrate environmental and stormwater quality elements more routinely. And so as such has the township of Esquimalts. And so in the township and in the core area, the Capital Regional District takes on stormwater quality monitoring. They both collect, analyze and report on stormwater quality across a range of parameters that include physical properties, chemical and bacterial parameters.

And they submit that reporting once a year and with the exception or with the expectation there that the core area municipalities themselves are responsible for carrying out any remedial measures as possible. Although there is opportunity for collaboration with the crd. So when we take a look at those reports as part of this storm sewer asset management plan, we looked at the past four years of CRD stormwater quality data at the time of this analysis that went from 2013 to 2024.

In terms of Esquimalt's highest priority, that would be elevated levels of E. Coli. There's a few instances distributed throughout the township. Then other stormwater quality exceedances you can imagine, metals hydrocarbons are fairly typical of what you would see in an urban community. But there's still opportunity to make improvements related to those other parameters. As far as our recommendations, a large focus is on investigating and removing contamination sources. As you can imagine, that's a difficult task to do and often leads to additional sampling. But beyond that, there's also opportunities to renew prioritized infrastructure. So for example, those conditioned pipes that are presented both in this report from the stormwater system, but also on the sanitary side as well, there's opportunities for enhanced maintenance to improve stormwater quality.

That includes catch basin cleaning, for example, and street sweeping efforts. There's also opportunities to add treatment into the stormwater quality system to improve those measures over time. So that could look like oil and grit separators. It could look like adding policy or programs related to source control, especially on industrial commercial related areas. And then, perhaps most importantly, this emphasizes the need to allocate dedicated funding to addressing stormwater quality improvements. Moving on to operation and maintenance, we met with public works and they express that existing practices are largely reactive, focusing on elements like breaks, root intrusion, flushing, and that there is a greater desire to shift towards more proactive practices.

However, as you can imagine, as the number of capital projects that esquimalt might increase to deliver, also continuing to react to the reactive practices that are required in any community, trying to get more proactive in terms of operation and maintenance needs and then also advancing stormwater quality improvements.

That will be difficult with the current budget of around 430,000. And there's likely a need for additional resources on the operation and maintenance side as well. So summarizing what we have just heard from the capital program perspective and looking at the risk assessment results, the hydraulic modeling is telling us that the system is operating well with less than about a kilometer of pipes recommended for upgrade, but that there are significant condition triggers that indicate that current spending has historically not been enough contributing to a backlog.

And even with current budgets, that backlog is expected to continue to grow. On the operation and maintenance and stormwater quality front, there's still a little bit of further work that would need to be done to fully cost out and scope any proactive operation and maintenance related needs. Although funding is still expected or sorry, additional resources are still needing to be expected for that. And then lastly, on the stormwater quality front is really emphasizing the need for dedicated funding in order to address stormwater quality improvements. That wraps up everything we're happy to take. Questions.

Mr. Claire, do you have anything to add before I go to questions?

Nothing to add here for any questions.

All right, questions. Councillor Cavins, I have a couple.

One of them just came to mind. Source control. I'm just curious about when you're seeing the pollution levels that we're seeing at the outfalls, how much is there any way of quantifying how much of that is from the source control or versus failures in the system from cross contamination?

That's a difficult one. That would likely require more either monitoring at interim intervals, potentially upstream. So that's a difficult one to quantify at this point.

Like is it. Are we by spending this money on fixing the conditions of the existing pipes, are we likely to have a significant impact in that or is it is do we have to do both or I Guess if you fix the conditions of the pipes and we don't fix the source control, is it a moot point or do we. I'm just curious, is there one or the other that we want to be working on?

Yep, that's a good question. I think biggest probably bang for buck would be looking at the condition drivers, recognizing that those are deficient, but also acknowledging that this is both a stormwater issue as well as a sanitary issue as well, meaning not just the stormwater infrastructure, but also the sanitary infrastructure as well. And it's one of those pieces that I would say takes an iterative process where it's monitor, implement, monitor, and iterate to make sure that you're seeing the results that you want to see.

Thank you. One other question I had was mentions that the financial models assume a full pipe replacement and it's quite conservative. So therefore exaggerates, perhaps exaggerates the costs. I realize it's impossible to say any certainty, but are there any rules of thumb in engineering as to what we would expect to see over time in terms of what percentage of that cost could be reduced if we're doing pipelining or point repairs?

Yeah, it is definitely difficult to quantify and can really vary from community to community. You can imagine that aspects like the construction quality, the type of defect, the overall condition and age of the pipe contributes to the ability to line, for example, those pipes. I jotted down some statistics from elsewhere. For a community on the island, as far as doing condition replacements, they've been able to do around 62% point repair. So going in a specific point, less than 1% at relining and then 36 at full replacement. And when we look at some of the lining cost that Esquimalt has done historically, when we compare that to full infrastructure replacement, it's around a fifth of the cost.

So there is quite an opportunity for cost savings with a lining or a point repair.

Thank you.

No problem.

Councilor Morrison, thank you for the presentation. So when you. When you talk about the 34 km of. Of the mains, that's so geographically, when we sort of try to map that out, is it. Is it predominantly going under our streets, sidewalks, boulevards, or is it. Is it getting into parks? Like, I'm just wondering around natural habitat and whatnot. Even boulevards have a lot of trees and how does the roots interact with all that? Is there a cost to our natural habitats in terms of replacements, whatnot?

Yeah, good question. The map that's shown on the screens right now, that's a reflection of the existing Deficiencies. So there will be some capacity woven in there. But largely it's contained, condition driven. So we're seeing that it's a quite diverse mix across the township. There is like roots find water and they'll go where they want to go. And so that is of course a risk. But by doing proactive inspection work like CCTV getting ahead of any route intrusion in advance, clearing up those pieces can help maintain and ensure that the system's operating as designed.

Okay, that's good to know. And so would that also help us maintain those natural habitat species as well, essentially allow the tree roots to still be able to flourish and grow? Or does that mean that we would have to do something at surface to remove some of the natural habitat?

No, I wouldn't suggest removing natural habitat. I'd say even natural assets have their very own significant role to play in stormwater management.

Exactly.

If they're relying on the stormwater pipes for their water, there might be questions about just irrigation there. But that might be on a case by case basis. So just making sure that the trees and flora are well fed.

So it's not an either or interference type scenario. It's both work together.

Exactly.

Okay, good to know. Thank you very much.

Welcome, Councillor Heliwa.

Thank you. My questions for the presenter have been asked and answered. I do have a few for staff.

Is that okay?

Yeah.

