Committee of the Whole

I'd like to call the meeting with the Committee of the Whole for the Town of View Royal to order for June 13th, 2023.

We recognize the Laquanguan speaking people known today as the Esquimalt Nation and the Songhees Nation, and that their historic connections to these lands continue to this day.

This afternoon we will hear from the public during the public participation portion of the agenda, and this evening we will hear from the public during the public participation and question period portions of the agenda.

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So may I have a motion to approve the agenda, including the late items blue sheet that everybody should have.

Moved by Councillor Mattson, seconded by Councilor Brown.

All in favor.

Any opposed?

Seeing none opposed, motion carries.

Minutes of previous meetings.

Can I get a motion to adopt, please?

Moved by Councillor Rogers, seconded by Councilor McKenzie.

All in favor.

Seeing none opposed motion carries.

Any opposed?

We have two petitions and delegations this evening, the first of which is from the Capitol Regional District, which we have their entire executive team here.

Of note, they are making their rounds of all the municipalities.

I used to think I had a difficult job being the counselor and trying to shepherd uh six voices, but he has the unenviable task of having to uh shepherd the delegations from all of the regional districts.

So uh he does so with impartiality and finesse.

So I thank you, Chair Plant, for joining us.

Thank you very much for that lovely bouquet.

Thank you for having us today, your worship, council, members of the staff, and to the general public who may be watching.

My name is Colin Plant.

I'm a counselor in the District of Saanich, and I'm currently the Capitol Regional District Board Chair.

As you indicated, we are going to each municipal council in order to show our interest in developing a positive relationship between the CRD and each municipality, and that includes the town of View Royal.

Today you are going to hear from our executive leadership team in our presentation, and I think more importantly than anything that you may get from the information today, although I'd like to think it is also very useful, is the understanding that we are here to be partners with the town of View Royal.

And while you are represented by Mayor Tobias and his alternate, I would just like to say any of you are welcome to reach out to members of staff and myself if you ever have issues regarding the CRD that you would like to better understand or discuss.

I would like to briefly introduce the executive leadership team.

We almost have everybody one person's away, but most of us are here.

I and they'll just to your uh right, uh left to right and my right to left, our CAO, Mr.

Ted Robbins.

Uh, next to Mr.

Robbins is our chief financial officer, Nelson Chan.

Uh, to the left of Nelson is our parks and environmental Services General Manager, Larissa Hutchinson, our corporate services general manager, Kristen Morley, and our Parks and Pardon me, Planning and Protective Services, sorry, Kevin Lorette, General Manager.

And missing today is our acting general manager for integrated water services.

Thank you for having us uh have that building in View Royal.

Uh that's Mr.

Ian Jesney.

So today there will be an opportunity uh to answer any questions you may have, but really it's about just affirming our relationship with the town of View Royal and giving you a sense of what are some of the services that the CRD does provide.

We are very recognized cognizant that there are members of your council who serve at the CRD, have been on committees and commissions and have worked in the CRD, but we do believe it's important, and perhaps some of your residents will benefit today from the information that will be stored on the webcast to understand the CRD.

So with that, I'll ask Mr.

Robbins to lead it through the presentation.

And likely after our delegation today or presentation, we will take our leave.

And we understand you're going to be here very late.

So have a great long meeting.

And uh good afternoon, Mayor and Council, members of uh staff that are here, and members of the public that are here and uh tuned in online.

Uh as Chair Plant said, my name is Ted Robbins, and I'm the Chief Administrative Officer at the Capitol Regional District, and we really appreciate the opportunity to come and present to you today.

Uh we wanted an opportunity to introduce our leadership team, allow you to put uh faces to names, and likewise for us, uh, really create that uh opportunity for you to reach out uh over the course of your term, uh, have any questions answered through our executive leadership team and staff at the CRD.

Um, also wanted an opportunity to share a little bit about uh the regional district and the services we provide, and um and we'll get to the presentation.

As Chair Plant said, a number of you, of course, are familiar with the work the CRD does, having served on different committees and commissions, and of course, uh Merit Tobias serving on the board and even former staff.

