Salt Spring Island Housing Policy Paper
September 3, 2026 Leave a comment
The following is a policy paper I have submitted to the Province for consideration.
(PDF available here – https://islandstrust.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/salt-spring-island-workforce-housing-strategy.pdf )
A PROVINCIAL WORKFORCE HOUSING STRATEGY FOR SALT SPRING ISLAND
Creating a Permanently Affordable Parallel Housing Market Through Strategic Land Designation, Compact Development, Workforce Housing Covenants and Revolving Public Capital
Policy Discussion Paper
Prepared for consideration by the Province of British Columbia
Eric Booth – Former Salt Spring Island Islands Trustee (2002-2005)
September 2026
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Salt Spring Island faces a housing problem that is fundamentally different from a temporary shortage of residential units.
The Island has become a highly desirable real-estate market whose residential property values are increasingly disconnected from the incomes generated by the local economy. The result is a structural mismatch: many of the people required to operate the community increasingly cannot afford to live in the community they serve.
At the same time, Salt Spring faces substantial constraints on the creation of new housing. These include the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR), the Islands Trust land-use framework, limited community water and wastewater infrastructure, environmental constraints, a predominantly rural settlement pattern, and a housing stock overwhelmingly weighted toward detached dwellings.
Current Salt Spring housing planning identifies a requirement for approximately 2,550 additional homes by 2041.
This is not a problem likely to be solved through accessory dwelling units, scattered rezonings, incremental density increases, or a small number of subsidized housing projects.
A structural solution is required.
This paper proposes that the Province establish a Salt Spring Island Workforce Housing Initiative based on eight fundamental principles.
1. Designate strategically located land near Ganges for substantial residential development
A defined set of properties or portions of properties would be identified in Schedule A.
Priority would be given to land adjoining or near Ganges where community services, employment, transportation, water and wastewater infrastructure can most efficiently support compact development.
Some designated lands may presently be within the Agricultural Land Reserve.
2. Permit substantially greater density on designated lands
Rather than consuming large areas of rural land through low-density subdivision, designated lands would accommodate compact forms including four- to six-storey apartment buildings, townhouses, rowhouses, duplexes, live/work housing and other forms appropriate to Salt Spring’s workforce.
3. Require 100% of the additional residential capacity created through the initiative to remain workforce housing permanently
The increased development entitlement would not create ordinary market housing.
Every dwelling created through the special provincial authorization would be subject to permanent workforce-housing restrictions based substantially on the successful Whistler Housing Authority model.
4. Establish a second, parallel housing market
Salt Spring would continue to have its existing unrestricted real-estate market.
Alongside it would exist a permanently restricted workforce market in which rents, occupancy, eligibility and ownership resale prices are controlled so housing remains connected to local workforce economics rather than unrestricted real-estate values.
5. Capture the value created by provincial intervention for the community
The Province would create substantial development value by authorizing residential density where that density does not presently exist.
That development right has significant economic value.
Rather than allowing that publicly created value to be capitalized primarily into land prices, the entitlement would be inseparably connected to permanent workforce restrictions.
The development right itself therefore becomes a major housing subsidy without requiring an equivalent cash expenditure by government.
6. Establish a revolving capital fund
The Province would provide initial seed capital through a Salt Spring Workforce Housing Revolving Capital Fund.
Capital would finance land acquisition and construction.
Ownership units would then be sold to qualified workers.
Construction debt would be repaid and public equity returned to the Fund.
The recovered capital would finance subsequent developments.
Rental developments could similarly recycle a substantial portion of construction capital through permanent mortgage financing once stabilized.
The objective would be a substantially self-replenishing development system, rather than a conventional grant program in which public capital is consumed once.
7. Minimize agricultural land consumption through density
Salt Spring contains approximately 2,943 hectares — approximately 7,272 acres — within the Agricultural Land Reserve.
The initiative should establish a policy ceiling under which no more than approximately 5% of the existing ALR land base could be affected, while explicitly seeking to use substantially less.
At sufficiently high densities, the entire 2,500-unit program could theoretically have a net residential footprint well below 100 acres.
8. Protect food-producing capacity rather than treating mapped acreage as the only agricultural measure
The initiative should prioritize protection of actively farmed and agriculturally valuable land, while recognizing that not every ALR acre has identical agricultural capability or strategic importance.
Agricultural mitigation and reinvestment should accompany development.
A portion of the economic value created by the initiative could be redirected toward improving the productivity and accessibility of the much larger agricultural land base that remains.
The objective should be approximately 2,500 permanently workforce-restricted homes over twenty years, creating a housing inventory on approximately the same scale as Salt Spring’s present workforce.
1. THE PROBLEM IS STRUCTURAL, NOT TEMPORARY
Salt Spring’s housing crisis cannot adequately be understood simply as a shortage of dwelling units.
It is a separation between two economic systems:
the local labour economy, which determines what workers earn; and
the unrestricted real-estate market, which determines what housing costs.
Those systems are no longer sufficiently connected.
Salt Spring property is purchased not only by households earning income on Salt Spring, but by retirees, investors, purchasers arriving with accumulated equity from more expensive markets, and households whose incomes are earned elsewhere.
There is nothing inherently improper about those purchasers participating in Salt Spring’s housing market.
The problem is that a worker earning a Salt Spring wage must compete for the same finite housing stock.
Housing prices can therefore rise to levels supportable by external wealth even when those prices cannot be supported by local wages.
Detached housing prices on Salt Spring are now commonly in the range of approximately $1 million or more, with recent asking-price measures around $1.3 million.
At those prices, conventional market housing cannot reasonably be expected to provide home ownership for a substantial portion of Salt Spring’s workforce.
Building additional unrestricted housing does not necessarily correct this structural problem.
If newly constructed homes are unrestricted, they immediately enter the same regional, provincial, national and potentially international market as the existing housing stock.
Additional supply remains valuable.
But the price of that housing continues to be influenced by the purchasing power of the unrestricted market rather than Salt Spring wages alone.
This is why the problem requires more than additional supply.
It requires:
additional supply with a different economic structure.
2. THE SCALE OF THE HOUSING REQUIREMENT
Current housing planning identifies a requirement for approximately 2,550 additional homes by 2041.
A housing requirement of approximately 2,500 units is not an incremental planning issue.
It represents a fundamental expansion of Salt Spring’s housing stock.
For perspective, at an illustrative average occupancy of:
2.4 persons per dwelling
2,500 dwellings have residential capacity for approximately:
6,000 people.
That figure is striking when compared with Salt Spring’s labour force.