The first is so this. Thank you very much for the report, by the way. So question we. Several months ago we received the report for some of the road condition index and obviously there's a significant amount of work to be done here on the storm sewer replacements. And I was wondering if staff have had the opportunity or will be to doing a bit of, I don't know whether it's heat mapping or just looking at where our pavement condition is the worst and where we need the most significant repairs to the storm sewer. And if we're able to maximize efficiencies in those areas

through the chair, that's absolutely what we'll do. This plan is the overall network and kind of setting the framework. But then when we get down to each project we're going to do each year, we look at those coordination opportunities. For instance, the work we're doing on Esquamol Road right now considers paving and underground. There's lining work being done and coordination with City of Victoria, who's doing water main work as well. So we look at those coordination opportunities as they come up on those individual projects as part of the project scoping. We'll do similar with. Are we going to line the project? Can we do point repair or do we have to replace the whole main? We'll look at that detail when we go through the design of that individual project.

Thank you. There's a little bit of talk in the report as well about current staff being challenged with some of the expanded capital delivery and proactive O and M needs. So I was curious, unless I missed it, I don't think it spoke too much about what that sort of practically means in terms of people or future budget asks, have you evolved to that point yet, or is that something that that we'll be seeing in the future

through the chair? It's certainly something we're working through and we'll work through in our workforce plan as part of the budget process. And it will be an iterative process as we go through the asset management journey. I'll say there are things that we know right now that we aren't doing that we definitely should be doing. And one of those, for example, is a formal flushing program where we're regularly flushing our mains right now. As Alex was saying, we're reactive in that, and when there's issues, we come and flush and clear routes. But we're not doing that on a proactive basis. The plan talks about doing every pipe every once every 10 years with more problem areas more frequently. So that would be something that we don't have in our operating budget that we be looking to add.

And then as we start looking at doing more capital replacement, there's certainly more of both public works time. But then we'll also be looking at contractors to do this work because we won't have the capacity to do it all in house. And that leads to more inspections and more project management skills. So those are things we'll look at when we do the workforce planning.

Thank you. And one more for staff by me, probably for Mr. Horan. Over the last number of years, we've been talking about saving up to 3% a year for, you know, to start chipping away at the infrastructure deficit. And in several of those discussions, we've asked, you know, is 3% right? Is 2% right? And, you know, as we get this information, we're sort of building the case on is 3% right, is it more, is it less, and for how many years? And I was curious from your perspective, what might still be outstanding to be able to kind of do a little bit more robust around what percentage over how many years, or if we have that information now, or if we're never going to be able to get there.

Thank you for the question. The last time we did a full kind of accounting of the needs was roughly during budget time in February. So at the time, the rough way to talk about it is we're doing roughly 4 million of capital work each year and we should be doing roughly 10 million of capital a year. And that number has changed a little bit in terms of what we should be doing has gone up a little because of the storm sewer and sanitary sewer master plans. So the target's gotten a little farther away. And that doesn't include the. That's just in terms of annual sustainability, doesn't include the stuff that should have been done already.

So I think the challenge is picking a percentage in terms of how much to set aside to get there that's achievable. So that's, you know, every year in the last three years, you, council has wrestled with that number. So this year it was 3%. So I think there's. The last time we talked about this, in terms of the 10 years, there's at least 10 years of savings to go before a big chunk changes in terms of how much to save. That said, it's not the. When councils start making those kinds of choices, like you've already done in this term, the impact in terms, especially in terms of the long term, is seen very, very quickly.

And so it's a significant change that's been made here in Esquimalton. So, but I do think it'll be a year to year question that you'll wrestle with as a council and then

so that that's for sort of sustainable funding for some of the immediate projects that are needed or some of the deferred maintenance that we're sitting on right now? Have we progressed some of the analysis around, Is it accumulated surplus, is it a one year increase in taxation, is it, is it debt financing, like some of those components? And do you expect that within the first little while of the new council, maybe next budget season or something like that, that they'll start wrestling with that?

I think council has asked questions that touch on that already. And so it's a good question because I think what we've been able to do so far is provide information like what we did tonight. So here's a significant body of work with the supportive consultants and staff to do a storm sewer master plan, except it actually fits, it's just one small chunk of a broader picture. So we've got facilities that we've now seen. You know, we've done roads, we've done the storm Sewers, sanitary sewer, etc, etc. But what's missing and what you've asked about this year particularly is, well, where's the integrated view of that?

And what I'm getting at with that is it's not just the integrated view of what's the technical needs, like what we see on a map that's up there, but also how do we solve that problem, how do we fund it, how do we prioritize, how do we build the capacity not just to do those projects, but to come to you as a council and say, okay, here's what the next five years looks like.

Because we're trying to do these things in five year chunks. So we have to mature our capability to put this information together and to bring it to you. So from a governance perspective, you have better answers to those questions. So we're not there yet, but that is definitely something that we're talking to the new council about to say, hey, this is something that we need to focus on, on how to get better at how to learn how to do it and how to bring it to council to make progress there.

Councilor Bram, part of my question was asked by Councillor Helliwell, but I wanna go back up and refresh my memory. We had an INI debt, an inflow and infiltration tration debt. And is that expired now or are we in the last year of it? I saw him in the back of the room.

So GLAD you're here, Mr. Irving.

Through the chair. So there are two issues that remain outstanding. One of them is in 2026. We're actually just making the last pin on that now. And then there is the last one in relation to the INI that expires in 2027. So in the fall of 2027 that will be fully expired as well. The only debt will remain after that is the Public Safety building.

Okay, so it's not unheard of that we have been putting money aside for this. Now is the how different is the INI work to what we're looking at here that might be better for Mr.

Clary through the share. It's similar, it overlaps. The condition of the pipe certainly influences ini. There's also cross connections that need to be considered as well.

So I know we've been doing some of that, but what I'm gathering here is we just haven't quite been doing enough of it as we go along. We could have been a little bit more proactive. A lot more proactive.

Maybe

through the chair. That's correct. We're mostly reactive and not at that proactive state right now.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. All right, I have Councillor Cavins again.

Actually, all my questions were asked by my colleagues.

Okay. Councillor Morrison just.

It's great that we have the map slide up there because, I mean, obviously we can see our municipal boundaries, but that then sort of generates the question about coordination with our neighboring Ms. Package. When we're doing this work, are we doing it in unison together with our neighboring municipalities because of the way the connections work? Or how does that. Or are we, are we, I guess the opposite of that would. Are we doing this in isolation? How do we try to coordinate so that it's more most effective as the work being done and improvements being done is as actually effective as possible?

Through the chair. The storm network is mostly isolated to Esquimo. There are the odd little odd location on the border where some stormwater might flow towards Victoria, some of Victoria's might flow to ours, but primarily we're isolated in terms of the overall network. We do coordinate at the staff level with the engineering staff when we're looking at larger scale projects. If we were to do, for instance, the esquimalt road project where we're working with Victoria on coordinating the water main replacement as part of that work, reactive work where we're going out and fixing a break, that's where we lose that planning and that opportunity. We do try to work with our colleagues on that when we can in the other municipalities.

And with some of this work, as we look to bring in more sports specialty contractors for different types of methodologies that might be trenchless technology, there might be drilling or pipe bursting, different types of technologies, that maybe someone's coming from the mainland. We would reach out to our colleagues to see if anyone else is coordinating that type of work, to see if there's any synergies. But for the most part it is independent. And then at the construction phase, we're coordinating with adjacent municipalities.