Uh so uh great to see you all.

Uh but we thought we would take this uh time early in the term, as as uh Chair Plant mentioned.

Uh, we're about I think eight or so in to our 13 municipality roadshow now, so uh looking forward to visiting all the municipalities across the region uh early in the term here.

So now I'm just gonna get back to start of the presentation.

I'm going the wrong direction.

Sorry, folks.

There we go.

All right, we'll start here.

Uh I'm just gonna advance it.

There we go.

All right, so um do have some slides to guide the presentation uh this evening.

There are some slides at the end uh that are there for your information, uh slides that highlight some of the major projects and initiatives we're working on across our different departments.

Like I say, there for your information, happy to take any questions, but we'll try and keep the presentation uh to about 10 or 15 minutes or so.

Uh so what are regional districts, anyways?

Uh well, uh, regional districts are of course an order of government uh established by Letters Patent in British Columbia back in 1966.

And as a result, we have quite a unique local government structure here in British Columbia.

Uh, unique uh compared to the rest of Canada.

BC, of course, is the only province in the country that has uh the regional district structure.

Does anybody know how many regional districts there are in the province of BC?

27.

27 regional districts uh in BC.

Um and regional districts really arose uh out of a need back in the mid 60s uh for greater regional cooperation on regional and sub regional issues and particularly around service delivery.

And today regional districts really serve three primary purposes.

We do provide region wide services, so those services that can be better provided by a local government at the regional level rather than having municipalities deal with certain service delivery on their own.

So particular in particular waste management, parks, and regional planning.

Of course, some regional utility functions are served best by the municipal by the regional district.

Our second primary function is to provide those intermunicipal or sub-regional services that can be best delivered and more effectively delivered by a sub-regional service delivery model, essentially a shared service delivery model.

And one of the real beauties of the regional district model is that those sub-regional services can be shared and cost shared by those participants that directly benefit from those services.

And it's really up to the municipalities in terms of which services they want to participate in at a sub regional level.

And our third primary function, of course, is to act as the local government for the unincorporated areas of the regional district.

And in our case, we have three electoral areas that are unincorporated, those being the Salt Spring Island electoral area, the Southern Gulf Islands electoral area, and the Juan de Fuca electoral area.

What's going on here?

There we go.

This slide and this table really give you a sense of the services that the CRD provides, a very high level.

This certainly isn't a complete list.

But when you see this table, it's clear to understand why some members of the public find it a little confusing in terms of what the role of the regional district is and what services we provide.

Just a couple of examples to draw your attention to here.

So with parks, for example, of course, there are municipal parks that you operate as a municipality.

There are regional parks that the CRD is responsible for.

And then, of course, there are provincial parks here in the province.

So sometimes it's unclear as to who's responsible for what and who delivers what in terms of those uh services.

Likewise, with water and wastewater utilities, of course, uh, in most cases, the municipalities operate, municipal water and wastewater utility systems to serve uh your residents.

Uh the CRD operates uh sub-regional and regional services when it comes to utility uh operations.

But of course, the province is responsible for groundwater and uh and water licensing.

So, again, a bit of a split in terms of the uh jurisdictional responsibilities.

So, again, this isn't a complete list, but just to give you a sense of where the regional district fits in terms of service delivery uh in the in the region here.

Uh just for some context, uh the CRD covers a large area, about 237,000 hectares to be exact, and the population continues to grow.

Uh we're currently sitting at about 440,000 people across the capital region, and the region, of course, is composed of 13 different municipalities and three electoral areas, as I mentioned.

There are at least 18 First Nations that identify parts of the Capitol region as traditional territory, 11 of which have reserve lands and settlement lands within the Capitol Regional District boundaries.

And many of those nations do receive services from the CRD and in some cases services directly from the neighboring municipalities as well.

In terms of the governance and administrative structure of the CRD, the governing body, of course, is the CRD board with 21 municipal directors and three directly elected electoral area directors, all of who make up the 24 member board.

First Nations in the region do not participate at the board table.

Only modern Treaty First Nations have representation at regional district boards, such as the Suwassan First Nation, which has a seat at the Metro Vancouver board on the lower mainland, but there are currently no modern treaty first nations in the CRD.