The 2021 Census identified approximately 5,260 employed Salt Spring residents, with broader measures of people working during the reference period approaching 6,000.
This does not mean that each new dwelling corresponds directly to one existing worker household, nor that the official housing requirement was calculated specifically to house today’s workforce.
It does demonstrate the magnitude of the opportunity.
British Columbia could create, over approximately twenty years, a permanently affordable housing inventory whose capacity is broadly comparable to the scale of Salt Spring’s present working population.
3. SALT SPRING’S EXISTING HOUSING MARKET CANNOT PERFORM THIS FUNCTION
The fundamental difficulty with relying exclusively upon conventional market housing is land economics.
Consider two otherwise identical homes.
One is unrestricted and may be sold to any purchaser at market value.
The other may only be sold to a qualified Salt Spring worker and its resale appreciation is controlled.
The unrestricted property’s value reflects what the broadest available market is prepared to pay.
The workforce property’s value reflects the affordability rules governing the restricted market.
They are economically different products even if the physical buildings are identical.
This distinction is critical.
Attempts to create affordable ownership housing while simultaneously allowing unrestricted appreciation contain an inherent contradiction.
If a publicly enabled $450,000 home can subsequently be sold for $900,000, affordability has largely been provided to the first purchaser.
The publicly created benefit becomes private equity and the affordable unit disappears.
Permanent affordability therefore requires permanent restrictions.
4. THE CASE FOR TWO HOUSING MARKETS
This paper proposes explicit recognition of two parallel housing sectors on Salt Spring Island.
Sector One — Existing Market Housing
Existing unrestricted residential properties would continue to operate normally.
Owners could buy and sell at market prices.
Existing property rights would not be converted into workforce restrictions.
Market housing outside the special initiative could continue to be created under otherwise applicable planning rules.
Sector Two — Permanent Workforce Housing
Housing created through the extraordinary development rights established by this initiative would operate under a different system.
Eligibility would be connected to employment, self-employment or qualifying service to the Salt Spring community.
Rental rates would be restricted.
Ownership resale prices would be restricted.
Principal-residence requirements would apply.
Short-term vacation rental use would be prohibited.
Compliance would be monitored.
The housing would remain within the workforce sector permanently.
The objective is not to suppress Salt Spring’s existing real-estate market.
It is to:
stop requiring Salt Spring’s workforce to compete exclusively within it.
5. WHY ALL OF THE EXTRAORDINARY DENSITY SHOULD BE WORKFORCE HOUSING
This is a foundational principle of the proposal.
The Province would potentially be:
authorizing substantial density where it presently does not exist;
overriding or displacing ALR restrictions;
overriding or modifying local land-use restrictions;
facilitating infrastructure; and
creating substantial new residential land value.
Those are extraordinary public actions.
There is therefore no compelling public-policy reason why the principal beneficiary of that newly created value should be unrestricted real-estate development.
If a parcel presently permits very limited residential development and provincial action suddenly permits 200 units, the public decision itself has created much of the economic value associated with that development opportunity.
The appropriate bargain is:
the landowner receives a new development opportunity;
the developer receives an opportunity to earn a reasonable development return;
workers receive housing at prices connected to the workforce economy;
the community receives permanent housing supply; and
future generations retain the benefit.
Allowing 70% market housing in exchange for 30% affordable housing would transfer much of the publicly created land-value uplift into private land appreciation.
That is unnecessary.
The development entitlement itself should operate as a principal subsidy.
Accordingly:
100% of the residential capacity created by the extraordinary provincial entitlement should be permanently workforce restricted.
6. THE WHISTLER HOUSING AUTHORITY MODEL
British Columbia does not need to invent the institutional framework from first principles.
The Whistler Housing Authority provides a proven B.C. model for permanently restricted workforce housing.
Whistler employee ownership housing uses title-registered housing agreements and covenants.
Its system includes:
employee eligibility;
principal-residence requirements;
maximum resale prices;
resale-price appreciation formulas;
rights of first refusal and options to purchase;
restrictions on rental;
occupancy restrictions;
annual occupancy declarations;
document verification; and
ongoing enforcement.
Current Whistler ownership covenants generally link permitted resale appreciation to Core Consumer Price Index.
Whistler owners remain subject to eligibility, employment, occupancy, rental and resale requirements throughout ownership.
Owners may be required annually to establish compliance and provide supporting documentation including tenancy agreements, tax returns, identification, utility records, employment contracts and pay statements.
Nightly rentals and home exchanges are prohibited.
Salt Spring should adopt the architecture of this system while adapting eligibility to the Island’s substantially different economy.
Most importantly, Salt Spring should define a:
Qualified Salt Spring Worker
rather than relying exclusively upon conventional employee status.
7. SALT SPRING’S WORKFORCE REQUIRES DIFFERENT HOUSING FORMS
Salt Spring’s Census data demonstrate why an urban apartment-only affordable housing program would be inadequate.
Approximately 39% of classified Salt Spring workers were self-employed in the 2021 Census.
Among employed residents classified by place of work:
approximately 34% worked from home;
approximately 18% had no fixed workplace address;
and fewer than half had a conventional usual workplace.
This has major implications for housing design.
Salt Spring’s workforce includes:
contractors;
carpenters;
electricians;
plumbers;
landscapers;
arborists;
artists;
repair businesses;
home-based professionals;
service businesses; and
other occupations for whom the dwelling may also function partly as economic infrastructure.
A compact apartment may work very well for a bank employee, restaurant worker, retail employee, health-care worker or office employee.
It may work poorly for a self-employed carpenter with a work van, tools and materials.
The program therefore requires diversity of physical form, even though every dwelling remains subject to the same underlying workforce affordability regime.
8. PROPOSED HOUSING MIX
The final mix should be established through detailed demographic and workforce analysis.
An initial planning model for 2,500 units could contemplate approximately:
| Housing Form | Share | Units |
| Mid-rise apartments | 35% | 875 |
| Family townhouses/rowhouses | 20% | 500 |
| Trades/live-work housing | 25% | 625 |
| Duplex/fourplex/cottage forms | 10% | 250 |
| Accessible/senior/specialized housing | 10% | 250 |
| Total | 100% | 2,500 |
Mid-rise apartments would primarily be located close to Ganges and should include a meaningful number of two- and three-bedroom units.
Family housing would provide private or semi-private outdoor space.
Trades/live-work housing could incorporate garage/workshop space, secure tool storage, work-vehicle parking, limited material storage, loading access, home-office space and appropriate low-impact business activity.
The percentages should be planning targets rather than rigid statutory quotas.
