Transcript: Regular Council - 08 Jun 2026

my microphone on. There you go. Okay, everybody, let's get going. Today, it's at 6:00 we have quorum. Was debatable there for a few minutes, but we are okay. Uh, first of all, I'd like to call to order and uh First Nations recognition. We are very proud to be on the traditional lands of the South Nation and they've been stewards of this land for millennia. So, uh, I'd like to do a few civic things first and the first one of course is a shout out to our fire department and the our partners in mutual aid. Last Wednesday, as you know, there was a fire in the downtown area and a second one on Otter Point here and our mutual aid partners along with the Souk Fire Department were involved. So, Otter Point, Machosen, and East Souk all responded and uh that's a very good relationship we have with those other fire departments. In the fire downtown, five people were displaced and a dog perish. So, that's unfortunate. Uh but this is uh as the fire chief tells me,

this is the uh was the eighth fire in six weeks that they've had to respond to. So, uh very active. The second thing I'd like to do is uh I have a shout out again uh for uh John McCrae, the fire chief of the Souk Otterpoint Fire Department. Uh John is retiring. On behalf of the suit mayor, Council, and the District of Souk, I am pleased to offer our congratulations and heartfelt thanks to the Fire Chief John McCrae as he prepares to conclude an extraordinary 31 years of service with the Otterpoint Fire Department. stepping down as fire chief July 3rd. John's career has been defined by dedication, leadership, and deep commitment to his community. From joining as a volunteer firefighter and serving as captain, training officer, and deputy chief, and ultimately chief, he's helped shape the department into the respected organization it is today.

As elected officials, we see the impact of community leadership and relationship it builds. Through the strong partnership between our fire departments, the people of Souk Otterpoint have benefited from shared emergency response training and community events that have helped us make our region safer and stronger. Many residents know that Otter Point Fire Department not only is for emergency response, but also a community tradition like the annual at Halloween bonfire. Under John's leadership, department strengthened its connections to the community, earning the trust and respect of residents through the region. For that, we are deeply grateful. I'd like to congratulate Ben Patterson as he prepares to assume the role as fire chief. We look forward to continuing our strong relationship with Ben as he leads the Otterpoint Fire Department into the next chapter. On behalf of the district, extenders thanks to Chief John and for his remarkable service and wish both John and Ben every success in years ahead.

Yeah, why not? We don't generally allow that here, but in this case, and now I also have another uh uh shout out uh and this is for Sarah Farier, and she is the crossing guard down at Cino. You've seen her many, many times, I know. Uh a as deputy mayor, I have the privilege of recognizing and thanking Sarah on the occasion of her retirement this year for an incredible 33 years as a crossing guard at Cenos Elementary School. Although Sarah is unable to join us this evening, we want to publicly acknowledge her remarkable service and express our gratitude. We'll be sending her a small token of appreciation along with the recording of these remarks.

For more than three decades, Sarah has been a familiar and trusted presence at the Cenos Elementary crosswalk, helping generations of students and families safely cross Highway 14, which is no small feat these days. Through all kinds of weather, she greeted students and helped ensure that they arrived at their school and home again. During that time, she witnessed tremendous growth and change in our community. As Suit grew, the traffic along Highway 14 became increasingly busy. Sarah remained a constant providing safety uh reassurance and friendly face for the students and families every day. While Sarah is retiring from her crossing guard duties, her commitment to the community continues through her volunteer work with the suit community association.

Sarah, on behalf of council and the residents of District of Souk, thank you for your uh dedicated care and service, we wish you all the best in your next chapter and offer our sincere congratulations in a remarkable 33 years. So that's good for Sarah. I think everybody's seen Sarah enough. Okay. The next uh is uh approval of the agenda. So we have an agenda. Could I have a motion to approve the agenda? Okay. Pearson and St. Pierre. Any discussion to the motion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Thank you. That's unanimous. Uh adoption of the minutes. Adoption of the minutes regular council 25th of May 2026 minutes. Uh are there any errors or emissions?

Okay. Councelor Pearson. So thank you councelor Bman for always going through the minutes. No I no I I just because you do such a good job of it. I often assume that things are other. So I want to bring our attention and and I'm uh is to 8.1 and the report well through Phillips road connection through philip road Philips road connection project I am having a problem with my eye so it says council discussed philips I don't think I need to go over this whole thing but council discussed philips road connector project with staff outlining design pro process cost funding uncertainty council debated affordability scope priorities it was it was a wholesome discussion but one piece that was missing from this for me was the securing of the um the rightway. We had a robust discussion around the rightway and I would ask the corporate officer if we could amend the minutes to include the importance of securing that rightaway and I brought my minutes with me around my questioning about uh the stuff are

are you going to include um because it's significant landing acquisition from the CRD and to the mayor's point earlier they're going to be reluctant to give up this piece for future development down the road. So my question was who who is going to um who's going to lead this securing and what's that going to look like? So I just would like something in the minutes to reflect that there's a significant acquisition of rightway that still has to be secured staff. Is that a through the chair to the corporate officer? Uh thank you through the chair. I'm just yeah looking at the so the resolution the uh resolution itself 2026214 uh so yeah the discussion as minuteed as the councelor uh notes uh yep so debated affordability scope and priorities comparing the full project against a more limited lowerc cost interim option to address cat traffic concerns directing staff to develop cost estimates for a reduced CP5 only option with varying cross-sections to inform future decisions and potential public

input. I think that the line regarding the varying cross-sections um the limited lowerc cost infra option, the affordability and scope etc were intended to encompass the concerns about right-of-way um acquisition as well. But it certainly would be entirely proper to insert right-of-way acquisition into that line um along uh say for example after the word priorities. Yep, I'm fine with that because Okay. And I it I captured it in in off off of our website. So, it's kind of if it's at 13739 or 13729 in the in the meeting discussions. Okay. Hey, could could I have a motion to accept the amended minutes then St. Pierre holding?

Any discussion to the motion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Okay, that passes. Thank you. That's unanimous. uh report of the chief administrative officer number six uh through the chair. I have nothing to report to council this evening. Okay, thank you very much. Uh next is the public question and comment period. Uh we have two minutes if anybody would like to come up and comment uh state your name uh roughly where you live, what area you live in, and uh you have two minutes and it has to be to an item in the agenda. So please note the item you're talking to. Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Jessica Gallinger. I'm a souk resident and I served as a trainer and recruiter for the Wandafuca Malahhat district electoral for elections BC in the last provincial election.

I'm here regarding the proposed amendments to sign regulation bylaw number 480 480. I submitted a letter to your agenda packages and I urge you to look at those details as you debate tonight. Right now, a large campaign sign is up by the highway. Because our bylaws lack a start date, candidates can legally clutter souk for five months, it is completely illogical to strictly enforce a 72-hour cleanup window after the election to prevent a nuisance while forcing residents to look at campa campaign clutter for 5 months before it. Our chief election officer confirmed in writing that there are zero spending caps active right now. This unregulated pre pre- campaign period lets wealthy campaigns buy early dominance. Neighbors like Sanich, View, Royal, and Victoria address this by restricting signs to a standard 30-day window. Souk must do the same.

Staff propose completely banning signs on municipal lands or district lands. 20% of Souk households rent. Tenants do not own land. Banning public signs forces campaigns onto private real estate, corporate storefronts, and developerowned buildings. This restriction alters who candidates appeal to, and it gives an unfair visual monopoly to major land owners and developers while making local working families invisible. Please focus this update on closing the timeline gap with a fair 30-day start date and keep public spaces open as a level playing field. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? State your name, which we know, but um also uh what you're speaking to tonight. Got too many on here to I'm speaking to all of the things on here. Ellen Lurs.

Um I'm talking wonder with this train to Souk from Souk to Langford that is proposed with UBCM why we're even bothering with uh trying to put in another road that we can't afford and we can't even afford to fix the potholes that we have already have. So I don't know why we want to put another road in. There's more potholes in Souk than um roads. Uh um so no to the bypass um and and improve the right hand turns off of Philips Charters and Church and put a center lane down uh the highway and put it on the province. And if you want to do anything at the UBCM, remove builds 44 and 46 cuz we don't have the infrastructure to support them. Um we should have more modular home parks cuz that's affordable and tenable or prefab homes. There's no such thing as uh building affordable housing.

So the affordable housing amenities that you're asking for when you have $750,000 in there now that might build one and a half houses. So I don't care how much money you collect, you're not going to be able to have attainable housing for people. You what you need to have is an attainable way to afford housing because property is expensive, too. Um and what was the cost of their urban housing report? And uh also I think is ridiculous is um banning of colors of the sign signs bylaw for um for uh elections. What does what's the difference of the colors of signs? That makes that makes no sense. If it's any of the district colors, who cares? It doesn't matter as long as it doesn't have a district logo in it. And also the letter from Sandwich with the local climate action committee.

No more uh um funds coming from climate action committee. How does this affect our OCP? Your time is up. I'll ask I'll ask you back for another two minutes once I have asked other people if they want. Thank you. Anybody else wish to uh comment? Okay. Yeah. State your name and what article you're uh speaking to, please. Good evening, acting mayor Bentos. Um, thank you for having us tonight. Um, I am speaking to item 10.3. My name is Malcolm McNutton. I'm here on behalf of the Souk Builders Association. Um, I just have uh there was a letter that was submitted from the Souk Builders Association today that I hope you all take a chance to read. Uh, it has some concerns in there. Um, I would just like to point out a couple of things that I think are that you should consider when uh debating this and looking at what uh you do with it. Uh, first of all, your amenity charge is significantly higher than the general amenity charge in the city of Victoria.

Um, the city of Victoria charges $1394 a unit for highdensity units. You're you're expecting Souk to pay 3,000. Significantly different. Um, additionally, I would like to say that this is a disincentive for people to build multif family in your town center. One of the major tenants of the new OCP is to build up the town center and to focus on multif family uh development. This does the exact opposite. Uh, if if a multif family um parcel is uh say $30,000 uh in the raw to buy, this is a 10% charge on that. That's significant. And so the economics that were provided I think by your your consultant are very flawed. Uh when I look at this and I've currently doing multif family, I don't see how we could actually do more of it because there's not more money being made in multif family, which is what your consultant has said, and so therefore it can take a higher charge.