The board chair establishes standing committees of the board each year, and we have 10 standing committees this year.

And generally speaking, recommendations flow up from the standing committees, recommendations on policies and directions to staff, and those are ultimately approved by the board based on a recommendation from the standing committee.

And of course, in addition to the standing committees, we have over 70 committees and commissions that have been established by the board to oversee administration and operation of our sub-regional and local services.

As you might know, the CRD operates three corporate entities.

In addition to the Capitol Regional District and its board, we operate the Capitol Regional Hospital District, which was incorporated in 1967 by way of the Hospital District Act to mandate the sharing of capital costs and deliver regional health facilities across the region.

And the hospital district board was established shortly thereafter in 1974.

And of course, we also operate the Capital Region Housing Corporation, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the CRD with a mandate to develop and manage and deliver affordable housing across the region.

And the same administrative structure applies to all three entities.

This slide is a shot of our board for the 2023 to 2026 term.

Great shot there, great looking board.

Director Plant is the current chair of the board, as we noted, and of course, Mayor Tobias is the V Royal Director on the CRD board for this term.

And this board also represents the Housing Corporation Board and the Hospital District Board as well.

In terms of the work the board has identified as priority work for the organization this year, the board has settled on five priority areas, which are summarized on this slide, those being transportation, housing, climate action, and environment, First Nations, and governance.

And for those of you that have followed some of the board's priorities in previous terms, some of these high-level priority priorities may look familiar.

The board acknowledges that at the highest level these continue to be the priority areas, but the board has agreed that there's a lot of work to do under these high level priorities, particularly around transportation, housing, and First Nations.

So what we have prepared is what we refer to as our corporate plan.

That's a cover shot on the left side of the slide there.

And this document really sets out the work that as an organization we will deliver over the next three and a half years, the remainder of this term, to deliver on those board's' priorities and uh corporate initiatives that we feel are uh our priorities for the organization and for the board this term.

So uh encourage you to go to the CRD website and uh uh find this document.

Uh there that the document sets out about 134 specific initiatives that we've identified at the staff level that uh we will deliver over this term again to support uh those board priorities and our organizational priorities.

With that, I'm gonna turn uh the presentation over to Nelson Chan, who's gonna walk through uh some material associated with service delivery and our financials.

Thanks, Nelson.

Thanks, Ted.

Uh good afternoon, council.

Uh, just want to re reiterate uh deep appreciation for the uh invitation to come and speak uh today.

Um, as Ted mentioned, I think we've done uh eight or nine of these.

Um, you know, most council meetings are at seven o'clock at night, so really appreciate committee of the whole at 3 30 in the afternoon.

That is fantastic.

So as Ted had mentioned, the CRD delivers over 200 services.

They're listed, well, not listed, but they're grouped here.

Geographically, we um uh characterize them as regional services, which is all the participants, sub regional, subset of that or local services.

Um as uh Mr.

Robbins had mentioned, uh, regional districts are the local government for electoral areas.

So we do provide a majority of our services uh specifically to the EAs, um, which you can see there.

Additionally, uh, we also gave you a nice little handout, uh, including the water bottles.

Uh, the handout there is uh CRD on a page.

Uh, it lists all of our regional and sub-regional services down one axis with all of the participants on the other axis.

Left out all the local ones because those are really specific to the electoral areas.

But you can really see in looking at the CRD on a page that there really is a wide selection or cross-section of participation by various jurisdictions.

Really speaks to some of the ad hoc basket of goods or basket of services that each municipality can choose to participate in and really leverage some of those economies of scale or services that are more effectively delivered when consolidated or grouped together.

A little bit a little bit on some of the differences financially or budget.

The key difference between regional districts and municipalities.

Regional districts are required by legislation to manage each one of those budgets for services independently.

So I do oversee over 200 sets of books.

It's really the only fair way of assuring cost allocation and cost apportionment to each one of those services because, as you see on your CR and a page sheet, each participant or each jurisdiction participates in a different set of services.