9. DENSITY IS A LAND-CONSERVATION TOOL
If Salt Spring requires approximately 2,500 additional dwellings, the important questions are:
where should they occur?
and
how much land should each dwelling consume?
The following simplified comparison demonstrates the importance of density.
| Average Net Residential Density | Land Required for 2,500 Homes |
| 2 units/acre | 1,250 acres |
| 5 units/acre | 500 acres |
| 10 units/acre | 250 acres |
| 15 units/acre | 167 acres |
| 20 units/acre | 125 acres |
| 25 units/acre | 100 acres |
| 30 units/acre | 83 acres |
| 40 units/acre | 63 acres |
| 50 units/acre | 50 acres |
| 60 units/acre | 42 acres |
| 80 units/acre | 31 acres |
These are net residential calculations and do not include every road, park, buffer or infrastructure requirement.
Nevertheless, the relationship is fundamental.
At conventional rural densities, thousands of homes consume enormous amounts of land.
At village densities, the same population can occupy a comparatively small footprint.
Higher density near Ganges is therefore not necessarily inconsistent with preservation of Salt Spring’s rural character.
It may be essential to preserving it.
10. AGRICULTURAL LAND: PROTECTING FOOD-GROWING CAPACITY RATHER THAN SIMPLY ACREAGE
Salt Spring contains approximately:
2,943 hectares — approximately 7,272 acres — of ALR land.
That represents approximately 17% of the Island.
However, ALR designation should not be confused with actual agricultural production.
Agricultural inventories indicate that only a portion of Salt Spring’s ALR is actively farmed, while significant areas contain natural or semi-natural vegetation, wetlands, waterbodies, forest, topographical constraints or other limitations.
The appropriate public-policy objective should therefore be:
protect and enhance Salt Spring’s practical capacity to produce food.
That objective is related to maintaining ALR acreage, but the two are not necessarily identical.
11. THE 95/5 AGRICULTURAL PRINCIPLE
The initiative should establish a clear agricultural safeguard.
No more than approximately 5% of Salt Spring’s existing ALR land base should be available for designation under the extraordinary workforce-housing program.
Five percent of approximately 7,272 acres is:
approximately 364 acres.
That should be understood as a maximum ceiling — not a development target.
Every reasonable effort should be made to use substantially less.
At an average 40 units per net residential acre, 2,500 homes require approximately:
63 acres.
At 50 units per acre:
50 acres.
At 60 units per acre:
42 acres.
Even allowing additional land for lower-density live/work housing, roads, buffers, infrastructure and open space, the program could potentially affect only a small fraction of the existing ALR.
At 50 units per acre, the theoretical net residential footprint represents only approximately:
0.7% of Salt Spring’s existing ALR land base.
The policy should therefore be:
At least 95% of Salt Spring’s present ALR land base will remain unaffected by the initiative, while the program should seek to use materially less than the maximum 5% allowance.
12. NOT ALL ALR LAND HAS EQUAL AGRICULTURAL VALUE
The ALR is a land-preservation system.
It does not mean every acre possesses identical soil capability, agricultural suitability, water availability, economic potential or strategic importance.
Some Salt Spring ALR properties contain productive soils and established agricultural operations.
Those should receive the highest level of protection.
Other areas contain forest, wetlands, topographical constraints, existing institutional or residential development, fragmented parcels, limited water or surrounding non-agricultural uses.
Schedule A should therefore prioritize the least damaging locations rather than treating all ALR acreage as interchangeable.
The objective should be:
the greatest permanent housing benefit from the least strategically important agricultural footprint.
13. AGRICULTURAL ACREAGE VERSUS AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS
Salt Spring’s agricultural challenge is not simply a shortage of designated agricultural land.
It is also agricultural viability.
The existence of ALR designation protects the possibility of future agricultural use.
It does not itself create:
farmers;
farm income;
affordable farmland;
irrigation;
processing facilities;
distribution;
equipment;
markets; or
economically viable farm businesses.
Salt Spring’s high underlying land values create a particular problem.
Agricultural land can remain legally protected for farming while becoming financially inaccessible to working farmers.
ALR properties may be purchased for rural residential use, privacy, retirement, estate purposes, lifestyle farming or long-term ownership.
Preserving the ALR designation does not necessarily result in commercial agricultural production.
Salt Spring can therefore simultaneously have:
more than 7,000 acres designated for agriculture
and
working farmers who cannot afford to acquire farmland.
This problem cannot be solved merely by maintaining every existing ALR boundary.
14. THE PARTICULAR ECONOMICS OF ISLAND AGRICULTURE
Salt Spring’s geography matters.
The Island has strong natural advantages in local food, farm-gate sales, farmers’ markets, specialty agriculture, market gardening, orchards, vineyards, livestock, value-added food products, restaurant-linked agriculture and regional niche products.
Those sectors should be actively protected.
Salt Spring is less naturally suited to becoming a large-scale commodity agricultural exporter.
Inputs and equipment must generally arrive by ferry, while products destined for large external markets must leave the Island.
The policy objective should therefore focus on the agricultural activities in which Salt Spring has practical long-term advantages and on food security for the Island and surrounding region.
Preserving food-producing capacity does not necessarily require preserving every one of approximately 7,272 currently designated acres.
A carefully selected reduction substantially below 5% need not create a shortage of agricultural land.
15. AGRICULTURAL REINVESTMENT
The workforce initiative should create a direct agricultural benefit.
A portion of the economic value created by Schedule A designation could support a:
Salt Spring Agricultural Land and Food Security Fund.
Potential uses could include farmland acquisition, long-term affordable farm leases, irrigation, water storage, soil improvement, drainage, fencing, farmworker housing, abattoir infrastructure, food processing, food storage, equipment cooperatives, young-farmer access programs and local food distribution.
This creates an important policy exchange:
A small amount of strategically located ALR land is used for compact, permanently affordable workforce housing, while part of the value created by that decision is reinvested into making the much larger remaining agricultural land base more productive and accessible to actual farmers.
Measured by food production rather than simply mapped acreage, agricultural capacity could potentially improve.
16. THE DEVELOPMENT-RIGHT SUBSIDY
The central financial innovation is straightforward.
Government does not necessarily need to purchase land at unrestricted residential prices and then subsidize workers sufficiently to compete for that housing.
Instead, government creates a valuable development entitlement while legally preventing that entitlement from becoming unrestricted market value.
The Province’s principal contribution can therefore be:
the development right itself.
Public action creates density.
Schedule B captures the resulting value differential.
The captured value produces affordability.