If that was the case, you'd be inundated with projects being built. You're not. Thank you very much. Have a great evening. Thank you. Is there any other first time speakers? Seeing none, I'll ask for second time speakers. Just to add that the previous speaker adding $3,000 to the to um the cost of building is certainly not helping with affordable housing. It doesn't make any sense for that that unit to be sold. Now you have to add another $3,000 and the administration around it all. And I mean more rules you make the more costs and and the rules even for for the signed bylaw. much time was spent on that with staff time and and time in here. I I think that I think we have to be a little more common sense. Thank you.

Okay. I believe we have one more speaker. So, go ahead again. State your name and where you're from and what article are you speaking to or what uh item on the agenda? Uh Susan Belelfford and I'm speaking to the um affordable housing and amenity. um fund. I forget which number. Um it seems to me that when I think about this particular issue, I think about the many uh souk residents that live in un unsuitable housing or no housing. And I think that as long as we keep wrangling over how to ensure there is housing that people can afford to live in and stay in souk for long enough to raise their kids and build a life, um the harder it's going to be going forward. This policy is certainly not perfect, but I would really support it being approved.

there is ample space for assessing it as it goes by, modifying it at the one-year mark and then every 2 years. So, I think this could be a good basis for moving forward. It's certainly not the only thing we have to do to ensure that there is truly affordable housing for people. And that means people paying 30 to 40% of their income for their housing whether they're renting or purchasing rather than 50 60 70 75%. Thank you. I'll just ask one more time. Do anybody else wish to speak? If not, I will carry on with the agenda. Thank you everybody for your comments. Uh next is consent agenda. that the following items on the consent agenda be adopted by consent.

And that's 8.3 correspondence and eight or 8.2 correspondence. 8.3 reported a chief administration officer. Does anybody uh want to move that St. Pierre and you can pull it too? I'll get a second or then you can pull it. Okay. Uh councelor Pearson. Okay. What would you like to pull? Okay. Um 18 um and 23 is the CRD annual report. I received that for information. Um uh number 38 uh I have a question mark assign number 38 because that's the sponsorship for the soup salmon and barbecue and I think we may be dealing with that later on. It is on the agenda. Yes. There's no need 38 and 30 um six be back on both signed bylaw and uh oh and 39 39.

Okay. So those will be pulled from correspondence. Correct. Anybody else have ping? So I'll go to councelor Baitman first. Yeah. I'd like to pull 11K, the gathering place costs from Nikki Logan's of the Souk Region Communities Health Network. Okay. And uh Councelor Haldane, I think you had your hand up. Yes. Um that was one of mine and the other one is 9, the referendum costs. Okay. So those will be pulled and be on the next agenda. So thank you everybody. So if I get a motion to uh pass the rest of it. I think we have the motion, don't we? So, I just need a vote on it. All those in favor? Okay, that's unanimous.

Thank you. All right. Uh, next order of business is reports uh 9.1 UBCM annual convention and uh so over to staff. Thank you. Uh thank you your worship. This report appeared at the last uh meeting of council and resulted in some mo um so at this point we have two motions which are looking to go to UBCM and the uh ministerial meetings that have been requested. This report is still on this agenda purely to give council a chance to add to that if they've had any further thoughts or alternatively to receive for information if you would not like to do anything further at this time.

Okay. Hey, is there any desire to add uh more things to the UBCM convention? And uh I think we have a list there of who we're uh resting and uh so yes, councelor Pearson. Yes, I'd like to add the um Minister of the Environment. Minister of Environment. Minister of Environment. Yes. Staff, you have that. Okay. Um I don't need a motion for that. That's just for information. So I guess can I um go ahead council. Yeah. So last two weeks ago we did discuss at some length the um the manufactured home resolution. However, in councelor St. Pierre's absence, we we didn't get to dig into uh your thinking around uh the food security piece. And so I I was wondering whether you'd like to share any of that tonight if if if that's appropriate at this time or No, I think we have to deal with the business that's in front of us.

if he want if he wants to draw that up to new business then I don't have a problem with that but at this particular time uh we're just following uh endorse the following resolutions which we have already done and instruct staff to seek the meetings which you've already done I could do that in council berber reports if you like yeah that'd be fine we give that I have one question for staff and that is that yes go ahead that the UBCM uh resolution guidelines very clearly stated supplementary supplementary memo needs to be attached to any uh resolution otherwise uh without this background information resolutions will not be submitted. So I'm just curious as to how you're proceeding with that Mr. Lois.

Uh through your worship to the councelor the uh so the deadline for resolutions is June 15, 2026. So um the two resolutions which have been provided which have been endorsed by council to date that being one on manufactured homes and one on food waste uh they will be uh submitted in accordance with those with the supporting documentation just laying out the debates which have been had around this table. Great. Thank you. All right. Uh I think that's all we have to do with 9.1. So we'll go on to 9.2. Housing amenity contribution staff report please.

Did I miss one? I thought we were going to sewers there for a minute and it threw me. Okay. Uh thank you your worship me from council and thank you your worship members of council and uh uh members of the public. Uh this is a uh overview of the report on on the agenda in relation to housing amenity contribution policy. Um just as uh a background uh the this particular policy has been down a fairly lengthy road. Um but just to provide some background to affordable housing policy and affordable housing housing generally in Souk over the last 20 years or so. Um uh back in 2006 the uh due to the fact that housing prices basically doubled over a five-year period in the early 2000s. uh there was a great deal of uh concern around affordable housing and and as a result the affordable housing reserve fund bylaw was adopted and in 2007 an affordable housing and social housing policy was adopted in 2011. uh the past OCP uh bylaw 400 had a

a section on uh housing and and encouraged uh the adoption of a housing uh amenity contribution policy. And of course, our new OCP adopted in 2025 in December of 2025 also speaks directly to adopting an affordable housing policy. Uh back in December uh 17th 2024 uh we had some consultants do some proformas of various styles of housing. They actually looked at uh specific lots within the district to souk. Um a 5 acre parcel for single family homes and a number of other lots for uh different styles of housing like mixed use with commercial on the ground floor and residential above. uh just a straight six-story woodframe apartment building.

Um and uh so they they did uh town houses as well. So they did individual performance for exact lots in uh the district of Souk and as part of this perform they identified what the increased land value is and um so that helped the to create the basis of the uh housing policy. Um, in June 2025, June 3rd, 2025, I brought a report to the land use and development committee. Uh, that recommendation went to the, uh, June 23rd, 2025 regular meeting of council. And there was uh a recommendation that directed staff to get input uh on the content of the draft housing amenity policy and uh do some uh uh get some public input from stakeholders in the community on the the uh policy.

Uh in August um I presented the draft policy to the Souk Builders Association representatives um and they provided formal feedback to uh the district on September 4th. And then on October 6th, I provided a response to their questions and concerns. And on October 20th, they sent a follow-up email sort of re-emphasizing the main concerns that they have. So uh that's where we are today and I used that so I used the uh June 3rd land use and development committee report as the basis of this report and then added the input that I received uh in discussions with the stakeholders in the community. So just to give people a sense of the uh tools that municipalities have at their disposal for uh amenities and uh various charges uh or various um capital and and uh cultural type amenities.

There are DCC's such as development cost charges and amenity cost charges. The development cost charges are for the hard capital projects, the sewer, the water, the roads, those types of things to ensure that there is money in the in a reserve fund in order to pay for large uh sewer treatment plant upgrades or large uh road redevelopments. Um then the amenity cost charges which is a new charge that municipalities are able to charge is more for social, cultural, heritage, recreational or environmental benefits. Um that amenity cost charge cannot be used to uh for affordable housing. So the tool that can be used for affordable housing is either density bonusing um which is a mechanism in the zoning bylaw that allows the municipality to sort of trade off additional density for a developer to be able to build more on a site uh if they in turn either provide funds or actual units of affordable housing within their development.

And then the other uh tool is what we call community amenity charges as opposed to amenity cost charges. So uh the comm the community amenity charges are um charges that the municipality can uh ask for through the resoning process and this is a a charge that can go towards affordable housing. So, uh, later on when I talk about doing comparing, uh, amenity, uh, charges that neighboring communities have, uh, it's a combination of these charges that I'm looking at. Um so uh so there's two kinds of uh ways of dealing with a like getting affordable housing. One is to do what's called in inind uh type of of tool and that is where you actually uh get the developer to provide affordable housing within a development that they're already doing. So if they're building a an apartment building that maybe 10% or a certain percentage of that building is actually um dedicated to affordable housing or or rental housing.

Um the the difficulty with the inkind approach and sorry it's also used in single family developments where you could maybe build uh the developer would build a certain percentage of the single family homes on smaller lots maybe smaller homes to make them more affordable. So in in in this uh instance the inkind approach they're building the actual housing um whereas in the uh cash and loo they're providing a certain amount of funds towards affordable housing um on a per unit basis. So the ink kind inind approach in kind approach is better in terms of the fact that you're actually getting affordable housing uh through that mechanism whereas in the cash and loo you're just collecting money and no affordable housing is necessarily being created.

Um, but in the inind uh uh aspect of it or tool, there's there's a lot of administrative costs, legal costs, and time for staff because you have to put legal agreements in place in order to ensure that these affordable housing units that are included in a a development will stay that way for however many years. will uh that you have a a list of potential candidates who could go into this housing. You have to decide how you're going to shortlist this list, how you're going to decide who goes in, how long they can go in, how new people are chosen. Anyway, it's a it's a a very time consuming process for staff to administer these uh units and make sure that it's done fairly.

Uh the benefit of the cash and loo is that you have funds that are put into a reserve fund and that money then could be used to buy land to uh partner with groups like Habitat for Humanity to um subsidize uh developments in the future. So it's a lot more flexible tool uh that can be used in any number of creative ways to encourage affordable housing to happen in the community. Uh this is less administrative uh less time consuming and less costly to administer. Um so it's this cash and loo uh approach that we've taken in the policy. So the policy itself um is to provide cash and le contributions towards affordable housing in a transparent, efficient, balanced and predictable process.