So we really need to keep that those financials separate to have the most um you know transparent view of of effective uh cost uh and service delivery.

Uh it's a little bit different than municipalities.

Uh municipalities receive general revenue.

Uh once that revenue flows in, uh municipalities are free to allocate those to the various services within their jurisdiction and what they service.

Um for context, uh, you know, a little bit of orientation.

Uh the regional district and all its entities are listed there.

Uh, just for relative size, it's uh close to 700 million dollars on a consolidated basis.

Uh this number fluctuates, uh, you know, mostly driven by capital.

Uh, been as high as 900, almost a billion dollars uh in the last uh six years that I've been here.

Uh but you can really see the the scope and scale of the housing uh corporation, the hospital district, uh, and the regional district in total.

Um I always say that no financials deck would be complete without a big table with lots of numbers that are really hard to read.

Uh so uh I will take a brief moment just to show this is a requisition by participant.

Is we use requisition or property taxes to drive or fund about 25% of our operating revenue.

I believe close to 80% of municipalities across the country require about 80% of their operating budgets are funded by requisition.

So really happy to have a diversified revenue model.

This table here shows all of the participants in the CRD and was really proud that the CRD board uh advanced a 2023 budget uh at an average cost per household requisition increase of 2.8%.

That's the very bottom right uh percentage there, uh well below uh the CPI inflationary pressures in Greater Victoria, I believe came in at 7.0.

Uh View Royal, which is bolded there uh based on View Royal's basket of goods, uh, came in just a little bit higher at 3.2% per average household.

Uh finally, uh what does what does that mean for the average uh house in View Royal?

Uh for the and the group of entities, uh the average cost the average household in View Royal pays about $480 dollars uh to receive CRD and HD services.

Uh that's broken out in the column uh to the right.

Um you can see that uh for CRD specific services about 237 dollars uh hospital district is there included there as well of course we cost share um uh health infrastructure with island health uh through our hospital district um and then as required by legislation all municipal debt must flow through the regional district so uh we we requisition about a hundred dollars uh per average household on behalf of view royal um to recover uh any any capital borrowings that you might have for capital infrastructure uh all in all uh it works out to about a dollar thirty two per day uh to receive all of these services.

I can tell you I sent my mother a letter uh last week.

It cost $1.37 uh for one letter to the US so uh $1.32 per day for all of those services.

Not a bad value proposition, if you ask me.

I'm happy to close the presentation off there.

Additional slides include major capital projects.

We won't go through them, but certainly happy to answer any questions.

I'll do my best to quarterback any questions, but certainly want to extend a deep appreciation to the council, to staff as well.

Sorry to he see that uh Mr.

Enma's not here.

We're in a bow tie club ourselves.

Um but certainly uh thankful to uh the staff of uh View Royal in uh working together.

Happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Chen.

Does council have uh questions in specific?

Yes.

Council Rogers.

Yes, uh, thank you very much.

Um talking about the uh regional trail system, and um I understand that uh CRD will be going ahead with about six kilometers of um uh creating um what um side uh pedestrian portions of regional trails, is that correct?

I am really happy to get Larissa to come and answer that question.

Yes, thank you very much, Councilor Rogers, for the question and through you, Mayor.

Um yes, we do have a widening and lighting uh study for six kilometers of the regional trail network that spur about two kilometers in every direction from uptown.

Um we have that capital uh identified in our capital plan as cost shared with grants.

We've been unsuccessful so far with grant applications.

So later this year, in just a in a month or so, we'll be bringing forward at staff level some options for financing that major project, and it'll be uh subject to board approval to move that forward in some fashion or not, or to wait, continue to wait for grants.

So lots of good debate uh upcoming on that project.

And if if I may continue on uh so uh could you update us on uh completing the final west shore portion of the ENN rail trail, getting to Humpback Road?

Right.

So we have just uh completed phase three, which is uh along Atkins, and phase four with the city of Victoria, uh down by the Johnson Street Bridge, and through the through the development down there.

Phase five is not in our short-term plan.

We have it in our regional trails management plan as something that's going to happen in out years, but that also is subject to grant funding.