17. ILLUSTRATIVE 10-ACRE, 400-UNIT PRO FORMA
Consider a hypothetical 10-acre ALR parcel near Ganges that satisfies the Schedule A selection test.
Assume provincial designation permits:
400 workforce homes
at an average gross density of:
40 units per acre.
An illustrative mix could be:
| Housing Form | Units | Illustrative Restricted Price |
| 1-bedroom apartments | 140 | $375,000 |
| 2-bedroom apartments | 120 | $500,000 |
| 3-bedroom apartments/townhouses | 80 | $625,000 |
| Trades/live-work homes | 60 | $750,000 |
| Total | 400 |
The weighted average restricted selling price is approximately:
$519,000 per dwelling.
These figures are illustrative only. Actual prices would require current Salt Spring income, mortgage-qualification, construction-cost and household analysis.
Existing ALR Value
Assume the 10-acre property is worth:
$3 million
under its existing lawful ALR use.
This is not an appraisal.
Actual Schedule A properties would require independent appraisal based on their lawful use before extraordinary workforce-housing designation.
The Province should not compensate owners according to hypothetical unrestricted value created by the Province’s own future legislative decision.
Construction and Development Cost
Assume average all-in development cost excluding land of:
$500,000 per dwelling.
For 400 homes:
$200 million.
This allowance conceptually includes construction, professional fees, site servicing, financing, contingency, landscaping, common facilities and project-management costs.
Actual implementation would require professional quantity surveying and development pro formas.
Unrestricted Rezoning Scenario
Assume the same 400 units could instead be sold unrestricted at an average:
$850,000 per dwelling.
Gross development value:
$340 million.
A simplified residual analysis might be:
| Item | Amount |
| Gross unrestricted sales | $340M |
| Development cost excluding land | −$200M |
| Illustrative developer return/risk allowance | −$51M |
| Theoretical residual | $89M |
This does not mean the parcel would literally sell for $89 million.
It demonstrates what unrestricted entitlement does economically.
A substantial portion of newly created residential value becomes available to be capitalized into land.
Workforce-Restricted Scenario
Under Schedule B, the same 400 units produce approximately:
140 × $375,000 = $52.5M
120 × $500,000 = $60.0M
80 × $625,000 = $50.0M
60 × $750,000 = $45.0M
Total:
$207.5 million.
The comparison becomes:
Unrestricted theoretical value: $340M
Workforce-restricted value: $207.5M
Difference:
$132.5 million
That difference has not been paid by government.
It represents value that the legal structure has prevented from becoming unrestricted real-estate value.
18. THE AFFORDABILITY DIVIDEND
On a per-unit basis:
Hypothetical unrestricted value:
$850,000
Illustrative restricted value:
approximately $519,000
Difference:
approximately $331,000 per home.
Across 400 homes:
approximately $132.5 million.
This can be described as the project’s:
AFFORDABILITY DIVIDEND
It represents the approximate price separation created between unrestricted and permanently workforce-restricted housing.
The figures are illustrative rather than an appraisal or accounting measure.
Nevertheless, the economic principle is powerful:
Government can create hundreds of thousands of dollars of effective affordability per dwelling through the legal structure of land entitlement without providing an equivalent cash grant.
19. THE 2,500-UNIT IMPLICATION
If similar economics could be achieved across the wider initiative:
| Effective Price Differential per Home | 2,500 Homes |
| $150,000 | $375M |
| $200,000 | $500M |
| $250,000 | $625M |
| $300,000 | $750M |
| $350,000 | $875M |
| $400,000 | $1.0B |
These amounts are not proposed government grants.
They demonstrate the potential magnitude of market value that can be prevented from entering the cost of workforce housing.
This is one of the strongest economic reasons that:
100% of extraordinary Schedule A density should remain permanently workforce restricted.
Every unrestricted unit represents leakage from the affordability mechanism.
20. LANDOWNER AND DEVELOPER ECONOMICS
Permanent workforce restrictions do not require confiscatory economics.
The objective should be a system in which:
the landowner receives materially greater value than existing-use value;
the developer earns a commercially reasonable risk-adjusted return;
the worker receives housing substantially below unrestricted market value;
and
the public retains permanent affordability.
Suppose constrained land worth $3 million under its existing use can support a workforce-housing acquisition price of $6 million.
The owner has doubled the property’s value.
The fact that unrestricted rezoning might theoretically have created far greater value does not mean government is required to grant unrestricted rezoning.
The Province creates the entitlement.
It can define the public-interest conditions attached to it.
21. THE SALT SPRING WORKFORCE HOUSING REVOLVING CAPITAL FUND
The Province should establish a:
Salt Spring Workforce Housing Revolving Capital Fund
The Fund would convert the initiative from a series of one-time housing grants into a permanent development financing system.
The cycle is:
Seed Capital → Land/Construction → Workforce Homes → Sales/Refinancing → Capital Returned → Next Project
The same public capital can therefore participate in multiple generations of housing development.
22. LEVERAGING THE SEED CAPITAL
The Fund does not need to provide the entire cost of every project.
Public seed capital can function as project equity and unlock construction debt.
Assume the 400-unit project costs:
$205 million
including $5 million for land.
A conceptual capital structure could be:
| Financing | Amount |
| Revolving Fund equity | $50M |
| Construction financing | $155M |
| Total | $205M |
The Province’s $50 million therefore helps enable a $205-million development.
That represents more than:
$4 of housing development for each $1 of public seed capital.
As ownership units sell, construction financing is repaid and the remaining proceeds replenish the Fund.
23. PHASED CAPITAL RECYCLING
The 400 homes could be developed in four phases of approximately 100 units.
Assume each phase requires:
$51 million.
A conceptual financing structure might be:
Revolving Fund equity:
$15 million
Construction financing:
$36 million
Total:
$51 million.
Suppose completed restricted sales generate:
$52 million.
Construction lender repayment:
$36 million.
Capital returned to the Fund:
approximately $16 million.
The Fund began the phase with approximately $15 million and potentially ends with approximately $16 million.
Subject to actual costs and financing, the capital has:
helped build 100 homes and substantially returned itself.
It can then finance the next phase.
24. OWNERSHIP HOUSING IS PARTICULARLY SUITED TO CAPITAL RECYCLING
Once an ownership unit is sold to a qualified worker, the Authority does not need to retain the full capital invested in the dwelling.
The worker’s mortgage and equity replace the development capital.
The unit nevertheless remains permanently within the workforce sector because the covenant survives the sale.
When the owner later moves, the home is resold to another qualified worker at the prescribed maximum price.