So there's two approaches that are being recommended in this policy. Uh the first approach is for large developments of over 100 units. Uh we don't have many of those in Souk. Uh as you can imagine, I think we only have one on the books right now. that would be the Arinand development on the west side of of souk. Um so this is an approach uh that provides flexibil more flexibility in terms of the negotiations but the basis of the negotiations in for these larger developments is to take a look at do an assessment of what the value of the land would be before the resoning application uh happens and after the resoning has uh gone through. So what we're suggesting is that the amount of money the developer would pay towards affordable housing would be uh uh 50% of the increased value of the land from prezoning to postzoning in the approach. So that's for the large developments. Now there's no requirement for you to do that assessment and go through that process. If staff and the developer want to negotiate something outside of that, that's certainly

possible. But that's kind of the basis upon which uh that negotiation would happen. Uh for the approach B, that's for the uh smaller developments from five units to 99 units. Uh we have a a straight fee per housing type. So on the next slide here you see the fees that we've come up with. So it's 3,000 for apartment units, uh 3,000 per uh mixeduse developments, 3,000 for town houses, 4,000 for single detached subdivisions, and 1,000 for uh purpose-built rental. So, um the after, uh presenting this uh pol draft policy to the Souk Builders Association and uh going back and forth a bit, there were uh sort of uh six or seven sort of core uh concerns that the Souk Builders Association had with this policy.

um they were concerned about the reliance on the land lift as the basis for the fees. Um uh but I can say that this is a an approach that a number of municipalities in on the south island uh do use as a basis for this uh affordable housing payments. Um this is a uh a tool in which uh there's no there's no uh exact science to this. uh when you do these performas there are a lot of variables involved. There's the cost of the carrying costs of the the loans that the developer is taking. How long it takes to get processed by the municipality impacts the costs. Um how much they ultimately sell the product for at the end of the day. Is it 5% above or below what they were expecting?

um cost of materials, cost of uh employees. So there's a lot of uh variables that go into this, but um I felt it was important that we have a soukbased uh indication of of you know why we would charge the charges we are. I've taken the the spread in the single family uh sort of land lift uh 50% of the land lift was between 2,000 and $12,000 per unit. Um I chose 4,000 which was on the low end of the scale of that range. Um there's no exact again science to it but and certainly council can can choose another fund more or less. Um and then uh for the apartment units there were similar ranges but um uh as was noted earlier we want to charge less for the apartments as they we want to encourage that style of development. I can say that informally uh for the last two years that I've been here the um we have been charging $3,000 per unit both for single family and multif family. So this is definitely in line with what we've already been

charging. Uh slightly more for the uh single family but the same for the multif family. So we are in line with what we've been doing thus far. Um there was also a concern from the souk builders association of a lack of transparency transparency in the fee determination and I think I've sort of explained how we came to those conclusions. Um they were concerned that, you know, we've had this reserve fund policy uh in place for 20 years and uh nothing's been used uh of those funds for affordable housing, which is a fair comment. But uh interestingly enough, we didn't actually collect our first affordable housing uh funds for that uh reserve fund until 2018. And it's only been in the last three years that we've actually really started to collect on a consistent basis. So we presently have $750,000 in that reserve fund, but the majority of that has been in the last say three years that that's been collected. So uh certainly it's not enough money at this stage in the game to build a large apartment building or but it is funds

that can go towards purchasing land uh providing subsidies to nonprofits, partnering uh or any other number of ways in which we can try and encourage that that type of development. Um there was concern from the souk builders association around a commun cumulative financial burden and certainly the development community has been experiencing a lot of increased costs over the last few years. Uh there's been changes to the building code that has had much uh more ownorous uh codes in terms of earthquake preparedness uh so foundations and things. So that has really increased the costs of development. Um there have been uh increased interest rates uh in the last few years. Um there's been uh anyway a number of things that have sort of comp compounded on the costs of development. And so it's a fair comment that this is another, you know, piling on of costs to the development community.

Um there was a concern that we were out of line with our surrounding uh municipalities and um in looking at say Colwood and Langford, the combination of their uh amenity contribution uh charge contribution and their community amenity contribution or affordable housing contributions. they have uh uh $7 and $9,000 as the total that they charge. Now, we're only char charge recommending at this point to charge for affordable housing and we're charging 4,000. So, it's about half of what developers are paying in Langford and Cwood. Um, and there are no plans that I'm aware of or in any near future that we're looking to add any amenity contribution charges to the list of things we're charging. At this point, it's just an affordable housing. So, at this point, we're charging certainly less than what the neighbors are charging. Um and then uh there was a concern about the um that we use this as a kind of that we do a kind of pilot project and we uh see

how it impacts things and and then tweak it uh as as time goes on. And so I did change the policy uh to have a one-year review period so that after the first year after the date of the policy being uh adopted that we would do a review and determine how it's impacting the community. We could have further feedback from the Souk Builders Association um and determine whether we needed to raise or lower the fees accordingly. So those were the main concerns from the Souk Builders Association and sort of uh how I explained that. So the Souk Builders Association did provide uh in their last email a uh series of figures that they're recommending. So they've suggested that single family detach should be $2,500 per unit. Town houses should be 1,200 per unit and condominium apartments should be $750 per unit. Um, these are just figures they provided. I I don't know if there's any performers that go in behind these numbers, but that was just the numbers they provided as being what they're recommending.

Uh, there are uh a number of exemptions from this policy. Um, so, uh, if you're a nonprofit, you're building nonprofit rental units, uh, you're exempt from these fees. If you're purpose buil built, uh, rental projects, uh, with, uh, uh, 50-year or more life of the building, then uh, you're exempt. Uh, projects with four units or fewer are exempt from this fee and non-residential development. So this is only at the time of resoning of a residential resoning that these fees would be collected. And the way we've been doing it up to this point is that the uh when the development comes in front of council for the first time, uh there's a recommendation that a covenant be put in place that uh addresses the affordable housing contributions and that covenant is in place before the zoning bylaw gets adopted.

So, uh, that's my presentation on on the affordable housing policy, um, that's attached to the report. Happy to answer any questions, uh, from council. Before we go on to questions, I just want to make a clarification. I have two agendas here. The one on the screen is 10.3 housing amenities and the one in front of me is 9.2. So, if there was some confusion there, uh I will use the uh well, we'll figure it out as we go along. Just just so you're aware of that. Okay. Is there any questions for staff? Who's first? Councelor Haldane. Yeah, I've got a couple. So, when you say there's four units or less, so a single family subdivision doesn't require to pay charges.

a development, a resoning application that has less than five units, so four or less, would not have to pay uh amenity like housing amenity contributions. So, if somebody's subdividing one lot off of their property, they don't have to pay. They wouldn't have this is sorry through the chair. This this this is only at resoning. So, if you're just coming in for a building permit or or even a subdivision of one lot, this is not a fee that it's paid because it's only at the time of reszoning the property. And I think they the the theory behind it is that when a developer reszones a property from say single family to being able to do multif family that that property becomes valued higher. And so you're you're taking a portion of that increased value of the property through the resoning process as the affordable housing contribution. So if you're not doing a resoning, then you're not paying well all single family homes that want to take a lot off have to reszone. So if

they do that, do they pay $4,000 or do they get exempt because it's only one lot that they're going to be taking off? So through through your worship, um not all lots need to reszone. If if you are already part of a sub, let's say there's a 50 lot subdivision and that's already been reszoned and already been subdivided and you're just building a house on one of those lots, then I understand that. I'm asking about somebody who owns a piece of property with a house on it. They want to subdivide off one piece for their kid. I've done it dozens of times. You have to reszone to small lot, residential zone, so you're in the sewer specified area and so on. And that reszoning triggers fees, right? It triggers more than $20,000 in DCC's. Does it trigger a $4,000 fee?

Your worship through you. Um, that would not trigger this amenity charge because it has to be more than four units. So, if it's just one lot through the resoning process, then it's not charged. So, the answer is no. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. You had two questions, did you not, councelor? Yeah. Well, and to the other point, um, the gentleman that came up from the builder association and I looked up, so Victoria charges us 3366 for a single family and 1,394 for for a multi. And the difference here is that an average lot value in Victoria is 823,000 where the average lot price in Souk is 378,000. So if you're saying it's based on, you know, some lift or whatever, the souk lots are substantial. They're a third of the price of a Victoria lot.

So, shouldn't we be a third of the price of a amenity charge? I mean, shouldn't there be some sort of a discount because we live in Zoo and the property is not worth anywhere near what it is in Victoria? And I guess at this point, I understand what he's talking about because they're charging $3,366 for the same thing we want to charge $4,000 and their their lot's worth 500 grand more. I guess I need a little clarity here, too. But you're you're mentioning in Langford and Cowwood which would be similar pricing lots I guess uh there is much more than ours. Is that correct? So so through through your worship to the uh counselor um the the uh so Callwood and Langford have a lower affordable housing charge. I think uh Langford's is $1,000.

Collwoods is a couple of thousand dollars, but when you combine that with their other amenity charges for social, heritage, recreational, other fees that they charge, um their charges, their total amenity charges are $7,000 and $9,000 respectively. So, um we don't charge any of those other amenity charges. We are only talking about charging for affordable housing. So, so our the only fee we're going to be charging is $4,000 in comparison to Cwood and Langford's seven and $9,000 charge. Okay, I got another question. No, I'm going to go to another council and I'll come back to you, please. Okay, anybody else? I thank you. Thank you for that presentation. Um, I have a few things. Now, you you spoke with the suit builders association. Now, in terms of approach number one, um I I'm not sure maybe councelor Haldane can confirm for me. Uh Royok, West Urban, Aragon, and Feral Estates, are they members of the Souk Builders Association?

Um I I don't know. Uh I Yeah. What's the relevance of that? Well, the relevance is that this is a group of uh developers who have plans to develop 100 plus lots in our community and they might well have have an interest in voicing opinions around approach number one. Okay, that was my thinking there. So, you you approached Habitat for Humanity to get some input, but you did not approach these other developers. Is that correct? That's correct. But sorry through your worship um the um any developer who comes forward even at a pre-application stage we have been telling them that our informal policy is $3,000 a unit. So they're all aware of what our our unofficial policy or uh is.