So there's a lot of competing priorities for sure for the regional trails network.

In addition to those uh those projects for widening and lighting, we also have uh trestle and bridge uh uh repairs and refurbishments as well.

So there's a lot of uh future capital requirements for that trail network.

I I guess I'm referring and also thinking of um um tourism Victoria moving to a destination Greater Victoria and ecotourism and the regional trail being so uh so popular, uh all three of them, and um you know, getting to Goldstream Park and and the um Trans Canada Trail, you know, would be essential deliverables uh up the island.

So hopefully there might be um marketing opportunities in that regard.

That's a great idea.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Rogers.

Councilor Brown, please.

Yeah, there's a we did talk about it before the meeting, but uh Mill Hill Parks, a beautiful park, is one of my favorite parks.

And of course, it's mostly in Langford, but it's on the border.

And the Peninsula Stream Society uh built really nice fish ladders uh for coho salmon and for uh cutthroat trout, and I think it's a win-win-win situation um for more signage to encourage uh like Savory elementaries just up the road uh as a field trip uh for children to come and see the uh the fish spawning and uh uh Peninsula Stream spent a lot of money on that, and I think it's great.

Like over a thousand fish have been counted already just this year, so uh that's only going to get more and more.

So I think uh some signage there would be awesome.

And I think it's a win for the park because you want to encourage more visitors, right?

Yeah, uh, through the mayor, um certainly uh Peninsula Stream Society uh initiated that project.

They uh did a lot of fundraising and brought a lot of the capital forward.

Uh regional parks contributed in kind with some equipment because the fish ladder is located uh in within the Mill Hill property boundary.

Um at this time the Peninsula Stream Society is is not encouraging a lot of public to visit visit that fish ladder, um perhaps because of some safety issues uh because it's quite steep there and also I think just to respect uh what's happening in the ecosystem I'll certainly take it back um that there is there was a question asked about uh promotion um it certainly is a good idea to have the kids out there for sure but we have to make sure that that we respect all the different factors there.

Yeah we just uh in my townhouse complex we have Kelvin Park a really tiny park but it it's gonna an outlook area as well so uh we hope that kids from the in neighborhood will come down and and check it out but thanks Councillor Metz, please.

Yes, and I'm not sure who answered this one, but where are we exactly with the sewage treatment plant?

And I've heard criticisms that there's issues at the plant, and I just wanted to know what what's happening.

Yeah, certainly I'll take that uh question, Councilor Three Mayor.

Thank you.

Yeah, of course, we're uh into about two and a half years of operation with the uh new core area wastewater treatment program and the operation of the McLaughlin wastewater treatment plant.

Of course, V Royal is a participant uh with the other uh core area municipalities in that uh that service.

Uh for the first two years of operation, we were in what was called a performance period where we were uh bound to uh work with the contractor who built the facility and the engineers who designed the facility for a two-year period just to prove out uh the operation.

Um, and so that was a relatively challenging period.

Uh it of course, as you're probably can appreciate, the wastewater treatment plant is a large, complex plant with a fairly tight compliance regime in terms of effluent quality, sludge quality that we have to send up to the residual treatment facility.

And so that first two year period was really to prove out the operation, work with the design builders, the contractors who were actually on site for that full two year period, working with our staff who operated the facility to work through optimization, tweaking treatment processes, even tweaking staffing levels and whatnot in terms of trades functions to support the operation and uh operators on on shift.

We operate, of course, a 24 7 uh shift rotation there with uh our operators.

So working through all that um uh was a fairly challenging uh first two year period uh at the end of the two year period we accepted uh the the treatment plant um and other infrastructure associated with the program uh so we are fully responsible as the regional district now in terms of ongoing operations and there will still be ongoing uh tweaks and and adjustments to the treatment processes as we continue to optimize uh we have uh been operating the plant quite successfully uh our effluent quality is typically very good on a month to month basis however uh it doesn't take much to to throw our uh our what we call total solids and and uh BOD numbers uh out.

Um, but we're continuing to work through that and we're in regular contact with uh our regulator of the province uh around ongoing uh optimization.

Thank you.