The Authority administers the resale but does not necessarily have to repurchase the home.
This creates an unusually powerful combination:
private ownership capital
plus
permanent public affordability control.
25. RENTAL HOUSING AND CAPITAL RECYCLING
Rental housing requires a different structure because the Authority retains the asset.
Once a rental building is completed and stabilized, however, its rental income can support permanent mortgage financing.
The sequence becomes:
Construction Capital → Completed Rental Building → Stabilized Rental Income → Long-Term Mortgage → Construction Capital Partly Recycled
The public retains a permanent workforce rental asset while recovering part of the original development capital.
Rental rates could follow a Salt Spring adaptation of the WHA income-linked model, potentially using approximately 30% of gross household income subject to minimum and maximum rents.
26. MIXED OWNERSHIP/RENTAL PROJECTS
A particularly efficient project structure may combine ownership and rental.
For example:
75 ownership units
and
25 rental units
per 100-unit phase.
Suppose the ownership units sell for an average:
$525,000.
Sale proceeds:
$39.4 million.
Suppose the stabilized 25-unit rental component supports:
$7 million
of permanent mortgage financing.
Total recovered capital:
approximately $46.4 million.
Against a hypothetical $51-million project cost, approximately:
$4.6 million
of permanent equity remains invested.
In exchange, the community retains:
25 permanently affordable rental homes.
Meanwhile, the other 75 homes have entered private ownership while remaining permanently workforce restricted.
This represents highly efficient use of public capital.
27. THE WORKFORCE HOUSING CAPITAL MULTIPLIER
Suppose the Province initially capitalizes the Revolving Fund with:
$75 million.
If that capital functions as approximately 25–30% project equity, it could potentially support:
$250–300 million of active development.
As ownership units sell and rental buildings refinance, much of the original capital returns.
If the capital were recycled four times over fifteen or twenty years, the same original seed capital could participate in approximately:
$1 billion or more of cumulative housing development.
This is fundamentally different from a conventional grant program.
Under a grant model:
$75 million is spent once.
Under the revolving model:
$75 million becomes a continuing productive asset of the housing system.
The program should therefore be described as substantially self-replenishing, rather than guaranteed to be entirely self-funding.
Construction overruns, infrastructure, deeply affordable housing and financing costs will sometimes consume permanent capital.
28. THE THREE LAYERS OF PUBLIC SUPPORT
The financial architecture contains three distinct forms of public support.
Layer One — Development Rights
The Province authorizes density.
Potential cash cost:
minimal.
Potential economic value:
very substantial.
Layer Two — Revolving Capital
The Province supplies initial development equity.
Cash requirement:
substantial initially.
But much of the capital is recovered and reused.
Layer Three — Permanent Subsidy
Some lower-income households will be unable to support full construction cost even under the restricted system.
Direct grants should be concentrated on those households and projects.
This is much more efficient than subsidizing every unit equally.
29. WHAT THE PROVINCE IS NOT BEING ASKED TO DO
The Province is not necessarily being asked to write a cheque equal to the difference between a million-dollar market home and a $500,000 workforce home.
Instead, it is being asked to:
create the land entitlement;
prevent that entitlement from becoming speculative land value;
provide initial recyclable capital;
facilitate favourable financing;
coordinate infrastructure;
and
provide direct permanent subsidy where genuinely necessary.
This distinction could reduce the public cost of creating 2,500 permanently affordable homes by hundreds of millions of dollars.
30. FORMAL SCHEDULE A PARCEL-SELECTION TEST
Schedule A designation should not be arbitrary.
Every candidate parcel or development envelope should first satisfy mandatory requirements relating to:
proximity to Ganges or another approved service centre;
water feasibility;
wastewater feasibility;
road access;
meaningful housing capacity;
environmental and geotechnical suitability;
archaeological and First Nations considerations; and
compatibility with adjacent agriculture.
Qualifying parcels would then be scored:
| Criterion | Points |
| Housing yield | 25 |
| Infrastructure efficiency | 20 |
| Agricultural impact | 20 |
| Location/transportation | 15 |
| Environmental impact | 10 |
| Development readiness | 5 |
| Agricultural enhancement opportunity | 5 |
| Total | 100 |
An illustrative minimum qualifying score could be:
70/100.
31. DEVELOPMENT ENVELOPES RATHER THAN WHOLE-PARCEL EXCLUSION
Where appropriate, only part of a parcel should receive development entitlement.
A hypothetical:
50-acre ALR parcel
might contain an:
8-acre Workforce Housing Development Envelope
with:
42 acres retained for agriculture.
The eight-acre envelope might accommodate several hundred workforce homes.
The retained land could receive permanent agricultural protection, improved access, irrigation, drainage, soil improvements or long-term agricultural leases.
32. SCHEDULE B — PERMANENT WORKFORCE HOUSING REGIME
Schedule B should establish:
Qualified Salt Spring Worker eligibility;
principal-residence requirements;
ownership restrictions;
controlled initial pricing;
maximum resale formulas;
recognition of approved capital improvements;
Authority right of first refusal;
Authority option to purchase where necessary;
rental restrictions;
prohibition of short-term accommodation;
annual occupancy declarations;
employment/self-employment verification;
retirement protection;
temporary-loss-of-employment provisions;
inheritance rules;
enforcement powers; and
permanent title registration.
A Salt Spring worker should not lose eligibility merely because they eventually retire.
A person who has worked and resided on Salt Spring for a prescribed long-term period should retain eligibility.
Likewise, temporary unemployment, illness, parental leave, education or business interruption should not result in immediate displacement.
33. PROPOSED GOVERNANCE
A Salt Spring Workforce Housing Authority should be established or designated.
A possible board could include:
two provincial representatives;
one CRD representative;
one Islands Trust representative;
appropriate First Nations representation;
one workforce/employer representative;
one affordable-housing or finance professional;
one agricultural representative; and
two Salt Spring community members.
The precise structure should be developed collaboratively, particularly with respect to First Nations participation.
The Authority would administer:
eligibility;
waitlists;
rents;
initial prices;
resales;
covenants;
occupancy;
land acquisition;
development;
developer partnerships;
the Revolving Capital Fund;
the Agricultural Land and Food Security Fund;
and annual public reporting.
34. RESPONSE TO AGRICULTURAL LAND COMMISSION CONCERNS
The concern that residential development of ALR land creates precedent is legitimate.
This initiative should therefore be explicitly distinguished from conventional residential exclusion.