And so um that's won't be a surprise to anybody. But no, I didn't specifically go to them and ask right their input. So, okay, thank you. Um, now approach number one is is quite sophisticated, complicated, usually used largely in in much larger communities such as I think you've cited Vancouver, Sanich, Nanaimo. So is is it is do you see that as a challenge in that um our our local building development community is very much um comfortable with with a uh cash and loo approach through your worship the the this is still a cash and loo approach um it's just providing uh a mechanism ISM to uh come up with that fee, right?

That um you know there are uh you know people you can hire to do the appraisal for the land pre-zoning versus post zoning going through. And you know if in that assessment it comes out to be $2,000 a unit, right? Well, that that's good on the developer for, you know, and and it's not to say that you have to go through that assessment process. I mean, you you could and we, as you know, with Aaron uh development, um we we did a our own negotiation with the developer that was kind of a win-win for both parties in the sense of we got more money upfront and they paid less long term. And so it was these these negotiations can still happen, but if you come to a stalemate and you can't get to a point where you're both satisfied with what's being asked of the developer, then you can fall back on this assessment approach.

And the same goes for the smaller developers. And when I say smaller, like if you're doing 98 units, that's still a big development. Um, but you know, if you're if you think that the $4,000 per unit is too much money, you can do the assessment, get the appraisal, and figure out what the land lift is. And if it comes out to be less, then we would charge you less. This is just like you don't have to go through that assessment process, but if you want to challenge it, we're giving you the basis upon which to challenge it. Right? So there there's an option. the developer can either either or right sometimes to go the long way might be expensive to do and so there's an option of just doing a flat rate right go ahead chair can I have one more question this I'm I'm deeply curious about this now this um this policy of ours that the current policy affordable housing and social housing policy of 2007 talked about in

kind uh which as you explained is deeply challenging to administer and cash inlue. However, as you've just stated that the our first cash in loo was received in 2018, 12 years later after adoption of this policy and I I checked the the census numbers and what were there something like 2500 homes were built in souk over that period um from 2006 2018 this reserve fund theoretically just on a guesstimate of $1,000 cash in loot per unit should be up at 2.5 million. So, I'm I'm I'm cons concerned. I'm first I'm embarrassed that I didn't know this since um we were talking cash in L back in 2019. Um and I'm just curious why did why were we not charging cash in L uh from the get-go?

I know this is before your time, Mr. Marsh. I don't know if we can even answer the question, but I'll give you the opportunity. Uh your worship through through you to the counselor. Um, yeah, I I don't have an explanation for you. Um, but you know, one of the concerns from the Souk Builders Association sort of early on my time here was that due to the turnover of staff, um, that they were getting all over the map $10,000 a unit, a percentage, a covenant, a this, a that, and they never really knew exactly what they were getting themselves into. And so they wanted some certainty and some you know of understanding of like against consistency that this is what I will be charged when I come forward my reasonzoning application. And um so I I think it could be a combination of you know one administration putting the bylaws and policy in place and the next one carrying on with other priorities of the day and and then for and and to be fair that was a a real a high water mark

in in affordable housing in the sense that like in five years they literally the average price of a single family home doubled. Like that's huge. And so and then of course we've in the last 5 10 years you know experienced those increases again and I think it's just come to the forefront again and it's just brought it back to a tool that people want to use. So um I I I don't have an exact explanation but that may be part of it. I I I don't think you're even qualified to give it because you weren't here. So I'm now going to go to councelor St. Pierre.

Daniel, go ahead. Uh, thank you, chair. Uh, so the first thing I'd like to do is just note that, uh, 2018 was actually when a new council took place. I remember some of those discussions very clearly because we were astonished that the numbers were all over the place and they didn't seem to be representing 10% of anything in particular and they didn't seem to relate to 10% of anything we could identify. And so what I'd like first of all is to thank you very much for finally giving us some actual tangible stuff that could be used because we've been waiting I believe since 2018 when this first came up for this policy to actually clarify obviously for the development community first and foremost because they don't need to be jerked around by different answers but also for council who didn't know and was trying to figure it out. So thanks for getting there. It took a while but we're here now. That's good.

Um, one other thing I just like to note very quickly is that some money has been used because that also 2018 it was used for the first housing needs assessment. We pulled that money from the affordable housing fund. So it was used initially for that. That money has been used at least once before for its intended purpose. Okay. So the question that I do have though is um if actually I'm going to go back to uh some of the earlier work. Uh 5.3 on page 18 we have alternative development standards as one of the things that we were looking at on a regional level and at a local level. Can we even have alternative development standards?

Because I don't think we've actually done that sort of thing. Councelor Paul Dane has asked for that sort of thing regularly and I think it makes sense but can we do is that in the report? Uh yeah it was in the report. I I missed it but go ahead. So uh through your worship to the counselor the um there there is there there are ways in which municipalities can try and ease the pain of you know somebody paying to develop a property. Um, as you know, we have uh design standards for streets, right? And so when somebody has to do frontage improvements as part of their development application or their building permit, those are very expensive costs. Now, as you know, uh, municipalities can wave those front street frontage costs. And so I guess you could call that an alternative development standard that they're you're you're uh exempting them from having to pay those costs because they're providing affordable housing and you're encouraging them to do so.

Okay. So we're not talking about the building code or anything like that. We're talking about Okay. Sorry. I just How could How could we change that provincial and federal level? Would you get your question answered? That answers that. I have another question about covenants. Up until now, we've been, as I understand, using covenants to basically make sure that the money became available. Do we have a better system at this point? Because I always thought that was fairly um ownorous for everyone involved uh to actually have to set up a legal covenant so that this contribution could be provided. Certainly, it increases the costs and the difficulty for the developer. So, do we have a better system potentially with this new policy?

uh through your worship to the counselor. Uh the the co we we pretty much every resoning application I've dealt with since I've been here has had a covenant associated with it. Um, it's just because there's a lot of securities and things that are asked for through the resoning process and the only way to to to ensure that they are followed through with is to do it in a covenant. And so, um, it's it's no more ownorous to add a line in a covenant to say that so much should be provided for affordable housing. So, I I don't see it as a big added expense. And the difficulty is is that if somebody comes in for reszoning, let's just say they're the Roy site and they say we're going to have 70,000 square ft of commercial and we're going to have 200 units of homes, right? So the reasoning goes through and as you know once a resoning goes through they can do anything that that zone allows. So they

don't even have to build any affordable housing or any housing. they they they they could say they are in the application process, but that's just one of the uses permitted in that zone. So, um or they could build twice as much as they said in their proposal. So, how do you charge $3,000 per door if it could be a hundred or it could be 400? So, what you do is you say in the covenant that at the time of building permit or development permit or when you're nailing down exactly how many doors there's going to be, that's when they get charged the affordable housing contribution.

Okay. I think I was actually remembering one case where it was actually a single lot that was being split off and I think the contribution was like 1,800 and the cost of setting up a covenant was 1,200 and that was the only thing in the covenant and I was like what? But obviously that's not the case because that's under five units, right? And we're looking up. Okay, that makes sense. Sorry. Thank you very much. Councelor Pearson, you're up next. Thank you. Uh through the chair, um you I got a couple of questions here. So the the before and after zoning lift, land lift, you you you've got a number at 50% I think is what you said. So is how does that translate on average? Have we got a performant that says that that 50% lift is going to be plus or minus $3,000 an hour? Is that kind of that's have Have we done the background work on that? I guess is my first question.

Through your worship to the counselor, the performers provide a range and they say if all goes well, you you'd make $12,000 per door profit on the landlift. If the uh municipality takes an extra year to process the application and you sell the property for 2% less than you originally thought and you know and and end it's $2,000, right? And this obviously can vary widely either either end and it depends on the market of the day and all of those things, right? But, you know, there there was a range for the single family of $2 to $12,000 depending on those variables. And so, I chose $4,000 being kind of the lower end of that. So, that's based on a 5 acre property, you know, of the day. uh you know with all the costs uh incurred in the the and the thing is is if you know the one of the concerns from the Souk Builders Association well well what if you do add these charges or what if the market changes significantly or you know that that this is you know mean it means that

we're paying unnecessarily or too much well again you can always redo these uh calculations if you feel it's too much um and we have you know in the policy said that we would review it after a year. So um there is kind of a fail safe to it in that sense. Okay. And my second question is um as you're explaining it I kind of and I'm following the bouncing ball there for me is I personally would like to see the cost charges apples to apples across municipalities. I think that takes some of the guesswork out, but it also unties the hands of future councils to start unraveling the ACC's and the CCC's on top of the DCC's, right? So that if if Lanford and Cowwood and and we don't have to do what they do, but if they're charging $1,000 a door and we're charging $4,000 a door on the spot, but because they're charging more on their ACC's, I would like to see that we have some flexibility in our ACCs and our CCC's going forward to say,

"Okay, well now we'd like to build some sidewalks. It's another cost charge that that we could look at." It to me it feels more intuitive to sort of keep them apples to apples across municipalities because builders don't just build in Sou. They build in my they build in Cwood. They build in Sydney. So it feels more intuitive to me to to look at and I'll wait for my other counselors to do that. So um nonprofits, you said that nonprofits are exempt. That's right on the top of there. So, what about we have we have a nonprofit getting built right now and they're going to be charging market rental for some of that, right? So, are we going to are we going to take layers of floors apart and say that those because market rent to me is where the is what the threshold is. If if they're building not for profofit, they go below they go below market value and some of the some of the units are.

But I uh how do we how do we break that out or is or do you think about breaking that out? I guess maybe that's my question. So through uh your worship to the counselor um the the uh lot a development has a percentage of it that is um a below market value so affordable and it is and I don't know the exact percentage but it it it meets the the BC builds uh qualification for all the grants and subsidies that are being provided. So, uh, I would I'm not I'm not I'd have to see how that all gets defined in terms of our policy, but, um, if not entirely, it would at least be partially, uh, you know, exempt from from that fee. Yeah.