Councillor Boardman, thank you.

I should probably know this, but I don't. How are those, how are these resources managed in the first nations and the DND properties.

Through, through the chair, the township does not have a role in that. So they are managed independently through the nations. There are instances where the infrastructure overlaps similarly, like I said, with Victoria, where we have noticed an oil spill might have originated in say, one location and we see it come through the municipality and we work together in those situations.

Okay. Okay, thank you.

Okay, Council, if there are no further questions, I'll go to Councillor Cavins.

I was going to Move the staff recommendation that we receive the storm sewer asset management plan for information and direct staff to continue to request infrastructure funding as part of the annual budget process. Direct staff to implement the storm sewer asset management plan based on available funding and direct staff to update the status of the proposed asset management plan. Council priority project to complete second.

Thank you. And before I get you to speak, I want to thank you very much for presenting and you're able to sit down if you wish. Okay.

If you wish to motivate, I just want to say how great this plan is and really great to see. And for anyone looking for some scintillating bedtime reading, I really enjoyed Appendix C, which really gets into the details. And so it's really great to see that we're finally getting this information in front of us. And I'm really looking forward to what Mr. Horan was talking about of finding a way that we synthesize this all together. One thing that comes up every time we look at these maps is we really need to prepare our residents that if this is a 10 year plan or 20 year plan, there's an awful lot of roads being dug up over the next 10 and 20 years.

So we're going to all have to get used to this and figure out how to do it. So, so, but, but it's work that needs to be done. We've heard lots of complaints or some concerns about contamination in our waterways that surround us. And so it's important that we do this work and it's great that we finally have a plan and are trying to get ahead of it. So thank you very much to staff and to consultants on this.

Thank you. Councillor Morrison.

Nothing to add, just that I think this will be from a budget perspective, very helpful in terms of long term financial planning, planning, having this, this information going forward for future councils and their budget processes. Thank you.

Thank you. Discussion on the motion. We're all in agreement. I'll call the question. All those in favor? Anyone opposed? None opposed. Motions carried. Thank you again, staff, for the excellent work and we put it together with all of the other asset management plans and there's going to be a lot of work coming forward for new council. We're now down to development of real property strategy. Ms. Gitts? Yes. I have nothing further to add, but

happy to present this report and respond to any questions.

Thank you. Questions. Councillor Cavins?

I guess my question is, I appreciate this is a relatively small ask and a relatively small just trying to scope the plan, but I'm just kind of curious what if you can. This might be too premature, but is it possible to look forward and see what kind of a function this would be in terms of Is this like a staff member in two years from now, is this three staff members? What would be a typical municipality of our size be looking at for this

kind of a function through the chair? Just doing a really preliminary scan of

our neighbors of comparable size.

I think it's a relatively small function,

either part of an FTE that exists

on other portfolios, or perhaps one FTE

if warranted, but I would say smaller in scale.

And that's what's going to come out of this review that we're being asked to support tonight, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Other questions? All right. There is a recommendation if you wish, Council.

I'm prepared to make the recommendation that Council direct staff to undertake a real property portfolio review and report back during the 2027 budget process with recommendations regarding the real property strategy and future resourcing requirements.

Second.

Thank you. Do you wish to speak to it?

I don't think there's too much motivation required. It's great to see a comprehensive list of what's known today. But there's lots of work in front of us in order to have a bit more in depth strategy and looking into the future. We know that we're constrained in space and we've got many uses that are going to be moving around to different locations in the next little while. So having a bit of a focus look on it would be important.

Thank you, Councilor Bray. Discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. Motions carried. Development capacity study assist Mr. Brown.

Your worship, Members of council,

you may

recall earlier in the year with the preliminary results of the Democracy study. Since that time the consultants in conjunction with staff have finished all the analysis. And this evening we're happy to present the final report to council for consideration. The consulting team is here. We have Russell Prentice from Liquor Geospatial Consulting, Nadine King from Watt Consulting and Michael Meyer from modis. So the three of them will present the final findings for council. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome.

Good evening. Thanks for having me again. All right, sorry. Thank you again for having me here Today I'll be sharing the updated results from the development capacity study that I presented to the committee of the whole a few months ago. This presentation will follow the same structure as the previous one, but I've included new and updated information throughout the out. As before, I'll quickly, quickly provide some background, project background. Then I'll spend most of my time describing the team's findings and then we'll have time to answer any questions that you may have as follow up the Development Capacity Study was undertaken to provide council committees, residents, businesses and staff with a clearer understanding of the township's future development capacity.

The study evaluates how a range of variables may influence the township's ability to realize the development capacity envisioned through proposed land use designations. The results of the study will be one of several key inputs to staff and council's future decision making and an especially important component of long range planning efforts, including potential future updates to the township's official community plan. Our team's work to date has included a mix of quantitative, spatial and qualitative analysis which has involved discussion with several groups including Esquimalt staff in Planning, Parks and rec and Engineering and Public Works, the City of Victoria's Engineering Public works staff and CFB Esquimalt's planning staff.

The study is a technical assessment using best available data. There's an accompanying technical report that provides more detailed information about the data, assessments and methodologies as well. Here's some background about the growth context in Squamalt. Household growth across the CRD varies to some extent. Some communities have experienced pretty rapid growth, others have grown more slowly. Squimalt's household growth rate has remained pretty steady over time at 1. 2%, generally keeping pace with the region overall, if a bit slower. You'll see on the map that, as I'm sure you already know, Esquimalt's population is concentrated in a few areas. Higher densities around Admiral's Road and Esquimalt Road medium densities east of there along Admirals Road and in the northeast between Selkirk Ave And Craig Flower Road. Here are the variables that the team considered as part of the study.

You'll see this spelled out in greater detail starting on page eight of the report. First is land use, which helps to ensure enough land is designated to accommodate Esquimault's future housing needs. Then, a combination of measurable factors which have some kind of relationship with residential development. Some variables may provide a hard ceiling on development like sewer, water and electricity, where without capacity development cannot occur. Others are impacted by development like transit, traffic and recreation, where they may not represent a hard ceiling for development but if they're not managed well may have a large negative impact on residents quality of life. The variables considered as part of the study were those identified by the township as either within the municipality's control, for example Sewer, parks and recreation, traffic, emergency services, or those that may have a significant impact on future development but are outside of the municipalities control, transit, water and electrical capacity, for example.

Key Takeaways the bulk of the presentation from here is a summary of our findings. The main message is this. We have an understanding of SkyMalt's projected housing need, which is a way of thinking about how we expect a community to grow over time. About two thirds of that need is already in the development pipeline in some way or another, and our analysis shows that the remaining 1/3 is very attainable. And based on both further analysis and some of the feedback we received during the summer, the report attempts to communicate constraints in a revised way or sorry, in a slightly different way than I presented back in May.