We'll just see if Councillor McKenzie might have a question before we go to you back to Council Ruth.

I do have a question, but I believe there's more slides um that the CRD has, so I I will reserve mine until the end.

I think they were pausing to give us an opportunity to ask questions.

Oh, I'll wait until this.

We weren't gonna go through the slides, just respecting uh the time that uh you've allotted.

I know you have a busy afternoon here, but if you have a question about uh one of the slides that we haven't presented, happy to take that.

Sure.

So my question is in relation to culture and recreation.

You might have seen on the agenda following this, there is a uh delegation on the uh Wandafuca Performing Arts Center.

I was just curious what is the CRD's perspective or potential involvement in culture and arts in the West Shore.

Yeah, certainly I'm gonna have uh Nelson Chan that falls within his portfolio, even though he's our chief financial officer to take that question.

Thanks.

Uh thanks, Ted.

That's a great question.

Uh so arts and culture does fall within my portfolio.

Um, I do have a personal interest in it.

My brother's an artist, so uh it's it's something that's near and dear to my heart uh for sure.

Um as uh as previously mentioned, so the CRD functions or uh delivers services uh at the request of uh participants, jurisdictions within uh the capital region.

Uh we do have a couple of uh arts-related services.

Uh, in fact, we have three of them.

Um, there's a arts and culture support services service, which is a granting function, education, awareness outreach function to support the sector in the region.

And then for arts facilities, we have two separate functions, one for the Royal Theater and then one for the McPherson Theater.

That the last board um uh couldn't really land on uh on a solid uh decision on a regional service, referred that to strategic planning for this board uh and at at uh at current um at our current pace uh as uh mr robbins had shown uh the corporate plan uh this board settled on scaling up support uh for uh uh arts facilities and the arts and culture support service so I would say you know really the current role from staff or the current direction that we have through the corporate plan is to support and scale up uh for existing services in the Royal and the McPherson.

Currently I would say we don't have a mechanism uh to support capital improvements for facilities that we don't have the service established for.

If that's helpful.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you uh Nelson.

And I had one question before I go to you, probably for the final question, if we can agree on that, so we can get on with the agenda.

I've got a question about the CRD Transit Authority concept.

And I do that to enlighten my fellow colleagues here.

What's the latest thinking about that?

And here's View Royal's interest as I see it.

Is View Royal since the inception of the BC Transit Commission, we have never had a seat at the table.

And we are the nexus of all of the transportation needs going through uh View Royal, either up island or of course to the further destinations west shore.

So any concept about that to help uh my colleagues understand that would be great.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you through you, Mayor.

Um, it's a great question.

Uh the CRD board did uh highlight transportation as a priority this year.

Uh one of the initiatives that's in the corporate plan is for us to consider options for uh transportation governance in the region.

And that uh when you look around what transportation governance means, it it's a varied um from each of the municipalities will have a different opinion on what level of support they would have towards transportation governance.

Uh we did take a report through our transportation uh committee last month, and it's coming up to our board tomorrow.

And it really does lay out the background work and uh lays out the next uh for the rest of the summer, us uh undertaking an engagement process.

So, really the process would be uh referring a package to each of the municipalities.

There'll be a booklet for you to work through, and it really looks at what are the challenges each municipality is facing, what are some of the opportunities, and what do you see uh the benefits of creating a new transportation authority?

Transportation authority could mean a consolidation of existing CRD services with our our trails function and with our planning function.

We can expand that to uh include taking on programming, uh, even raising capital so that we can attract me uh grants from higher uh levels of uh funding the provincial or federal and then it could also mean uh in a longer term maybe a uh including transit into a full authority but uh we need to do that engagement uh engaging with the stakeholders in the region that that deliver transportation services and uh engaging with the municipalities so you'll expect to see something coming to uh to your council here by mid-July that'll have that uh that package and staff are definitely open to coming to support that discussion if they if there's a a request for that as well.

That's perfect.

Thank you very much.

My last question is maybe somewhat contentious, and that is um the provincial government has announced a change in their housing strategy.