Okay. And you've answered that. It's the, you know, like when I hear these words not for profit and then you look at the salaries of the people that are working there. Yeah. Right. Then then, you know, it doesn't add up to me. So, um, as long as there's a thought process around maybe breaking so it may be more complicated and more work for somebody like in staff, but it's something that that twigged in my explanation. Um, I do have a couple more questions, but I'll go to councelor Haldane. He's he's been waiting patiently and then I'll come back to you, councelor Pearson. Yeah, I guess to add more on to even what councelor Pearson's saying. I mean, the difference here is you've got private sector that has to pay taxes on every lot they have. They have to do all these fees, all the stuff that they're or for profit, but they've got to go through a litany of things in order to be able to be successful. These so-called non not forp profofits, they're getting $3 million worth of property from us for nothing for zero.

So, the 20% of below market rent they're going to get that I would think the three million bucks in property would be enough to at least cover that. they should be paying the full amount. If every other uh property developer is expected to pay that amount, they should be expected as well. And if you look at what nonprofits do, they usually provide all below market rent. And these guys are only providing 20% of it below market. So, they should be paying full fees. They're getting a sweet deal from us. So, we should be able to get something back from them or recoup some of the money that they're going to get from this full market price they're going to charge on 80% of the units that they're going to have there. plus full market on all of the commercial down the bottom including the the medical center and I I think that's a question for another day. We're dealing with the health could be could be but still got some other stuff to talk about. I'd like to keep going. So

um the other thing you got to take into consideration when you're talking about single family lots is that you look at Sun River, you look at um up there on on the one just across off Otter Point Road and stuff. They might put those lots in and they might pay all the fees. And if you look at what the fees are, they're 20,000 a little over 20,000 for DCC's, 6,200 for water, 15,000 for sewer, 15 for storm. You're you're at $56,000 for one lot. Then you add on the 4,000. You're at $60,000 a lot. So that transfers over to the cost of whoever's buying it. And lots in suker only 378. But you got to take into account that these lots sit for a number of years as well. They don't sell all of them today. And I and um $2,100 is the tax on a single family lot that's not being used. So if these guys sit on it, and Sun River is a 20 20-y year buildout. If you sit on those lots for 5 years, that's $10,000 more dollars. So

all these fees and stuff added on, they got to recoup costs. Plus, they're paying 12 14% on the money borrowed and so on. You keep acting like these guys here, it's all profit, profit, profit. I mean, it's whatever they can try and recoup out of their investments. And that's what we haven't looked into at this point. And I'd like to see more of a robust discussion before we decide to add $4,000 when Victoria's charging 30 3,000 3600 on a lot that they have that's worth 800 and something and ours are worth 300 something,000. So I think it's too much. That's just me because I'm putting all the numbers together.

The only thing that I do like is that it's not applying to the smaller guy trying to subdivide it off for his kid. And the sad part about that is if you want to use and apply bill 444 on your single family lot, now stuff applies again. You have to do street improvements, which the last one I looked at for a guy was $107,000 for street improvements on turning a single family home into a single family home into a duplex. So, nobody's going to be able to afford to do these things. And these these bills were supposed to be about making stuff more affordable. This doesn't make stuff more affordable. And more importantly, the people that deserve this amenity housing money, young families, seniors, they're not going to get any of it. It's going to all go to subsidize people and we're going to have more buildings like we do down there. Sorry.

So, that's where we're going to run into a problem. And I I guess I'm having a little bit of confusion here is exactly are you talking about bill 44 or we're dealing with the amenities here? Well, you understand what bill40 is. Yes, I do. I'm well aware of it all applies to this. Well, I understand, but I'm not here. If you don't understand it, then that's okay. Chair, I'm the chair and I don't want to get in every time I'm trying to talk about something as the chair. Excuse me. I I'm going to use my authority as the chair. I'm thinking you're off topic and I'd like you to stick to the amenities thing that's before you.

This is This is the one I don't want to talk about. Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't a point. Okay. Well, I understand your point, but I'd like to get through the evening without going into a big thing about Bill 44. So, if you stick it to uh what we have here, you're saying basically you don't agree with the $4,000, that's fine. You have Well, I don't agree with how we got there. That's what I understand. Point of order. Yeah. Go ahead. I I would just like to note that we don't have a motion on the floor. And if so, facto time for questions and we'll get to comments in due course. That's okay. It was going there, but Okay. Do you have any more questions for No, that's it for now.

Uh, I'm going No, sec. Excuse me. I'm going to councelor Pearson. Do you have a question for staff? Oh, so Okay. So, we have the you're the chair. Thank you. South South Vancouver Island, you you said there's quite a few municipalities that do the land best. Um, and who are those? Uh, Victoria Sanich Nimo. Those are the ones that I'm aware of.

Oh, question for clarification in the opening part. um to the chair to director of planning said the um the DCC's said something about the sewer I wrote a question I wrote a question mark so the DCC sewer reserve fund is separate correct right anything that goes there that's a portion of the DCC's isn't that how I remember that so that that is is that a fixed amount or is it a percentage So the way development cost charges work is that you either pay on a per unit basis. It's not through a resoning. It's just you're building a single family home or you're doing a subdivision. You already have the zoning. Then you're paying a per door fee for sewer, water, roads, and there are separate calculation for each of those capital infrastructural needs in the community. Um, or if it's say a commercial development, it's on a per square meter basis.

Okay. So, yeah, it just it you mentioned that that the the funds and then you said both to pick hook up for the sewer and then I was just wanted clarification on that dcc. So, it does not apply. DCC's are not going to have anything to do with the affordable cost charges. Correct. That's right. Okay. I was just providing an overview of the tools that the district has at its disposal to pay for these things and that that isn't one of the tools that you can use for affordable housing. Yeah. Okay. And and now I got it now because I was no one was listening. I was okay. Thank you.

Okay. I think councelor St. Pet I was just providing an overview. Go ahead, councelor St. Pierre. I'd actually like to move the motion as councelor Baitman suggested. We don't have a motion on the floor. So that's that council adopt the attached housing amenity contribution policy dated June 8th, 2026. And do I have a second for that motion? Yeah, I'll second. Okay, councelor Baitman second that. Uh would you like to motivate please? Yeah, I would love to. So, uh I do think that we have had a robust discussion looks like from the correspondence that's been going on for some time with our development community and I understand that um nobody wants more fees, but the fees are not actually different from what we've had in the past where it was $3,000. They're actually pretty much consistent and there's now the opportunity to actually negotiate based on ideally a transparent and established framework for lesser fees. So, that's actually should be in the best interest of the development community as well.

uh the numbers that we have now are actually comparable better to other local governments specifically Lanford and I hope that if we do actually actually establish ACCs which I hope we will that we do adjust these in that iterative process with these yearly and by-early uh looks at it because that's what would be expected and I hope that we can address councelor Pearson's concerns in that way. Um I think that this will provide certainty where with changes of staff and with uh a policy that doesn't actually have specifics uh the development committee has not had certainty and that's been a challenge for ever. So I'm glad to see that will finally ideally be dealt with if we if we go through with this.

Uh, I appreciate actually basing on the landlift because as soon as the reasoning is done, uh, if it turns out the numbers don't crunch out right for the developer, they're probably going to sell the property in which case they will make back their money that they put in. I would assume. I have an additional question, which is probably not the right time to ask. What happens if they don't build any units based on the covenant, but let's not get into that. Uh, I am curious about that, but I'll stop right there. Uh, are you finished motivating? Yeah, actually there was one more thing. Um, I think I would like to also mention in terms of motivation that I'm excited at the idea that this would actually provide it with seed money in terms of doing something maybe like Tofino and having our own housing corporation and actually purchasing land potentially for manufactured home parks for who knows what and actually having the district actually get really involved with affordable housing in a more real way as a partner. uh this is the kind of seed money that would be needed to do that

sort of work and it's also needed for doing any any more work in this area at all. Thank you, Councelor Baitman. Okay. Thank you. Um as as with everything, I I'd be quite happy to push this down the road, perhaps even move it on to the back to the land use and development committee for more of a discussion. However, as tonight's conversation has unfolded, I'm I'm in favor of of moving ahead with the uh resolution here. Um I think it's important to note the pilot period as as you mentioned uh 12 months just like the OCP, we'll have it reviewed at the one-year anniversary. So we get to see the real world impacts pro and con of this uh policy as with the OCP within a year. So that seems like good common sense business.

Um I'll secondly note um soup does not have a community amenity contribution uh policy uh or fund. Um these fund uh childcare facilities, parks, green spaces and public open areas, community and recreation centers, libraries and cultural spaces, public art and fire or police facility expansion. Now, and we don't have any plan to do so in the immediate future. So this is a significant point and it does um need to be uh utilized in reference to the the lower housing reserve contributions in Langford, Cwood and Victoria where in fact as has been clearly stated um considerably more twice the fees the fees that are uh in the cash and loo um excuse my lack of knowledge of the terminology technology here, but the um these are consistent with the current rates that we've built up to $3,000.

Um furthermore, let's see, you know, and and a comment, councelor, you you gave a a really compelling verbal argument around the costs. um you you note $56,000 to to to start uh work on just a single lot. Now, in the past, I have requested to the Souk Builders Association that you provide us with a clean, clear chart that demonstrates your actual costs. So, when I see a cumulative financial burden, I need to I need to see a chart in front of me. I'm I'm a visual learner and I I would hope that councelor Baitman I think that's a bit of Have I done Okay, I I think so I'm off course.

Yeah, I think so. Okay, I'll sail back. Okay, I think that's it. Thank you. Okay, other counselors. Councelor Pearson. Well, I've seen over the years I've seen everything from negotiating on the fly in council meetings to 3,00 to,500 to,200 to whatever the wildest numbers that you can imagine. Um, I think the uh the policy is long overdue to be implemented. However, I think the amounts are are missing the mark. For me personally, I think that uh we have to we we sometimes we're we're different in Souk and I appreciate that, but I also think that we should get it more in line with um with with what neighboring municipalities do. Not because they're doing it, but it makes it levels the playing field out and I don't want to overstate in that fashion. So, I would make I would propose an amendment is to take the uh single family detached subdivision lot down to 3,000 because that's what we've been paying. This is a 33% increase over that. I would move the uh condominiums to be $2,000.