As well, we've noted that there are moderate constraints presented by sewer and water capacity, recreation, tree canopy and the pace of development, and we see lower constraints represented by the remaining variables that you see on this slide. Finally, the study finds that development capacity is primarily limited by the timing development timing of development and localized infrastructure investments rather than by land supply or municipality wide servicing capacity. Our analysis starts by getting understanding of the maximum potential capacity available under squamous land use designations. The density and form within each land use gives a theoretical limit for how many dwelling units could be built on a given lot.

When we add that up across the township, we get 30,830 potential units of total capacity available through proposed land use. This map shows where more units are allowed on each parcel. The darker areas represent higher densities because so much of the township is designated as lower density. About a third of the potential total units are in each of lower, medium and higher density or mixed use areas, with a little bit more capacity in the latter. When we compare how many units exist on each parcel today with how many units exist based on proposed land uses, that idea persists. About a third of the potentially new units are split between lower, medium and higher density and mixed use areas respectively. Again with slightly more of those units under higher density and mixed use designations.

On the map you'll see that there are a few areas where these additional units are concentrated reasonably consistent with where squamous population is already concentrated today. What's somewhat deceptive about this part of the analysis is the seemingly large number of units available, especially under lower density designations. I'll come back to that in a moment. Just a note on this slide, I think the number's off by a couple hundred. If you see in the report, it's pretty close to the same, but just want to make sure that you're aware of that in addition to understanding what's allowable given the OCP land use designations, we've also looked at where new housing units are actually being delivered.

This map includes sites with current rezoning applications, development permit applications and building applications. You'll see the development pipeline is pretty consistent with where the township's population is currently concentrated. Over time, the number of units being delivered each year remains steady for single, detached and ground oriented multifamily. However, the township has seen many more units being delivered through apartments, especially since 2019. This information, combined with the last couple of slides, gives us a reasonable understanding of what's going on in the township in terms of growth and development. The next step of the team's analysis was to understand Esquimaux's future housing need and to compare that to potential future development. So the housing needs assessment.

Through that, we know that Esquimalt needs to build an additional 4,200 or so net new housing units between 2021 and 2041 to meet that need. On average, about 250 units are constructed per year. About 1,000 new units were built between 2021 and 2024. From the information presented on the previous slide, we know the development pipeline accounts for about 1800 additional units, which means by 2041, Esquimalt would just need to deliver an additional 1400 or so units in order to meet its projected housing need. Now, theoretically, there's plenty of capacity to meet that target. As shown previously, the OCP's land use designations allow for about 20,000 new housing units. However, that number doesn't really account for what's realizable over a given period of time.

This map shows the results of a pretty complicated modeling exercise that combines a whole bunch of factors to assess where new units are more likely to likely to be delivered over the nearer term. Factors like building age, utilization and potential densification. As I alluded to previously, although there is a lot of potential capacity in the lower density areas, we don't expect those areas to turn over quickly enough to make much of an impact. Instead, we see that there's far more realizable capacity in higher density areas along Squamont Road and in medium density areas along Craigfow Road and Lamson Street. To be extra clear, this part of the analysis isn't saying development will occur here. It just shows where development is more likely to occur given current circumstances.

With that said, when we look at you in the top 10% of parcels most likely to redevelopment redevelop, we're quite confident that Esquimault will be able to deliver those 1400 additional units to meet its housing need. The next several slides summarize the team's analysis of potential constraints to development across a range of factors. First on utilities. Squamous sanitary sewer system is operated through shared responsibility between the township and the crd. The water distribution system is operated by the City of Victoria and potable water is provided by the crd. The map on the slide shows the level of difficulty to address both sewer and water related constraints.

Yellow areas are unconstrained, the darker blue or purple areas have higher combined constraints. Pink areas have higher sewer constraints and lower water constraints. The lighter blue areas have higher water constraints and lower sewer constraints. Apologies on my description of the colors. I'm colorblind, so maybe not the best person to do that. Sanitary sewer capacity was assessed by estimating sewage generation based on the theoretical maximum build out of proposed land use designations and applying that to the existing sanitary sewer hydraulic model. Our analysis shows that the northern and western areas of Esquimault are the most challenging to service primarily due to downstream constraints. Medium difficult areas are spread out through the interior of Esquimalt and are primarily due to the complexity of proposed system modifications.

Lower difficulty areas are driven by minor downstream bottlenecks which can be addressed by targeted and localized infrastructure improvements. The results were compared against the township's 2025 sanitary sewer asset Management Plan, which included an evaluation of the overall condition and performance of the sanitary sewer system under existing and future conditions. When we compare the recommendations from the plan with the results of this study, there are overlapping concerns at various locations which the report highlights in more detail, so there's a close alignment between our findings and the findings of that plan or the recommendations of that plan.

Similar to the sanitary sewer assessment, future water demand was estimated for each parcel based on the theoretical maximum build out. The hydraulic modeling indicates that future development capacity is influenced more by fire flow limitations than by peak hour demand. Our study shows that higher difficulty areas, like those within the CFP Esquimo lands and in the Rocky Heights neighborhood, for example, are associated with more significant system wide constraints that would likely require major infrastructure upgrades. Lower difficulty areas are primarily located centrally in Esquimalt and are associated with localized deficiencies that may be addressed through targeted improvements. The City of Victoria engineering and public work staff were engaged throughout the project to help us better understand potential constraints in water supply and their implications for future development and then also just because I don't have a slide on it, BC Hydro, who maintains the electrical distribution transmission system confirmed that future development should not be constrained by their systems, with current capacity exceeding the number of new homes we might conceive of being delivered in the near term.

On to transportation More trips in Esquimalt are made by car than any other mode, although there's been an increase in active transportation and transit ridership over the last ten years or so. The road network is made up of arterials which prioritize keeping traffic moving, local roads which provide direct and frequent access to adjacent properties and collector roads which balance movement and direct access while funneling traffic from local roads onto arterials. With increased development comes increased traffic volume, although the relationship between the two is not linear. As density increases, it's important to consider the daily capacity of major corridors to ensure they can handle the expected added traffic.

Watt, the transportation consultant on our team, conducted a detailed traffic analysis by reviewing daily traffic volumes compared to the classification or purpose of the road. To do this, they built a township wide sub area model and focused in on a selection of critical corridors that see the highest volumes of traffic today. On this slide is the daily traffic volumes today and on the next slide. On the next slide is future daily traffic volumes using the theoretical maximum build out. Again, similar to how the sewer and water analysis was conducted, the results of their analysis show that each of the major corridors would see increased traffic volumes under the maximum buildout.

However, even under these conditions, all corridors should remain within typical 2 way average daily traffic thresholds for their road classification, which suggests that that future growth shouldn't be constrained by vehicle traffic. The traffic section emphasizes that as development occurs and traffic starts to increase, there are many overlapping effects that occur. Some of those are people begin to adjust their travel behavior, including changing travel times, mode choice or taking alternative routes. The length of the rush hour may extend, spreading out peak hour traffic and growth in residential and commercial development within the community helps bring homes and jobs closer together. There's much more detail about this included in the report and in the accompanying technical report as well. In terms of transit, BC Transit operates the local bus service in Esquimalt.