As we've had it before, the housing strategy was based around land economic use studies, housing needs analysis, CRD participation for balance and growth rates, and of course our official community plans.

Has the province engaged the CRD on what those plans might look like for change or legislation?

Or do you feel that there will be an opportunity for the CRD to be engaged and have input into that plan before the legislation uh goes before.

Uh thank you for the question and through you, Mayor.

Uh the province has uh identified uh looking at various policy change to uh attract investment.

Uh they did um uh convene a meeting in Vancouver uh about a month ago that included senior staff and included uh elected officials, and it started to lay out some of the concerns, some of the some of the opportunities, and just talking about an approach forward.

I believe that was through UBCM as well in coordinating that uh that that town hall session.

And they expect that there's going to be another one called uh uh in Vancouver shortly as a follow-on meeting.

So our some staff did attend that, uh, but in terms of um you know, have we provided direct uh input into it?

That's that's still ongoing and it's open for further discussion.

We've we've provided input uh on how housing links to transportation corridors and and along that sense and the and the regional growth strategy as a planning tool for the region.

And so a lot of that has been made aware to the province as they work through this uh process.

Thank you very much.

I'll go to councillor Rogers for the final question.

Uh it was something similar to uh Maryor Tobias, and and this was um related to um asking the CRD if we're gonna have to recalibrate all our estimates for water supply, heartland, landfill, hospitals, as the province tells all regional municipalities that were on the hit list, were on the naughty list.

We're not doing enough.

We need X, Y, Z, which means more people, more demand for water and hospitals and all that.

Are we ready for that?

And have we do we have to rethink our cost estimates like $2 billion for um the water supply?

Yeah, thank you, uh, Councillor Three Mayor.

Um certainly in general, uh, we will continue to recalibrate all our uh uh strategic plans and and master plans.

You referred to the 30-year water master plan.

Uh we indicated at that time that uh we will update that plan on probably a five to 10 year cycle, uh depending on growth estimates and correlating those with the estimates that were used in those various documents.

So I would say in general that that recalibration work will happen across our different service areas as we start to realize and understand what the impacts might be with not only just growth in general across the region, but changing pressures as a result of the housing needs.

Certainly at the municipal level on the utility side, I'm not sure the province actually anticipated the requirements to start servicing development at a municipal level in terms of utility capacity.

And then, of course, you extend that to uh sub-regional and regional services, uh, it becomes a potentially a bigger issue.

So, certainly it's on our radar, and we'll and we'll work across the organization to uh update those plans as necessary.

Thank you very much, Chair Plant, and all the executive team for coming out today.

It's um uh it was great that you made the uh effort.

I'm glad we could accommodate you on a beautiful but windy afternoon.

So thank you again for coming.

Thank you.

And next up uh on our agenda is of course, um, there's been some foreshadowing.

Uh we have a presentation uh by Ms.

Collington, the president of the Juan de Fuca uh Performing Arts Center Society and the proposed West Shore Arts and Culture Center.

Thank you for having us here.

Thank you, Mayor Tobias.

Thank you, Council.

My name is Judith Cullington.

I am president of the Wonder Fuca Performing Arts Center Society.

I'm wondering that's what I was looking for, the slide presentation going up.

I also want to acknowledge that we meet, we live, we work, we play on the unceded traditional territories of the Lakwangan speaking people, and for that we are grateful.

With me today I have board members Al Lehman and David Stocks.

And I would also like to acknowledge that Colin Plant was here, who is chair of the CRD board and has also been a longtime supporter of this project.

So let me start by saying thank you, View Royal.

Thank you for your very generous grant and aid contribution towards our accessibility study, and I will touch on that a little bit later.

It is very much appreciated.

I also want to say it was nice to see so many of you at the party for the arts that we held back in April.

I hope you all had as much fun as we did.

What I want to do today is to provide a brief update on progress to date and come with a specific ask at the end.

And for those of you who were there at the party, you might find there are there are one or two slides that you you recognize.

So, Wonderfuca Performing Arts Centre Society.

We are a registered charity.

We have a very simple vision, which is vital, we feel, to the West Shore community.

We want to see the creation of a community oriented arts and culture centre that serves the West Shore and beyond.