I I hope am I saying that too fast for our corporate officer? I'm trying to I'm I'm making a motion at this point. Making an amendment. making an amendment to to the motion to uh to adjust these uh one by $1,000 for the single detached subdivision per watt by um condominiums by $1,000 to $2,000. Uh mixeduse development to 1,000 by 500 and purpose-built rentals uh leaving it at 1,000 minute all right. So staff, I need to see that in front of the screen as a comparison, please. Is that possible? Just a second. I just want to see if staff can do put that up and then we'll get a second.

Okay. I think you just did

I'm trying to find the old one up here. Okay, here just just just to give me a chance to get caught up here. I just wanted to what I wanted to do was see the uh old uh what's we're amending from to okay so I got it in front of me now I just have to go back so the apartment developments uh same the same 3,000 okay uh mixed use oh condominium apartments 2,000 sorry okay okay all right so they're going down and purpose-built rentals remain a thousand I'm reading right off urban. Okay. Uh apartment uh developments. Okay. Does everybody see what the amendment is and fully understand it? Okay.

I don't you know in in we have to have clear expert here. We have apartment developments, mixeduse developments, townhouse developments, single detached and purpose-built rentals. So I would like to see that language matched in the in the amended. Yeah, I agree that and I and I read it right off of So, condos, do you mean town houses and apartments or condominiums, apartments, projects with fewer than 100 units? Ah, okay. Yeah. So, I'd like to see the the old one with the with the amendment beside it. So, I mean, they're all they're all dropping except I'll put I just need to stop.

Important we see what we're voting on.

Bear with us. I think it's important that we get it right. Okay. What I'll do uh I'll call for a five minute health break and then we will uh hopefully have that up in the screen and we can continue on. So we'll take a five minute health break. So that will be whatever it is 7:30. Wow.

I don't know. probably

Guess who? It's ideal for one or two. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is easy to put together. It's not expensive. If it if it crashes in a year, I can't remember. That's the Spanish.

They got John Farmer doing it for the club. He's gonna speak.

Oh, you got that right. Yeah. Well, he's has also raised being sort of like for us. I don't think he's been at a meeting for five years because we keep him on the books. He's a life member. But uh when I look around the club uh there wasn't that many people even knew who he was, you know, in the club for so we asked John because he's got the history. I can speak to it not as much. Where's uh where's St. Pierre? Oh, sorry. Don't Okay, can I get everybody sitting down again, please? Please find your seat. Sorry, you're still working on it. Okay, I'm going to extend it two minutes because that's what staff said. So, now that you're all nice and quiet, you can talk again.

No, it doesn't matter. They're not ready yet. They gave another two minutes. You got one minute.

I didn't%

2000. Sorry.

Okay, that's back.

Are we ready to go? Staff. Okay. All right. Let's get back at it. Thanks very much. So, now you have it in front of you and I believe Councelor Haldane wants to second that motion, the amendment. Is that correct? You want to motivate? Yes. And the reason that I propose it to be lower is it's in line with what we're currently doing. It's predictable. Um developers have asked us since I've been back on on council for four years to have a predictable. It may it may be a little bit higher than they like, but we are going to review it in a year. This is consistent what with what we're doing and I think it does what we want. I think that adding costs at the front end does sort of the opposite for affordable housing because you're making some people pay for affordable housing and it and it's the incremental amounts are so uh it takes so many houses to to to make a difference but maybe we should be land banking. Anyway, that's my

Okay, councelor Haldane motivate. Yeah, just the one thing given that we're going to do all this stuff anyway and there's a 750,000 roughly in the fund up to this point. If you want confidence coming from the building community in how we're applying or how we're taking all these things, then we need to to fix it to something that's reasonable or real. And and Tony made a point there earlier and, you know, come up with a project or something that's legitimate or real. I mean, we we lack a ton of seniors housing in this town. Air Manor's been looking and so on. And I don't mean to get off topic, but when it comes down to it, let's say we're going to partner up and and help build and and give this to one of the seniors housing outfits, somebody who's going to do something for the people who actually paid taxes and who actually worked in this community for all this time and rather than it be just the the people who are having a tough time. I don't I don't even know

how to put it in words, but okay. I think that it should go to people who have contributed to the system. That's all. So if we can make something like that happen and and make a project, then I think you would have more appetite for it as well. Any other comments on the amendment, councilors? No. Councelor St. Pierre. Uh I I I sadly disagree with the amendment. I think that um the amounts are not actually consistent because for the longest while SW we've been charging about 3,000 per door and that's what we've been putting out to the development communities. So it's not actually consistent. It's uh significantly less.

Just no clear speak please. I also think that the amount is uh as determined in the policy as we have it is based on basically what's expected to be made if you flip the property, if you sell the property based on the lift. And we still have the option that happens regularly that people will buy a property, do the reszoning, and then they just sell it and they're making money on the paperwork. But what that does, it increases the cost for future developers. If someone actually wants to buy that property and build on it, there's an increase in the cost that's already been built in that they wouldn't have had before. And what we can do is we can take some of that, we can actually put it towards projects that actually work on affordable housing.

Instead of that lift going strictly to somebody who's doing paperwork and then trying to flip it for some money, we get some of that. Um I think that the increase in the amount specifically on single family detached is needed because we need to discourage single family detached in some ways. It costs more for the district and it cost us it costs our taxpayers more to pay for that. Single family detach does not pay for itself in the long term for infrastructure. The more single family detach we build without uh on suitees, without more stuff added on, that just increases cost to future taxpayers because they have to pay for the extra infra infrastructure. And so it makes sense to get something extra because otherwise that cost is going to be passed to our taxpayers.

Um, I think that if a project is not going to go forward because of these fees which are half of what they would be elsewhere, then it's not a viable project and it should not go forward. But I think at that point we have to look at some bigger problems because that's probably because of the building code. That's probably because of all the other issues that we have in terms of trying to build affordable housing. We need to legalize affordable housing at the pro provincial and federal level as well. And that's not what we're in charge of. Yeah. Uh they're actually the ones making it really impossible to build cheap. So I'm just going to say that. Okay.

Councelor Baitman, do you have anything to say? Okay. Um yeah, I'll support the amendment. um on on various grounds. Um you know, I was on a call uh provincial call today that Brady Kalan, the minister of jobs and economic development. He he he was again speaking to the affordability crunch and how that's impacting uh all of us in in so many many ways. Um I I think interestingly in Mr. Marshall's report today, he does reference the OCP and uh the key the key um key ambitions here include preparing this very policy we have tonight work with developers to facilitate rental housing, seed funding and land purchases. So I would hope that at in approach A with with that negotiation process that very thing will will be uh front and center in the negotiations.

Um, it's also explored tax exemptions and DCC reductions. Uh, here here is a uh reduction on a on a a proposed amount. That seems fair. It's it we were going at 3,000 per unit. However, as we all know, coming out of our rough and tumble budget discussions, um we we need to to cut some breaks in this community for um for our builders, our citizens, and um yeah, and I think critically as we make a decision like this, we also have to begin looking at that community amenity contribution policy because as I'll Just uh just read one more time. Child care facilities, parks, green spaces, public open areas, etc.

We need all that. Someone's got to pay for it. Okay. Thank you everybody. Now, I'll get to comment. Uh I do not support this amendment. I think the staff has made a case. Uh they looked at they went away and took all the information uh that they were asked to do. they consulted with the building association. Just because they consulted doesn't mean they accept what what comes through. Uh we have been charging $3,000 a unit for eight years that I've been here. And uh I'm happy to see that we have some money in that fund. So I uh I sorry is somebody talking back there? Just keep it down, please. And I I like the idea of the predictability. I heard for eight years here and uh that that was the number one thing is they wanted the builders wanted to know exactly what the fees were. And I don't think they're out of line. And if you save $1,000 on a door, a unit, I doubt

very much it gets passed down to the the end buyer because it's uh the the sellers will sell it for whatever the market will bear. So I just think it's a little bit of a a false economy. I think we do need to get more into affordable housing and unfortunately we have two ways to do it. One is development charges and these charges or taxes and people are saying that they're being taxed too much. So I will not support the amendment. I think that staff has done an excellent job in bringing that report forward. I think it's it clarifies a lot of things and and it was explained in such a manner. So uh I will not support it. So with that being said, I'm going to call the question on the amendment. All those in favor?

All those against. So that amendment passes 3 to two. So now we'll go back to the uh uh original uh the council adopt the attached housing amenity contribution policy dated uh June 8th, 2026. So I need a motion for that. Oh, already there. Sorry. Okay. Uh we had a second or so. I'll call that question. All those in favor? All those against? It's me. Please record that. Okay, thank you. We'll go on to uh other business. Uh what are we doing here now? Bylaws. Yeah, sorry. Been a long time on that one. Uh so now we're back into the right numbers. Zoning amended bylaw number 942.

Uh I think this is just a matter of uh adopting it. Is that correct? Okay. So someone move. So move. So move. Uh Pearson St. Pierre. Uh, any discussion to the motion? Hearing none. All those in favor? That's unanimous. Sewer amendment bylaw number 5954. Uh, again, this is just for adoption. I have a motion, please. Stolay. Okay, that's St. Pierre and Pearson. Again, any discussion to the motion hearing? None. All those in favor? That's passed. Thank you very much. Uh 10.3 science amendment bylaw 948. Okay. So we have a motion. We have a seconder. That's fine. Uh okay. Uh with that uh would you like to motivate please?

Okay. Well the secondary gets to motivate first. So go ahead. Nope. You can go ahead. Okay. Uh councelor Baitman. Okay. Well, this is um Yeah, it's a complicated or not, maybe not. Um so, um I'm curious about section 3.3 of the proposed uh bylaw amendment. And I would like to make an amendment at this point that um the language in the proposed sign amendment bylaw number 948 be revised to state quote at any time starting at the beginning of the campaign period and this would be done through the removal of the prefix pre. So we have an amendment on the floor. Do we have uh it's not on the screen yet so it's up there and then I'll ask for a sec here.