The dark areas on this map show where housing is further from transit Service. Currently, about 91% of residential dwellings are within 400 meters of a bus stop with 200 meters being the average distance and our analysis shows that current service levels adequately service the township. Through incremental service increases and the potential of deploying higher capacity vehicles, BC Transit is expected to be able to accommodate additional ridership generated by new development in Esquimalt. Increased development in Esquimalt will also support transit service as well as ridership increases. Of note, BC Transit has identified that future service increases will necessitate a bus exchange centrally located in Swimwalt and more layover space as well.

There are three main in terms of recreation, there are three main recreation facilities in the skymalt and similar to the transit map, the darker areas on this map show where housing is further from one of those facilities. Currently, 60% of residential dwellings are within 1km of one of the three as recreation space is not isolated to local use. The team also looked at regional facilities and although not included on the map, households in North Squimalt, for example, are closer to GR Perks Recreation center in Saanich than those in Esquimalt. Esquimalt has the highest benchmark for recreation facilities of municipalities in the CRD, meaning a high number of facilities provided per 10,000 residents by recreation type.

Throughout the project, Parks and recreation staff indicated that Esquimo recreation services were well used and well loved by the community and were likely at or near capacity already. The Recreation Strategic Plan confirms this, suggesting that high participation levels, population growth, evolving recreation trends, and regional demand are contributing to capacity constraints across several service categories. In terms of green space, our analysis included parks, sports fields, greenways and water access points. These are generally well distributed across the township. The map included in the draft report shows that 76% of housing units are within 400 meters of green space. That's about a five minute walk. The areas with the greatest distance to green space are in the north near neighboring communities, and our analysis didn't include green space in those neighboring communities.

Similar to the map for recreation, as with recreation, Esquimont residents have access to several large regional, provincial and national parks within a 30 minute drive as well. Esquimalt has about 2. 4 hectares of park area per 1,000 people and 3. 1 hectares. If we include schools. That's about the same as Victoria and North Vancouver for comparison, although lower than larger B. C. communities like Saanich, Surrey and the Township of Langley. This ratio would of course decrease as Esquimalt grows. The climate adaptation strategy includes objectives and strategies to protect and expand the urban forests to support biodiversity and ecosystem function. The management plan sets a 40% municipal canopy cover target, with the township being at about 33% coverage overall. Understanding the relationship between development and tree canopy is an important part of meeting this goal.

This map illustrates the relationship between percent canopy cover and the absolute unit gap I showed earlier. Areas shown in blue, such as those along Swanwant Road, indicate where substantial growth could occur with minimal impact to the tree canopy. Conversely, areas shown in purple, such as the area west of Rock Crest Avenue, indicate where maximum capacity development could come at a significant cost to existing tree canopy. The areas with the highest potential impact of the existing tree canopy are within areas designated as medium densities which have higher likelihood for redevelopment over the medium term. Further analysis and modeling in the report, however, suggests that development may have only a minor impact on tree canopy.

Onto Emergency services the map on the left shows the distance to fire halls and the map on the right shows drive times from the ambulance service stations. Esquimault is served by Esquimault Fire Rescue Services which includes a fire chief, two assistant fire chiefs, 32 full time firefighters and one admin staff. They currently operate out of a fire hall at 1151 Esquimo Road with a new location at 500 Park Place. The township also has mutual aid partnerships with Victoria, Sanich, Oak, Bay View, Royal, Collwood and Langford. According to last year's Fire Rescue Services response analysis, the current firehaul location provides full compliance with standard distance thresholds with all areas in the township falling within a 5 kilometer boundary well within the 8 kilometer target and actually most parcels are within a 2.

5 kilometer boundary which is the target for commercial, industrial and multi unit residential. The map analysis shows shown here doesn't account for the mutual aid agreements with surrounding municipalities. The BC Ambulance Service, operating under BC Emergency Health Services within the Island Health Region services Glimalt and surrounding neighborhoods. The ambulance service station is located on Ellerly Street. BC Emergency Health Services also have targets, though theirs are based on response times for severe or emergency calls within different community types. The target for urban communities is nine minutes and the map shows that all areas within Esquimal are comfortable within that boundary. As a result, we don't see fire ambulance service as a constraint to future development.

Lastly, on some fiscal considerations, Mulholland Parker land economists created a fiscal model of the township using historical data and assumptions provided by SAF and lgo. It includes residential housing, supply and population, residential and non residential property values, and municipal costs and revenues. There are no fiscal constraints to growth in the same way that some of these more spatial components might have. Instead, the outcomes of the model suggest a few things that potential municipal cost increases would likely impose some strain on Esquimault's finances, which are expressed in the report as residual tax rate increases, but could also manifest as debt MPLE projects the balance of Esquimaux's Capital Reserve Fund will recover over Time based on the assumptions they've outlined in the reports and more rapidly in the shorter term as well.

And there are trade offs that should be considered when thinking about the implementation of tools like development cost charges or DCCs, as they would help the township with capital costs but could potentially delay the delivery of new housing units. So in conclusion, 1400 additional units are needed to accommodate the 20 year housing need. At the current rate of development, it's possible to achieve this by 2039. The report outlines moderate constraints to realizing future development capacity, especially related to sewer and water capacity, the pace of development, recreation and also tree canopy and otherwise lower constraints related to land use, electrical capacity, traffic, transit, parks and emergency services.

And that's the end of our presentation. Thanks for your time and I'll pass back to the chair

very much for the report questions.

Councillor Morrison, thank you for the presentation. Just wondering if you took into account Department of National Defense jurisdiction, which is essentially our jurisdiction as well, that they were all geographically the same area and they pay into our budget through their payment in lieu of taxes in exchange for not paying property tax. But we know that they are right now in the process of adding housing and that they are planning to add significant amount of density as per federal commitments and everything else around that. So was that factored into this as well or is this just purely the geographic boundary of the municipality of Esquimo?

Yeah, perhaps I can ask my colleagues to come up and I'm sure they'll be able to help answer a bunch of these questions. So Russell, it might be a question for you just how we engage with cop Squamil.

Yeah. So the Federal Department of Defense, Landsberg considered, we looked at all, we chatted with them and then we got all of the in pipeline developments that they're doing and that was considered in the sewer and water, the traffic,

and for

the pace of development as well.

And so you just would, if you were saying that when we talked about financial, would say X amount of growth would equal X amount of of revenue at some point. Did that also factor in the pilt, the payment lieu of taxes financially?

Yeah. The financial modeling I cannot speak to in as much detail. That was done by Mulholland Parker Consultants. Right? Yeah. So I can look into that one.

Okay, thank you.

Councilor Bream.

I know in the report when I was reading it, you touched on a bit about, you know, you didn't do schools per se because they're not technically within our jurisdiction, but they are it. I struggle with that one. Only because, yes, we don't have a lot of control, but we're building family housing. So if we don't have the schools for it, that's a problem.

Right.