It would:
apply only to specifically designated lands;
establish a maximum ALR impact;
seek to remain materially below that maximum;
prioritize lower-impact locations;
require high housing yield;
require 100% permanent workforce restriction;
require agricultural mitigation;
and provide no entitlement for ordinary market housing.
The precedent would not be:
ALR land may generally be developed for housing.
It would be:
A very small amount of strategically selected land may be authorized for extraordinary, permanently affordable public-purpose housing where exceptional housing yield and agricultural protection are demonstrated.
35. RESPONSE TO ISLANDS TRUST CONCERNS
The Islands Trust preserve-and-protect mandate should not be interpreted as requiring preservation of every existing settlement pattern regardless of changing community needs.
Housing, livelihoods and infrastructure are relevant to functioning island communities.
The relevant question is therefore:
Which settlement pattern best protects Salt Spring as a whole?
Accommodating 2,500 homes through dispersed low-density development could consume hundreds or more than a thousand acres.
Concentrating a substantial portion of those homes around Ganges could protect forests, rural landscapes, agricultural areas, groundwater and habitat elsewhere.
The concept is:
concentrated development for distributed preservation.
36. RESPONSE TO INFRASTRUCTURE CONCERNS
Salt Spring’s water, wastewater and transportation constraints are real.
They are also arguments for concentration.
Dispersed development requires more wells, septic systems, roads, automobile travel and infrastructure per household.
Compact development makes engineered community infrastructure more feasible.
Schedule A designation should therefore be conditional upon infrastructure feasibility.
Housing and infrastructure should be planned as one provincial initiative.
37. RESPONSE TO FIRST NATIONS CONCERNS
First Nations engagement must begin before Schedule A is finalized.
The initiative should provide opportunities for participation in:
land selection;
archaeological and cultural protection;
housing;
development partnerships;
economic participation;
infrastructure;
and governance.
Nothing in the initiative should diminish the Crown’s constitutional obligations.
38. “WHY SHOULD WORKERS GET SPECIAL HOUSING?”
Workers would not be receiving existing market homes at someone else’s expense.
The Province would be creating new residential capacity specifically for a defined public purpose.
Salt Spring requires nurses, teachers, care aides, restaurant workers, retail employees, bank employees, tradespeople, contractors, mechanics, landscapers, emergency personnel, public employees and many other workers.
If they cannot obtain housing, the consequences are experienced by the entire community.
Workforce housing is therefore properly understood as:
economic and community infrastructure.
39. “WHY NOT JUST GIVE WORKERS SUBSIDIES?”
Giving purchasers additional money to compete in an unrestricted market does not address the underlying land-value problem.
Part of the subsidy may simply become capitalized into housing prices.
The proposed system changes the asset itself.
The home cannot escape into the unrestricted market.
The public benefit therefore survives resale.
The proper question is not merely:
How can government help today’s worker buy a home?
It is:
How can the same home remain affordable to a Salt Spring worker fifty years from now?
Permanent restriction answers the second question.
40. PROVINCIAL LEGAL AUTHORITY
The Agricultural Land Commission Act has strong statutory paramountcy.
An ordinary ministry program therefore cannot simply disregard it.
The Legislature, however, can enact an express statutory exception.
British Columbia has used explicit “despite” drafting in land-specific legislation.
The Environment and Land Use Act also provides broad provincial land-use order-making authority and is expressly excepted from ALCA paramountcy.
For an initiative intended to last decades, the clearest approach may be a dedicated:
Salt Spring Island Workforce Housing Act
The Act could:
establish the public purpose;
define designated lands;
override inconsistent ALCA provisions where expressly necessary;
override inconsistent local land-use restrictions where expressly necessary;
establish Schedule B restrictions;
authorize regulations;
establish the Workforce Housing Authority;
establish the Revolving Capital Fund;
and establish agricultural and infrastructure requirements.
41. IMPLEMENTATION TARGET
An illustrative twenty-year delivery schedule could be:
| Period | Homes |
| Years 1–5 | 600 |
| Years 6–10 | 700 |
| Years 11–15 | 650 |
| Years 16–20 | 550 |
| Total | 2,500 |
The program should be reviewed periodically against actual workforce and demographic conditions.
42. PERFORMANCE MEASURES
Annual reporting should include:
workforce units completed;
rental versus ownership units;
housing form;
average rents;
average ownership prices;
housing-cost-to-income ratios;
workers housed;
occupations represented;
employer recruitment and retention;
household sizes;
waitlists;
vacancies;
ALR acres affected;
actively farmed acres affected;
ALR acres protected or improved;
agricultural fund contributions;
water and wastewater performance;
transportation patterns;
capital returned to the Revolving Fund;
capital recycled into subsequent projects;
and covenant compliance.
Two particularly important measures should be:
Permanent Workforce Homes Created per Acre of ALR Affected
and
Permanent Workforce Homes Created per Dollar of Permanent Public Subsidy
43. RECOMMENDED PROVINCIAL ACTIONS
The Province should:
- Adopt the approximately 2,550-unit twenty-year housing requirement as the initial planning baseline.
- Establish the Salt Spring Workforce Housing Initiative.
- Establish the principle that 100% of extraordinary residential capacity created by the initiative will remain permanently workforce restricted.
- Establish the 95/5 Agricultural Principle, with 5% functioning as a maximum ceiling rather than a target.
- Undertake detailed Schedule A land mapping.
- Apply the formal parcel-selection test.
- Complete agricultural capability and active-farming analysis.
- Complete water and wastewater capacity analysis.
- Complete environmental and transportation analysis.
- Begin First Nations engagement before final parcel designation.
- Establish the Salt Spring Workforce Housing Authority.
- Capitalize a Salt Spring Workforce Housing Revolving Capital Fund.
- Adapt Whistler’s housing-agreement, resale, right-of-first-refusal, occupancy and compliance architecture.
- Establish the Salt Spring Agricultural Land and Food Security Fund.
- Develop a Ganges Workforce Housing Infrastructure Plan.
- Prepare enabling provincial legislation.
- Identify an initial demonstration area capable of producing several hundred homes.
- Establish transparent development economics and reasonable developer-return standards.
- Develop a professional financial model determining appropriate initial seed capital and leverage.
- Review the initiative every five years while preserving permanent covenants already registered.
CONCLUSION
Salt Spring Island does not simply have a shortage of houses.
It has a shortage of housing whose economics correspond to the incomes of the people required to make the community function.
The distinction is fundamental.
The unrestricted housing market performs an important role and should continue to exist.
But it cannot reasonably be expected, by itself, to provide secure housing for Salt Spring’s workforce when local workers must compete against purchasing power generated outside the local labour economy.