My apologies for not sending that in advance. I can't it's in the section right is the actual

It's page 101. 141. What is it on? It's on page 102 on the agenda. 3.3 3.3. I don't have a 10.3 is the on this one and I've got Yeah, I got it on both of them. Page 102. Council, which attachment? What's that? Which attachment? It's my Which attachment is it in? It's in attachment I guess the first attachment right after the staff report. Attachment one, bylaw 948 2026. Okay. So that wording your worship is coming up on the screen there and the effect of this amendment would be to amend the revised bylaw. So it would now read the traffic and highways regulation bylaw is amended in section 17A to insert the words at any time starting at the beginning of the campaign period as defined in the local election elections campaign financing act between the words highway and provided.

So we have that now do we have a seconder? Okay, councelor St. Pierre seconds that. Okay. Motivate, please. Okay. So, the there are, as Elections BC knows, as we heard from our speaker tonight, um there is a pre- campaign period, which is the current language in the the bylaw um signed bylaw amendment. And the pre- campaign period begins on Monday, July 20th, 2026. Um, I'm requesting in this amendment that signs go up at the start of the campaign period which begins on Saturday, September 19th. So, uh, it has been a long tradition locally for signs to go up at or near the start of the campaign period. That is a common practice. Um, this has been the norm in our elections as well as via very clear legislation in provincial and federal elections. And of course, this is on public land we're talking about. We're not talking about private land here. As the staff report makes clear, the charter um does indicate um the rights and freedoms of

Canadians to put what they want on their properties, provided they're not blocking uh our drivers from seeing the road ahead. So, um, this is specific to candidate election signs in the campaign period starting September 19th. I'll just add that as as we read in the staff report. Um, this this is common practice throughout CRD municipalities, give or take a few local wrinkles. Squimalt allows signs to go up at the start of the nomination period which is September 1st I believe Mr. Lois this year uh via worship. Yes, that's correct. That's right. Callwood, Victoria, Sanish, Lanford, Oak Bay all allow them effective September 19th. Callwood um has a very robust uh election sign bylaw that gets to the point where they have maps which show exactly where you're allowed to put your signs up. 12 different stretches of road in Calwood. And I perhaps one day we would see that.

Um so yeah, my my final motivation point is I don't want to see our uh town at the height of tourist season and me driving around town seeing all these election signs well before the uh the period in question. So that that's that's what I've got to say. Thank you. Okay, Councelor St. Pierre. Uh I just like to thank our member of the public for making her points. Uh I think they were well made and I think I I agree with everything that councelor Baitman has said. Uh I feel very strongly that in this particular case it's also um it does give advantage to those who honestly uh have more money, deeper pockets and more organization. And one of the things I do like about local government is that anyone can step up and if you knock on enough doors and talk to enough people and enough conviction and passion and good ideas and you convince enough people, you can actually get elected. And um having this much influence so early uh puts anyone

who comes in later at a disadvantage and I don't think that's what we want. So I appreciate the intent of anybody else councilors councelor Haldane. Sure. I think that I'm fine with the amendment here. I think being organized is different than affordability. I mean when you come down to it here this is just about a bunch of people passionate about a community and whether you own property or not you still have everybody has family, friends and supporters. They can put stuff in their yards off the highway which allows for it. And the other thing you want to do is you want to encourage younger people to get involved. And uh from what I understand, that's what's happening in this case here. And somebody's passionate about wanting to be part of council or whatever and they're enthusiastic and their moms and dads and grandmothers are all involved with them and and want to push them forward that then they have the right to do that on private

property. The highway stuff I'm fine with. We'll wait till the 19th and and we'll go from there. So I appreciate it. Thank you, Council Pearson. Yeah, I I I don't have a problem with the with the bylaw. Have a problem with a couple of the comments that came from my left, but um because in this day and age, people have the right in Canada to take advantage of the rules that are out there and they have the right freedom of expression um to organize and do what they want. I know it f now now now we're we're crossing into this campaign thing and that and that's we don't want to do that at the council table. We want to we want to have people who are in who uh who have ingenuity, people who are thinking people who are thinking outside the box. Not it's because it's outside the box doesn't mean it's a contribution of rules and it gets implied that people are doing something or have more money or whatever it is. That's we don't want to get into that.

Are we talking about the amendment councelor Pearson? It's the amendment we're talking to. The amendment is to just own the highways. I believe well it's to delete the word pre. Yeah. Elections BC covers all the rules and regulations that are out there. We have our own if we want to have our own signed bylaw. Uh fair enough that that's that. But don't take away people's rights and freedoms in our country. It's not it's we should never succumb to that anyway. Okay. I just no comments, please. All right. Anybody else? Speaker. Okay. I I'll speak to it. I'm in favor of the amendment. I think it's a small thing and I think it's add some clarity and uh so I'll be supporting the amendment. So I'm going to call a question on the amendment by councelor Baitman. All those in favor?

All those against. So that's councelor Pearson against. Okay. Uh then uh I guess that uh the council give three readings to the science amendment bylaw. So I'm not sure how to proceed with that. So corporate officer uh your worship the this has been moved and seconded by councelor S. Pierre and councelor Haldane. So now it would simply be that to give three readings as amended that is currently on the table. All right. So uh we'll call that question. All those fit sorry go ahead please. comments here because interesting points have been raised tonight during public comment around this uh these amendments. So I just like to speak to a few of them. The restrictions on the use of district color palette as report clearly states the proposed restriction is on the brand as a whole which collectively as a combination of specifically divine defined colors represents the branding of the district. So that yellow could still be used by anyone for any purpose.

So that that's a clear point. I think good points around just banning the use of the district logo, but I think this does make that point clear. Um require removal of signs within 24 hours. that is the Ministry of Transportation and Transit um standard and I think it's a good thing for Canada both successful and um not so to uh shake it off and get out there and and get those signs down so we can begin another term and the prohibitation of signs on municipal property parks. Now, as our report states, section 52 of the parks bylaw does very clearly have a prohibition on um ad advertising or whatever within our our park system. So, that bylaw does stand uh during regular and election silly season as well. So, there we are.

Thank you, councelor Bman. Any other comments? I'm going to call the question. All those in favor? Any against? That passes unanimously. Thank you. Uh then on to new business. There's no notices in motion. Um motions of which notice has been given. Uh and that's councelor St. Pierre improving audiovisisual experience of council meetings. Uh so uh actually I guess I could start by putting it out there. Um, we have our staff and uh, chair regularly reminding us to hit the speakers. Uh, I believe there's actually technology out there that would pick up our voices automatically, making sure that uh, anybody that's out there uh, attending electronically can actually catch everything in, which that's not happening right now. So, I don't think it's a very big thing, but I don't know that. And I'd like to know from staff whether or not we can actually make some improvements. I think it would just save a lot of hassle. I think that, you know, the time that our staff is spending reminding us to turn the mics on could be better spent doing almost anything. Uh, that's about it.

I will let staff uh comment on it. Uh, but I've also uh looked into this beforehand and the word I had from the CAO is there wasn't enough staff capacity in the time left in this council uh to actually action it. So, uh, I'm not sure where you want to put it now. if you want to carry on with making the motion, but nothing is going to happen of it because there's just not enough time. Well, then perhaps for the next council, they can actually avoid this kind of nonsense. Did you want to carry through with your motion then? Yeah, if it fails, I think let them deal with it.

Let them deal with it. Uh I think staff can put it in the queue and if it doesn't get done this term. Okay. Then ideally at some point we get some improvements. All right. Do we have a seconder then? Yeah, I'll second. Okay. Any discussion to the motion? Are you okay? No. Anybody else? Okay. Councelor Pearson. Yeah, it need it needs to be fixed, but I mean I think we've got other priorities and and I I guess I you know, I read councelor McMah's note to us. It uh you know, she's I don't know if she's opposed. She just doesn't want to spend any effort and time on it. So, so there we go.

Make sure that her her uh message is loud and clear. Go ahead, councelor Baitman in the queue. That is very critical. You know, there's a big queue. There's a long to-do list. So, this joins it and it just will be for consideration by the next council. Anybody else? If not, I'll call the question. All those in favor? All those against. Okay. No one voted against. So, that passes. Okay. Uh 14. Correspondence requiring action. Uh 14.1 Provincial response to 2025 resolutions. Junior BC uh brought by me. I talked to the CEO and that was supposed to be removed because we dealt with it earlier today. So, I just like that taken out. Uh next is the uh annual uh report Victoria Family Court and Justice Committee requested by councelor Baitman.

Yeah. So, I'll move uh receipt for information, please. We have a motion for second by councelor Pearson. Uh any discussion? Well, yeah. I I'll just uh make a few comments here. This is one of my formal council appointments. I've been doing it for the last eight years. Many suit counselors over over time have done this. Perhaps Mayor Evans even was a member of the Victoria. She was indeed. So, this is a pretty remarkable little organization that does what it does. It's a CRD designated commission. And as I did last year, I wanted to pull this report um just so that you know the kind of work that's going on. The mandate of the organization is to educate and advocate uh on the subject of keeping young people out of the youth justice system.

Again, this is those kind of return on uh investment. Um uh in terms of uh yeah so we we do distribution of grants to youth serving nonprofits, advocacy letters on behalf of frontline service providers. Uh we do panel discussions. Um we do continued advocacy for one of those units of the Greater Victoria integrated police units, the mobile youth services team. Now I'll just give you the update on it. Um the federal funding I'm I'm sure you're all aware of missed by now given the amount of times I've mentioned it. Um the federal funding for its counselor member runs out on September 30th. Uh so our next meeting on June 25th, we're inviting uh the Minister of Children and Family Development from BC and all our local members of Parliament to attend and hear directly from the impacted MIST team members. They handle more than 250 active case files involving children and teenagers caught up in gang recruitment, homelessness, sexual exploitation, domestic and street violence, mental

health, drug addiction, and involvement with predators, bullies, and the worst of the worst in our communities. So, this group is essential and it needs to be funded. And that's, you know, I'm speaking on behalf of our group. We are quite passionate about this and we're we're beyond mystified as to how Ottawa could not continue to fund such a critical um service. So I'm off my soap box and that's that. Okay. So that just um we don't need a motion for that. That was Yeah, I thought so. Okay. The next one's 14.3 local government action program funding mayor Sanich. And that's councelor Baitman again. Yeah. So this one there is some confusion over whether or not the local government climate action program is being defunded or not. So um as much as Mayor Murdoch and the Sanage Council believes it is there is perhaps some other evidence um that it's not. So I think rather than um go into great detail, but I do want to make a couple of points. Of course, this program uh

was launched in May 2022. The LG CAP, it delivers about $140,000 annually to the district. Um when and it's for uh climate action initiatives within a community. Now, it has early on it it helped fund the Friends of Sou Park Society and its work and other local grassroots community organizations. In our current budget, uh a grand total of $285,000 from this plan will go into rainwater storm management infrastructure in multiple locations around Souk and also for storm repairs on Brownsy Boulevard. So just so we can address this whole matter of climate action being um something out there, it is in fact directly on our doorsteps in every new sinkhole that appears in the community.