Because then you put more people on the road because they have to leave the community to go to school. So did you have any discussions with the school district? Because in the past they, they look at stats which are always, you know, really, they're like a couple years behind and they look at that for what they're going to do for their, for their school needs and we always seem to be getting left behind. So looking at our numbers and how we only need 1400 more units for

20 years,

how do we keep that in mind when we're still discussing our capacity?

Yeah, so we actually engaged separately with the school district and the same modeling that went into this work, we've given that information to the school district that was a completely separate project from this one. But we have been in communication with them, we've been sharing the same information and they're using that to plan out their school capacity.

Okay.

I'll be curious as to what they take from it. Thank you.

Any further questions? Councillor Cavins,

on the maps you talked

about a little hard to see what the magnitudes are and whether or not

it looks like we're above the 10,000 threshold. And we also talk about the 20. We're not meeting the 20,000 thresholds, but there's a big gap between 10 and 20. And I was just curious if you could talk about how close are we getting to those 20,000 per day limits in the future?

Definitely through the chair. So really it's only 2, 4, 5 of your corridors are arterial. One, which is Admirals, is expected to remain under that 10,000 around 9,000 and then the upper ones are between 12, basically 12,000 to 14,500. So the busiest corridor is expected to be Esquimalt Road just as it enters the municipality from the city of Victoria. That's about 14,400 a day. So yeah, quite a bit under the 20,000. A lot of the management of those arterials and how that capacity is going to be managed is going to be a lot through driveway consolidation, access management as well as then supporting with access to improved transit service, more transit service in general.

And then as mentioned, bringing together work, shopping home into a closer radius just to provide options for people,

I guess. A follow up question. So if Admirals is one of the lower arterioles, it's amusing because it's actually one of our most congested during the peak periods. As well. And so I know that the report specifically didn't get into peak congestion except for one area around Lamson and Esquimal. But just curious if you could talk about what that would, what these numbers are sort of showing in terms of a future congestion. You talk about expanding the length of the rush hour. Are we talking a doubling, are we talking a 50% increase? What are we looking at in reality on that?

So just the rule of thumb that we use just for your information is daily to peak hour is usually 10 to 1. So if it's 10,000 a day, we would expect 1,000 in the peak hour. And that's two way traffic. But Esquimault's very directional, so particularly when the base is getting out, it's all leaving. So that would be the much higher proportion of approximately the thousand cars. I would say based on these numbers, we're looking at probably like a 10 to 20% stretching. It's a real kind of ballpark guess, but based on sort of the increase in traffic and then adding a bit to that, because it's not again necessarily a linear, as the delay happens, it's going to start to build, I would say, yeah, you're probably looking at that sort of stretching.

If they're all coming from the base or all getting off at that sort of very strict shift time. If they start to. If it's other places of business where someone may go to the gym after or they may go to the grocery store, we may see a little bit less of an impact on that. Yeah.

Thank you, Councillor Boardman.

Thank you. You mentioned earlier that you built in the constraints from you talked to D and D and you built that into the housing and the traffic. But can you confirm that you also built in sort of the day users of D and D, not just the residents?

Yeah. So in addition to the esquimalt density and the D and D density that was provided by liquor, we also increased the base background traffic to account for people just potentially just traveling through or more on like Craig Flower where they're sort of skirting from Victoria to save you royal, they have to go through as well.

So we did add a percentage of traffic per year. So it was about a 25% increase over existing traffic. Just for that to try and account for some of those different day users or people coming to the rec centers and those kinds of things,

Land use of course, and changes we want to make and we'd make recommendations and then it would go to council and we would vote on it at council as a Recommendation from commission, the whole. And there's no perceived bias or legal, you know, risk or whatsoever. I don't understand what would be the difference if council were involved in a committee that we were talking about creating originally and then making recommendations and having those go back to council. Like I understand there's been a risk identified, but it just seems contradictory to other things we've done that aren't. And as Councillor Cavan said, there's a number of examples in other municipalities where they follow this same similar type model and there's no legal risk to no one's challenging their decisions as a result.

So

maybe we're time for a bigger discussion about that. But I just felt like. I understand council, we don't want to delay, but I feel like we're getting delayed because we're having these sort of rabbit hole discussions that I don't fully understand or appreciate why we're having them. Other than that there's always going to be a legal risk to everything that we do.

Thank you. And I think that that's the clarity that Councillor Cavins is seeking for counsel. And the delay only brings it actually in front of new council for that understanding. So perhaps not a. Not a real delay, just a more in depth orientation to or drinking from the fire hose for the new council on Schmooze. Are you ready for the question? All those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. Motions carried.

Okay, we move down to building regulation bylaw. Who will speak to this?

Your worship? Members, Council, both of us are going to speak. Since it involves both engineering, public works and development services. I'll start off and then Mr. Clary will follow up. So the parts of this amendment that deal with development services are those related to the issuance of building permits. So through review of our past practices

and

what we've traditionally done, we are proposing to add a few more things to the exemption section of the bylaw. One is replacement of roofing. So that's if you're going to change your asphalt shingles, you don't need a building permit to change your asphalt shingles. One, as is brought up earlier this evening, deals with flagpoles. We have never, to my knowledge, issued a building permit for flagpoles. So this is an amendment that just codifies our existing practice. Existing, then exempting accessory buildings less than 10 square meters that do not create a hazard. Again, this just codifies existing practice. Another proposed amendment is that when a building permit application is submitted on the site plan, it has to show the location of significant trees.

This is to help prevent Trees from being or building from starting without proper tree protection being put around the trees, which has been a problem in the past. Also, when you submit your building application, you will need to provide a parking plan. Where are your workers going to work? As council knows, this is a problem that irritates many citizens. They have workers parked in front of their houses and blocking the streets. So now if these amendments go forward, building permit applicant will have to provide a plan showing where the construction workers are going to park. In addition, they will have to provide an erosion sediment control plan. You may remember last fall we had a number of issues with drainage and water and those types of things.

This proposed amendment would require a building permit applicant to provide an erosion sediment control plan. Those both the parking plan and the erosion sediment control plan would be reviewed by the engineering department. Finally, for development services, we are proposing to delete the fire limits areas provision of this bylaw. This was put in maybe eight or nine years ago. It deals with preventing houses in the urban wildland interface. It really doesn't apply to Square Milk, but what it does do is add tremendous cost to buildings of four or more units and that includes any small scale multi unit housing. The building code, when it requires sprinklers, you will still need to put sprinklers in. But the building code does not require sprinklers, except for this provision for buildings with four units.

And this has been brought up in the past by a local developer who wrote to council and said it was a burden and a cost. It just adds to the cost of what we're trying to create, small scale affordable housing. Mr. Clary.

Thank you, Mr. Brennan. So the changes tonight related to the engineering and public works portion of the bylaw address fees for sewer and drain service connections and road permits. The changes generally reflect the increased costs to deliver this work which have increased over time and become out of date. There is also one change that staff would like council to consider. Consider that staff caught in in the draft before you, which is in schedule A of the bylaw under section 15. 1, where the proposed bylaw identifies a deposit of $100 for road permits. The change was intended to be $1,000 as the old number was was $500. If acceptable to council staff, ask that council consider a motion prior to the first reading of the bylaw for schedule A, section 15.