The solution is not to replace the market.
It is to create a second one.
British Columbia possesses the principal tools necessary to accomplish this.
The Province can create development rights.
It can condition those rights.
It can legislate in relation to specifically designated lands.
It can facilitate infrastructure.
It can establish permanent affordability mechanisms.
And it can provide recyclable rather than exclusively consumptive public capital.
The agricultural trade-off can also be kept extraordinarily small.
Salt Spring has approximately 7,272 acres within the ALR.
The initiative should affect no more than 5% and should actively seek to use substantially less.
At compact village densities, the net footprint required for 2,500 homes could potentially amount to roughly 50–100 acres.
The Province could therefore preserve well over 95% of Salt Spring’s existing ALR, protect its most productive agricultural lands, reinvest a portion of development value into farming, and still create a workforce housing inventory of transformative scale.
The financial model further changes the nature of the proposal.
The Province does not necessarily need to permanently subsidize the difference between unrestricted market housing and workforce housing.
Instead:
the Province creates the development entitlement;
the covenant converts that entitlement into affordability;
seed capital builds the housing;
worker mortgages replace development capital as ownership units sell;
rental refinancing recovers part of the capital invested in rental buildings;
and
the recovered public capital finances the next project.
The result is potentially a virtuous cycle:
LAND → DENSITY → HOUSING → SALES/REFINANCING → CAPITAL RECOVERY → MORE HOUSING
The original provincial seed capital can therefore continue working for decades.
At the end of the initial 2,500-unit program, the community could possess not only 2,500 permanently restricted homes, but also a mature housing authority, rental assets, land, financial reserves and a revolving capital fund capable of addressing future housing requirements.
That is fundamentally different from a temporary affordable-housing program.
It creates an institution and a housing market intended to survive permanently.
The proposed bargain is straightforward:
Where the Province creates extraordinary residential development value, that value should create extraordinary and permanent public benefit.
Strategically selected land surrounding Ganges would receive substantial residential capacity.
Density would minimize land consumption.
Infrastructure would be concentrated.
Agricultural impacts would be minimized and mitigated.
Private and nonprofit development capacity would be mobilized.
Workers could rent or own.
Owners could accumulate reasonable equity.
Developers could earn reasonable returns.
Landowners could receive increased value.
But the publicly created development entitlement would never become unrestricted speculative residential value.
Every home created through the extraordinary entitlement would remain part of Salt Spring’s workforce housing inventory.
The objective is therefore not simply to build 2,500 homes.
It is to create a permanent housing system capable of ensuring that the people who build, repair, teach, nurse, serve, cook, landscape, administer, protect and operate Salt Spring Island can continue to live there.
That is not merely a housing policy.
It is an economic sustainability strategy.
It is an agricultural land-conservation strategy.
It is an infrastructure strategy.
It is an environmental strategy.
It is a public-finance strategy.
And ultimately, it is a community-preservation strategy.
The long-term preservation of Salt Spring requires preservation not only of its land, but of the people required to make the community function.
APPENDIX A
ILLUSTRATIVE SALT SPRING ISLAND WORKFORCE HOUSING ACT
Note: The following is conceptual drafting intended to demonstrate how the policy could be translated into legislation. Final legislation would require preparation by British Columbia legislative counsel.
1. Purpose
The purposes of this Act are:
- to facilitate the development and permanent preservation of affordable workforce housing on Salt Spring Island;
- to ensure residential development capacity created under this Act benefits persons who work in and contribute to the Salt Spring Island community;
- to concentrate residential development in locations capable of supporting efficient infrastructure and community services;
- to minimize the amount of agricultural and rural land required to accommodate long-term housing need;
- to protect agricultural capability and support economically viable agriculture;
- to establish a permanent workforce housing inventory separate from the unrestricted residential market; and
- to establish a revolving capital mechanism capable of financing successive workforce-housing developments.
2. Definitions
In this Act:
“Authority” means the Salt Spring Workforce Housing Authority;
“Designated Land” means land described in Schedule A;
“Qualified Salt Spring Worker” means a person meeting eligibility requirements prescribed in Schedule B or regulation;
“Workforce Housing” means a dwelling subject to occupancy, sale, rental, resale and other restrictions established under Schedule B;
“Workforce Housing Development Envelope” means the portion of a parcel identified in Schedule A upon which development is authorized;
“Fund” means the Salt Spring Workforce Housing Revolving Capital Fund.
3. Designated Land
The lands described in Schedule A are designated for the purposes of this Act.
A designation may apply to all or only a specified portion of a parcel.
The Lieutenant Governor in Council may amend Schedule A where satisfied that prescribed parcel-selection criteria have been met.
4. Agricultural Land Reserve
Despite section 2 of the Agricultural Land Commission Act and despite any provision of that Act or a regulation under that Act, a Workforce Housing Development Envelope identified in Schedule A may be used and subdivided for Workforce Housing and related authorized uses.
Permission of the Agricultural Land Commission is not required for a use or subdivision expressly authorized under this section.
Nothing in this section authorizes development outside the identified Workforce Housing Development Envelope.
5. Maximum Agricultural Land Impact
The total ALR area designated for development under this Act must not exceed 5% of Salt Spring Island’s ALR land base as measured on a prescribed reference date.
The 5% limit is a maximum and must not be interpreted as a target.
The Minister must seek to achieve the purposes of this Act using materially less land wherever reasonably practicable.
6. Local Land-Use Regulations
Despite the Islands Trust Act, Local Government Act, an official community plan, land-use bylaw or other local land-use regulation, Designated Land may be developed to the use and density authorized by this Act and regulation.
This does not exempt development from building-safety, fire-safety, environmental, archaeological or servicing requirements except where expressly provided.
7. Permanent Workforce Restriction
Every dwelling created through residential capacity authorized by this Act must be Workforce Housing.
Before sale or occupancy, required housing agreements, covenants, rights of first refusal, options to purchase and related instruments must be registered.
No dwelling authorized by this Act may be converted to unrestricted market housing except by express amendment to this Act.
8. Occupancy
Workforce Housing may only be occupied as a principal residence by a Qualified Salt Spring Worker, members of that worker’s household, a qualifying retired worker, or another prescribed class.
9. Sale and Resale
A Workforce Housing ownership unit may not be transferred except in accordance with Schedule B.
Maximum permitted resale price must be determined under the prescribed formula.
The formula may provide for inflation adjustment, approved capital improvements, transaction costs and other prescribed adjustments.