So this fund is it, you know, we'll find out whether it's going to vanish or not, but it's a it's an example of the province providing us with some funding just as it did with the growing BC fund, which is close to exhausted as well. So we need more funding out of uh Victoria just like Ottawa. Any other councils want to discuss that? Nobody lining up. Yeah, I don't need a motion for that one either, do I? Okay, sounds good. Okay. 14.4 All Soup Family Day Picnic Soup Community Association. At this time, I must ask uh Councelor Haldane if he's previously declared a conflict of interest. Uh so I have to ask again.

If we're going to be voting on any motion, then I'll leave. But if it's just request for information, then uh yeah, I have a feeling it will be. Uh uh okay. Do you think that then uh but anyways u it says request for discussion by Mayor Tate. Yeah, unfortunately Mayor Tate's away, but she did ask me to carry it forward and so I'm willing to uh basically the the souk community association is asking for a $5,000 sponsorship for uh I guess it's all soup day family picnic. And uh in the past last year we did uh for the amount I believe it was $5,000. Uh it's changed a little bit this year in that our new policy only allows up to $1,000 of request for sponsorships, but council does have the opportunity uh if it so wishes to um take money from our uh uh contingency p fund. And our uh uh fund right now is sits at $22,857.

So if somebody uh wishes, I'll recuse then. Okay. You guys are gonna vote and stuff. Okay. Appreciate this. So I'm looking for a motion. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. I make a motion that we uh sponsor the suit community association for the all suit event in the amount of $5,000 to come from our contingency fund. Uh just point of clarification is all of it coming to contingency or a thousand from the sponsorship? Sorry, combination of the maximum from our sponsorship thousand and 4,000 from contingency. Okay. Staff record that. Okay. Uh and was there a secondary? Sorry, councelor St. Pierre uh would you like to motivate or No straightforward? No.

How about you, Councelor St. Pierre? Okay. So, uh we have a motion and you speak to the motion. Thank you. Yes, I'll speak to the motion. I you know, I did make a request to to Miss Burgerer um to to provide us with some details on how that $5,000 is spent. Is it strictly for the fish? Is it for honorariums for those involved in the project? H how how does that get spent? And you know, last year at this time, I had no second thoughts about giving $5,000 to an event as as significant to this community as the the return of All Suit Day. And we have supported it for the last three years. I think we're up to the third return.

If I might, Councelor Baitman, I will just make my point. My point is that as uh here's here's one example of where the district in its new era of austerity and I'm sure the next council will be wanting to look at every single dollar. So when something like this comes through, we need to see budgets. We need to see details. I know it's it's a vitally important event for Souk and at the same time we need to create a new era of of just looking at every dollar So, I will vote in favor of this nonetheless. Okay. Just a point of clarification, it did say in the letter, we were respectively requesting sponsorship in the amount of $5,000 which consists for the district generous support in previous years. These funds directly assist with event operations, family activities, and entertainment, site servicing, ensuring the event remains accessible and affordable for all. So, it's not just for the meal, it's for the whole uh the whole event.

Okay, that's good to see. And thank you for pointing that out. At the same time, I will stand by my request that we see budget. Yeah, that's not a problem. I just wanted to make that clarification because it was in a letter. So, councelor Pearson. Yeah. And um I think in in all cases, we do want to see budgets and things like that, but if you recall our uh granting um exercise, the the community association uh asked for substantially a lot more money to keep that amazing organization going. um we get tenfold of what we're providing from the tax dollars in backend benefits, soccer fields, kids playing, baseball, diamonds, all of those things. So, uh uh this is a small ask um and we cut out a big ask earlier to this to this or amazing organizations.

Okay. So, councelor St. Pierre, I'll let then I'm going to call the question. Uh just very quickly, uh I'm sure staff is taking note of this, but this is the kind of larger event that we've been supporting for a long time and should support. So as we move forward with things like the MRDT, I'm hoping that we can look at different mechanisms that can actually make sure that the money is available for these events that we need. All right. Okay. Uh so I'm going to call the question all those in favor. Okay. And that's four of us. That's unanimous. Okay. And councelor Holdane can come back in. Uh items removed from consent agenda.

No, they go to the next meeting. Council verbal reports. Who wants to go first? Okay, we'll start over there, councelor St. Pierre, and then I'll come around. So, uh, first of all, I'd like to thank council for moving this forward as a resolution. And, uh, that happened I I was inspired by this by the work that's been done in the UK. In the UK, you can actually uh have seafoods reduced in price massively right before they expire. They put yellow stickers on them. Everybody fills their carts up, carts out of way. Doesn't go to the landfills. It goes to people uh instead of in quite as many food banks, I would imagine. They just make sure food doesn't go to landfills and people actually shop in the same places. So, there's an equity piece. There's a way of distributing food so it doesn't go in the garbage. uh what it requires at this point because we don't have the same habits in the UK is probably some work

and legislation at the provincial level and I think that would help our food banks and everyone that is having a tough time. So that was the inspiration that's where it came from and if you want more information maybe later. Thank you. And councelor Pearson. Yeah. Only one kind of small report is that on Saturday I was able to attend the Tamak treaty uh presentation in at Edwardville Community School. Uh really really uh positive event. Lots of information around uh uh the treaty progress so far. Identification of treaty lands within our municipality. Um no surprises to us I don't think. Um with the exception of maybe the the lands that are on East Road. uh and that but no it was it was a it was a great event and I got to meet first face to face with all of the uh the local nations more clarity.

Yeah, it was it yeah uh asked each one of them you know basically for what they wanted me to take away from from the meeting. It was it was was it was extremely a positive event myself and two other counselors were there. That's it for me. Council Baitman. Okay. Yeah, I was at that open house. I was also I attended the CRD parks committee, transportation committee, the CRD arts commission, the CRD governance committee, and the separ commission meetings over the last uh two weeks. Um there was the opening of the Souk skate park, which I trust uh acting mayor Bettos will will speak to. Um planning meetings for the Souk Region Health Summit on September 26th.

Um, I met with I was invited to meet with the Souk for Palestine group that you will have read about in the Souk news mirror and uh I have recommended they book a delegation presentation so as to share their views and their take on community reaction to the genocide in Gaza at a future council meeting. Uh, in the meantime, they have given me a set of pamphlets that I have I will leave with our corporate officers. So please expect those in your your mailboxes in the days ahead. And finally uh the municipal leadership advisory team which is in support of the village initiative which is the group of the umbrella group for 70 youth serving organizations in souk and the west shore. Um we have contributed 14,000 per year for two years to fund their um regional coordinator. So Souk Langford Cwood School District 62 and a citizens group in Machosen have come together to fund this position and uh Miranda Levert is her name and she will be making a presentation to us at some point over the course of the next uh six months or so.

Yeah. Thank you. Councelor Hela in your work. Um yes, as councelor Pearson said, I went to the Tamak treaty negotiations. Um talked about a lot of stuff. The one big thing that we talked about was uh they're planning on giving away the Souk Regional Park up at north end of of um I guess our Sea of Sky, so Shields Lake area. Um but they said unless the Souk Nation asks for access to it through a road system, then they'll leave it the way it is. But there may be some negotiation coming in the future to be able to drive up there again like we could have for a lot of years prior to to the seed of sky uh park setup and really not for huge traffic issues but for the fact that if you want to take a boat or a kayak or a canoe up there and talked in quite length with this younger guy and he loves the idea but he said it

it's not going to be up to anybody except for the the the First Nations themselves, whether they think that that's a priority or not. So hopefully something like that happens and we can access those again. Very good. Okay. For me, um I did uh as you probably saw that we opened officially the Souk skate park. Well, well attended. The kids are having a marvelous time there. Uh they've done a bangup job on uh on budget. A little late. We got cut with some uh caught with some rain. So, it's it was two months late. Uh, but the kids have been using it for the past month and they're they're delighted with it. And, uh, I was just shudder every time I see them go up some of those runs. How they don't break bones is beyond me, but kids are pretty resilient. Uh, I'm not getting on any skateboards soon. Anyways, it was nice to see that amenity and thanks back to the Sup Rotary who initiated that

park back in 97, I believe it was, or somewhere around there. And unfortunately, it just wore out. uh also uh CPAC a CPA park meeting uh we had a a nice robust discussion there. Uh changing demographics slightly but basically uh things are really going well at SE park as you probably all know. uh the last thing well two things actually then I was on a a webinar uh for SE park and about uh planning for the future and it become pretty evident that uh you know financing in new ice rinks and uh these facilities is almost beyond the capabilities of a municipality to pay. it's just getting so expensive with the new regulations and that uh it was very evident that other levels of government have to be involved when we go for these big projects. Uh and the last is I had the pleasure of going to UC yesterday. Uh yes, yeah, it was yesterday or was it Saturday? Anyways, I went to Uvec at the

grads 2026 grads. Marvelous, marvelous ceremony. It was the largest class EMCS. I think like 173 of them or something there. Yeah. And it went on and on and on. But it was marvelous to see. I've been to a few of them and the number of kids how energetic they are about the future and uh a lot of them going to postsecary and lots of uh uh burseries and things were given out. So it was a lot of fun. And that's it for me. Anything else? I was there too. Yeah, I had a granddaughter there. So, I was there for twofold. I got sit in the front row. So, it was great. Uh, if there's nothing else, then I'll have a motion to adjourn. Okay. Pearson and St.

Pierre. Thank you everybody. We all voted for that, right? Okay. Yes.