1 to read a deposit of $1,000 instead of $100. And with that we are here for any questions.

Thank you. Questions. Councillor Calvin, I had a question about

the retroactive application of this and so we heard this evening and there are obviously some disputes going on which I don't think we really want to get into here. But I'm just curious about if this changes, does that change those disputes or do we adjudicate things based on what the building bylaw was at the time when something was constructed?

How does that work?

So yeah, this is not retroactive. It merely codifies past practice. So our past practice, for example flag poles, was not to issue building permits for flag poles. Other things also meet that criteria of structure. Clotheslines, mini libraries, lots of things meet those criteria and we don't issue building permits for them.

And is there a height limit on the flag poles or how does that work?

No, no height limit.

Other questions? I have one. We've added a couple of plans in terms of parking, etc. Do we also build in traffic plans.

Through the chair? Those we request on a case by case basis. So depending on. Depending on the scale and impact that staff expect from the development. We have in the past requested those under the subdivision development bylaw. There is authority for staff to require additional engineering reports. And that is something that we would apply to traffic studies on a case by case basis.

Is there a sense of the size of the project that requires a traffic study? There's been a number of snarl ups with developments recently and it just seems to me that it would be helpful to know that they have a traffic plan when they get to that certain

stage through to the chair. There isn't a defined number that we have. That's something we could look at. A lot of it does also have to do do with the location too, not just the size of it. So there's like multiple factors that we're, we're considering when, when we look at that. But at this time we don't have a defined number. It's based on kind of best practice and staff. Staff judgment.

Thank you. My flag pole question was asked. Any further? Go ahead. Councillor Boardman.

Yeah. Just to follow up on the flagpole issues. So how can we not have a height restriction when we live near harbor and there's airplanes flying around and

there are aeronautical regulations that are federal and would supersede anything we have. So like cranes are the big thing. Tower cranes, not flagpoles. The tower cranes are the things that the aeronautics regulators are concerned about. And I believe, I know that they watch Esquimalt and they watch for tar cranes getting erected and they will let us know if there's an issue. But there's. Flagpoles have never been an issue because there's so many things that are taller and tower cranes are especially what the aeronautical regulators are interested in.

It seems like maybe flag poles have never been an issue before, but maybe they are now in particular with the speaker that was presenting earlier. So I guess I'm interested if this is coming up because of that or just.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

This, this is brought forward because there's a loophole obviously in the bala that although we have never issued building permits for flagpoles, it doesn't say anywhere that we never issue building permits for flagpoles.

Okay.

Height would be controlled in the zoning bala. We are currently going through a review of the zoning bala, and if council wishes, we can certainly add a maximum height to flagpoles in the zoning ballot.

Okay, thank you.

Further questions. I want to pursue the flagpoles because it's quite possible that it's not necessarily height because it's a single pole, but if there is vertical hanging, that can be a challenge. Do we have any restriction on that?

No.

Okay. I guess given we know that there's a process going on and given the concerns that have been raised, is there a way that this can be sort of separated and reviewed by council at some point and still allow the other parts of the process to go forward?

Absolutely.

You would just give first, second, third readings to the bylaw with flagpoles not

part of the bylaw, and then direction to bring back.

Yeah, okay.

I just double check. Corporate officer.

Is that okay?

Yeah.

Okay. Council, you just. I got that. For your information, any further questions? All right. There is a recommendation in front of you which is giving first, second and third reading to building regulation bylaw.

Pardon me, can you use your microphone, please?

Thank you, Worship. Just before council moves to first, second, third reading, if desired. Mr. Clary had asked for just if first, second reading of the bylaws with the change from instead of a thousand or 100, it's a thousand for that one fee.

Okay. And that can be within the motion. Okay.

Councillor Hellabaugh, this might be a little

bit of a sausage motion, so I apologize now. So I will move the council give for a second and third reading to Building Regulation Bylaw 2017, number 2899, amending Bylaw 2026, number 3195 with the correction from 100 to $1,000 for the fee mentioned by the Director of Public Works,

as well as removing

the bylaw update with respect to flagpoles to come back

at a later date.

Further direct staff to return with a discussion on regulating flag poles. Including height and vertical width at a future date.

Is there a seconder second? I can't even ask you to read that one back.

I think we understand the intent. It's what's in there with the correction from the Director of Public Works removing the flagpole.

I'll come back later.

I will ask you if you wish to motivate.

Yeah, I think the key piece of motivation here is just on the flagpole piece. When I originally read this earlier in the week, it. It seemed primarily to be more administrative cleanup bringing practices to modern day. And that may be the case for the flagpole. But I think given that it's been raised and may require a second look to make sure that we fully understand the implications around it. I'm more comfortable proceeding that way since for me, it no longer sort of falls in the more administrative cleanup. To bring it up to today, it may still prove to be. That's the case. But given some of the concerns, I think it makes sense to proceed with the other amendments and perhaps do one more look at the other.

Thank you. And Councillor Brain.

Yeah, I agree with the flagpoles. What I did really like in here. There's things in here that have been driving the community mentally insane for a while, like the parking plan for workers during construction hours. So important to have in there. The erosion and sediment control plan and the significant tree descriptions. I think those are really important things to have in there and have really hit on a few of the things that have been concerning many of the residents. So I appreciate having those added. Thank you.

Thank you. Further discussion.

Councillor Cavins, I just want to also thank staff for changing the fees for occupying a road. I think that was a comment I made in passing in a previous application. So it's always nice to see that reflected back when it's time to bring it on. So I appreciate that very much. And I think just. Just creating a cost to incentivize some of the development to move a little quicker will go a long way for some of our. Some of our residents.

So thank you.

Further discussion. I will call the question. All those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. Motions carried. Thank you. All right, we moved down to. We've received an email from James Rogers, esquimalt Chamber of Commerce Small Business Week proclamation request. This is a proclamation that we have done in the past. So the proclamation is sort of a normal process would be my understanding.

But there is a request to go further than that through taking a picture. Is there anything within this proclamation request that you're looking for from council, your

worship, not particularly just council requested that this item be included on the agenda and so staff have brought it forward for assumed discussion.

Okay, thank you. I'm glad we clarified that.

I, as a past small business owner in the community, I want to really acknowledge our small businesses. Like this is very important as I was a local business owner and one of the things that so many people don't realize is yes, we have big industry, but it's the small businesses that donate to tcac, it's the small businesses that sponsor sports teams. It's the small businesses that really allow us to be such a great community. So for that I thank all of our small businesses because without them I think we would be less.

Okay, so we will declare as we do each year, October 18th to 24th this year to be Small Business Week in Esquimalt. And you know what you got to do? Shop local and keep doing it. Anything else on this? All right, we move on and my computer is frozen now and we're down to the notice of motion that I have put forward to council. I'm not going to read out the therefore be it resolves but I would like to put the motion on the floor and see if there is a second.