10. Rental
A Workforce Housing rental unit may only be rented to an eligible household.
Rent must not exceed the maximum established under Schedule B or regulation.
Short-term vacation accommodation is prohibited.
11. Salt Spring Workforce Housing Authority
The Lieutenant Governor in Council may establish or designate the Salt Spring Workforce Housing Authority.
The Authority may determine eligibility, maintain waitlists, acquire land, develop housing, enter development agreements, administer rentals, administer ownership resales, hold rights of first refusal and purchase options, verify compliance, enforce housing agreements and administer funds established under this Act.
12. Revolving Capital Fund
- The Salt Spring Workforce Housing Revolving Capital Fund is established.
- Money in the Fund may be used for:
- land acquisition;
- predevelopment costs;
- construction;
- project equity;
- infrastructure;
- development financing;
- acquisition of workforce housing;
and
- other prescribed workforce-housing purposes.
- Proceeds from sales, refinancing, loan repayments and other recoveries attributable to investments of the Fund must be returned to the Fund except where otherwise prescribed.
- The Authority must seek to preserve and recycle the capital of the Fund while fulfilling the affordability purposes of this Act.
13. Annual Declaration
An owner or tenant must, when required, provide an occupancy and eligibility declaration and reasonable supporting documentation.
14. Retirement
Regulations must provide reasonable continued eligibility for persons retiring after a prescribed period of qualifying Salt Spring employment or self-employment.
15. Temporary Loss of Eligibility
Regulations must provide reasonable transition provisions for temporary unemployment, illness, parental leave, education, business interruption and other prescribed circumstances.
16. Agricultural Protection and Enhancement
Development agreements may require preservation of agricultural land, agricultural covenants, buffers, fencing, drainage, soil relocation or improvement, agricultural access, agricultural leases and financial contributions to agricultural enhancement.
17. Agricultural Land and Food Security Fund
The Salt Spring Agricultural Land and Food Security Fund is established.
The Fund may support farmland acquisition, affordable agricultural leases, irrigation, water storage, soil improvement, agricultural infrastructure, processing, distribution and other food-security purposes.
18. Infrastructure
The Province may enter agreements respecting water, wastewater, transportation and other infrastructure required to support development under this Act.
19. First Nations
Nothing in this Act abrogates or derogates from Aboriginal and treaty rights recognized and affirmed by section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
20. Reporting
The Authority must publish an annual report respecting housing production, affordability, occupancy, agricultural impacts, infrastructure, Fund performance, capital recycling and compliance.
21. Regulations
The Lieutenant Governor in Council may make regulations respecting Schedule A criteria, workforce eligibility, prices, rents, resale formulas, capital improvements, occupancy, retirement eligibility, temporary loss of eligibility, density, agricultural mitigation, development contributions, financing, Fund administration, Authority governance and any other matter necessary to carry out this Act.
SCHEDULE A
DESIGNATED WORKFORCE HOUSING LANDS
Each approved parcel or development envelope would be identified by:
legal description;
PID;
map;
maximum development envelope;
minimum and/or maximum density;
servicing requirements;
agricultural protection area;
and
site-specific environmental conditions.
No private parcel should be added until completion of the prescribed selection process.
SCHEDULE B
PERMANENT WORKFORCE HOUSING CONDITIONS
Every dwelling authorized under this Act must be subject to:
- Qualified Salt Spring Worker eligibility;
- principal-residence occupancy;
- permanent title covenant;
- controlled initial pricing where applicable;
- maximum resale-price formula;
- Authority right of first refusal;
- Authority option to purchase where prescribed;
- rental restrictions;
- prohibition on short-term vacation accommodation;
- annual occupancy declaration;
- employment or self-employment verification;
- reasonable household occupancy standards;
- retirement protection for long-term qualifying workers;
- transition provisions following temporary loss of eligibility;
- inheritance rules preserving workforce restrictions;
- approved capital-improvement rules;
- compliance and enforcement provisions;
and
- perpetual continuation of workforce restrictions through successive ownership.
The conditions in this Schedule run with the land and are intended to preserve every dwelling created under this Act as Workforce Housing in perpetuity.
About the author of this paper:
Eric Booth was born and raised on Salt Spring Island, has been involved in land use on the island for 40 years in the field of development, real estate sales, consulting, and, as an Islands Trust Trustee (2002-2005) charged with making land use decisions. He has been an outspoken advocate of affordable workforce housing since being elected to office in 2002. He passed rezoning of property for affordable housing in the Ganges area (Murakami Gardens and Norton Road) and appointed a committee to study the housing crisis, including consulting with Whistler Housing Authority representatives on solutions.
islandstrust 
Time for a Policy to Protect Us
March 10, 2026 Leave a comment
The ongoing public discussion, on the Islands Trust policy changes, highlights the fact that most people don’t understand, or misunderstand, the basic structure of the Islands Trust.
The Islands Trust Act states:
Section 6 (1) For each local trust area, 2 trustees are to be elected to represent the electors of the area.
Clearly the trustees are elected to represent US, and they are not elected to represent the Islands Trust since that would be a conflict of interest of two masters.
However, the trustees ARE elected to represent the people’s interests in the Trust through Trust Council.
The people (the residents of the Trust Area and of BC generally) are the beneficiaries of the Islands Trust Act as stated in the “Object of the Trust”:
3 The object of the trust is….for the benefit of the residents of the trust area and of British Columbia generally…
The interests of the residents of BC “generally” are represented by the Minister of Municipal Affairs. The Minister has veto power over proposed bylaws passed by Trust Council.
The Province has recently made it clear, by amending Section 463 of the Local Government Act, that “the statements and map designations included in an official community plan of the council of a municipality must provide for at least the 20-year total number of housing units required to meet anticipated housing needs…”
That section applies to Local Trust Committees and Local Trust Areas.
Therefore, the beneficiaries of that Section are the residents of the Islands Trust Areas.
As to what kind of housing should be provided for is left to the communities and their representatives.
I have said for over 20 years that non-market housing, ala Whistler Housing Authority’s model, in sufficient numbers to provide for the entire current and future workforce of Salt Spring, is Sine qua non….absolutely essential…for the survival of our community.
I have previously spoken to the magnitude of the challenge, but suffice it to say here, the numbers are the numbers, like them or not. (see – https://islandstrust.wordpress.com/2024/10/18/salt-springs-affordability-challenge/ )
This crisis has been left unchecked and unattended until now. Hopefully, the proposed policy changes will mark the beginning of a new day, and new hope for the young families who will be replacing the baby boomers and taking over their positions in our community.
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