I'll second.

Thank you.

Thank you. I really think that the whereases and therefore be it resolved really sort of outline the intent of this. We have always seen that when Crystal Pool closes there is an increase in traffic at our pool and that is of value for us. Absolutely. But we have also just received our recreation strategic plan and we know where our capacity is at and it's quite significantly compromising within particularly preschool and school age swimming lessons. And everyone on council receives multiple emails at the time when swimming lessons are put out for registration as well. We see it on Facebook and all sorts of social media. So really the request is to provide the tools and the information for future council not knowing what the impact will be but not knowing how long that impact will be from Crystal Pool providing counsel the tool to if they feel they need to make decisions or set further direction for staff, they have the information.

And so that was my intention of bringing this forward. Councillor Morrison, do you wish to speak to it?

Just carrying forward from the discussions I recall that we had around as you referenced the Esquimote strategic plan and I think it was Councillor Cabins, if I remember, said, you know, hey, at some point we have to have a discussion around our capacity with our rec center and recognizing that that rec center is paid for by the property taxpayers of Esquimalt and, and yes, we welcome the revenue from other residents of other municipalities.

That's great to have that revenue. But at the same time, if they're taking away space from our own residents who are already paying for that facility to operate, then that's a problem. And you know, the example you gave around swimming lessons. To me I view learning to swim as an essential skill. It's just another way of, of movement. Whether you're walking or driving or riding a bicycle or swimming. It's all really essential to life, I think. And I would not want to have a situation where our taxpayers. Kids cannot, or not just kids, it's adults as well cannot get into swimming lessons because people from other municipalities are taking up those spots.

And it's tough in a region where you have 13 municipalities in separate parks and recreation facilities and whatnot. It's nice to be able to use all of them as, as a region. But at some point we have to have this information that you're asking for in your motion to see what is in the best interest of our residents.

Thank you.

Thank you. Discussion Councillor Bram

I hundred percent like I agree we, we have capacity issues and our residents pay for it. My one concern is, and I don't know how this can be brought forward in the report is talking about those relationships though. Like right now our arena is going to be closed down and we're going to be looking to, you know, because a delay. Looking to borrow other people's facilities and have people. I don't. It would need to be done in a way that we keep our relationships open and that back and forth. So I think it's, it's going to be an interesting thought process for staff. If there's a way we can do it more by building capacity in our, in our pool with, you know, staffing and more lessons.

I do think we have to be careful because there's times where we are going to need the support of other communities for stuff as we replace or, or fix things. So it's going to be a balancing act. I think we have to, we have to think it clearly and holistically before we make big decisions. Which is glad I'm glad why we're going to go through this process but I just want that lens in there a little bit too to make sure we're not killing any relationships.

Thank you. And that's why the wording was to understand the impacts because it is significant. We all go to all different rec centers and we need that ability for people to move around the region. So we need to understand that. Councilor Boardman, thank you.

I do support the need for more information. And not to be too repetitive, I used to work at the Jubilee Hospital, and I'd go to Oak Bay Rec center while the traffic died down. And so there's many reasons why people use other rec centers, and I think it's important that we maintain those partnerships, just as Councilor Brain said. I do appreciate, however, the swimming lesson issue. And perhaps as we move forward, I would want to be sure that any solutions that we come to would be temporary in nature for the period of time where there is constraint on other centers, and then that we move back to be like a fully a full partnership with our other rec centers at some point in time when there's full capacity in the region.

Thank you, Councillor Cavins.

Yeah, I also agree with my colleagues. I think this is a great resolution, and I think it's been reported in the media a little bit differently than the actual text of the resolution, where this is really about getting information and trying to start a regional discussion. It's also difficult because, you know, part of the issue we found in a recreation strategic plan is that we're one of the most we have the highest capacity per capita of our recreation facilities in the region. And I really view this process as much as trying to encourage a regional discussion around encouraging everyone else to contribute to their own recreation facilities so that we don't have disparities. I know ours is open the longest.

I know we have even before Crystal Pool closed, we had a lot of our swimming lessons were being used by residents from other locations. And so I think we need to have a regional discussion because I don't think any of us are sounding like we want to be penalizing people from other places, but we want to encourage everyone else to carry their weight as well. And at the same time, I want to also thank Victoria for deciding to invest more than $200 million in Crystal Pool. It's going to really be horrific for the next four years, I think, for recreation facilities, but when it's done, it's going to be great.

So it's a.

This is getting information, trying to start a regional conversation as much as looking at ways to maximize our capacity for our residents, which is also important.

Further discussion.

Councillor Morrison, I perhaps we don't have this information, but I was curious if staff know roughly what is the on. If we look at our annual memberships or whatever metrics we have, what is the percentage of. Of esquimalt resident users versus non Esquimalt resident users. Do we know a rough number of that? Just. I'm sure that'll be. That'll be.

It was wonderful that you came, Mr. Koki.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So through the chair, I guess, by postal code or what have you.

Correct.

Yeah.

Okay.

We don't actually run reports just on general membership. We are tracking things like swimming lessons, and we can develop that for the report, but we.

I don't have that information.

Information with me.

All right, ready for the question. All those in favor and any opposed? None opposed. Motions carried. Thanks very much, council. And we do have a risen report, and that is that Council approved the draft relationship agreement with Casam Nation attached as appendix A and authorized the mayor and corporate officer to execute the agreement. And we will now move down to public comment, period. Are there any members of the public that wish to speak on any topic that impacts Esquimalt, excluding agenda items and matters that have or will be a subject of a public hearing? Are there any members of the public that wish to speak? Please come forward. Welcome. You'll need to press a button in the middle there. There we are. And name and address for the record.

Dorothy Curtis and I live at 831 Dunsmere Road. We moved to Esquimault 20 years ago because of the recreation facilities and the parks, and it's a beautiful place to live. I think there's a few things that are going downhill and it's the removal of the mature trees. They are being removed from large swaths of land, one right behind us, and it was clear cut four years ago.

And we've lost all the benefit from those trees. As far as environment and cost, trees are not costly. They do a lot of things for the health of the community and they also give back in cooling and things that you don't have to do. Air conditionings or extra power or a lot of the healthy things.

Concentrating along main thoroughfares means that you're going to have more asthma and more emphysema, more need for public health and cost to the community in lots of ways. And if those trees were there, they could provide cooling up to 8% of the limit. So there's lots of ways that the trees and the economy work together. And I don't think we've looked at that.

And Saanich has and Nanaimo has, and I've given you some information to look at. And so that's what I'm talking about tonight. I still love living here.

Thank you, Dorothy.

Thank you.

Are there other members of the public that wish to speak, I will call a second time. Are there any other members of the public that wish to speak? Seeing none, I want to thank the audience and I will look for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Thank you. All those in favor? Any opposed? None opposed. One to go. Thanks, everybody. Safe travels home.