I do not expect you to be able to read that slide.

There have over the years been numerous studies that have identified the need for this centre, mostly, most recently, the 2021 CRD Stage One report, which some of you may be familiar with.

Of note, that report recognized and identified a lack of performance space in the West Shore, not news to any of us around the table, a lack of accessible performance space around the entire region, and a lack of theatres in the 300 to 500 seat range in the entire region.

But I wanted to point out that we are working to build more than just a theatre.

We want you to imagine a place that's humming with activity, so it's spaces for people of all ages to learn to play an instrument, to take drama classes, to get hands on in a fine arts or pottery class.

It needs to be a space that provides affordable space for local groups to put on performances.

There will be ever changing displays from local artists in the in our gallery.

The cafe is somewhere that people can kind of come out, come and hang out.

It's a space where the community comes together to meet, to share ideas, to co create.

It is, as we like to say, the heart of the community.

So, more specifically in terms of what should we build.

Last year we commissioned a report by some very capable consultants, and we said, what is it that we should be building?

So, what this consultants did is through talking to people through all of the kind of the work and studies that we've done over the year, they have presented a package of these are the kind of spaces that we think should be built.

It's not cast in stone, but we feel it's a really strong starting point.

So, including things like a 350-seat theatre with a large lobby, exhibition space, multipurpose rehearsal room, smaller rooms for teaching and classes and workshops and meetings, a studio with a sprung floor for dance, classroom spaces for music and drama, dedicated art room, pottery studios, maybe space for recording and podcasting, gathering spaces, storage spaces, arts communities are always looking for storage spaces, office space, cafe bistro, and accessible and inclusive spaces and programs.

So we think it's a well balanced approach.

It meets a lot of community needs.

It will create a vibrant and happening place where people want to come and hang out.

About ability.

So we want to ensure that the proposed spaces are accessible both for artists and for audiences, people with physical and mental challenges, that they are welcoming and inclusive spaces for people who are gender diverse, neurodiverse, all of the many different cultures from our region.

So, as you know, with support from the West Shore Arts Council, we have funding from the BC Arts Council and a number of West Shore municipalities, including, thank you, Piroa.

We are undertaking a study to learn more about how to make this space truly excellent for all.

And I'm excited to announce that in a couple of days' time we have our first kickoff meeting with our consultants.

So very much looking forward to that.

And we feel that with the feasibility study, this will give us a really solid foundation for understanding what needs to be built.

Just as a little bit of background, last summer our board members went out into the community and we talked to quite literally hundreds of residents.

Just as an aside, we went out with a stack of frisbees and we would throw frisbees at people and use them to use that to engage them in conversation.

Almost without exception, everyone said, what a great idea.

We need this, we would love to have this close to home.

And what struck us is so many people shared the exact same story.

There are lots of sports facilities in the West Shore, but we have to go to town to access the arts and culture.

We also heard time and time again from the arts community in terms of their need for space.

Just as one example, this image or this series of images are taken from the West Shore Show West Shore Arts Showcase that we held as a fundraiser back in 2019.

And we held it in a church because there was no other performance space.

And we hear similar stories all the time.

Again, background that I think I'm speaking to the converted on this.

Arts and culture are good for us.

Good for our minds, they make us feel good, they're essential to children's development.

They keep our minds active as we age, they add joy to our lives, and there is extensive research that speaks to the well value of art therapy for our mental health and well being.

The arts, of course, are also good for our local economy.

This is comes from a study that was done by the Digital Innovation Group a couple of years ago.

One of the findings that really struck me, and this is Vancouver Island and Gulf Islands Wide, but what they found is the arts add nearly one billion dollars in direct economic outputs every year.

That compares to the cruise ship industry, which contributes 124 million.

124 million, one billion.

And we all talk about how good the cruise ship industry is.

Yep.

We seem to have a slide missing.

So I'm going to fill in the dots for you.

And I know that this is this is the slide that Mayor Tobias really wants me to show.

Because it talks about how much this is going to cost and who's going to pay for it.

So our consultants identified that the capital costs of what we're proposing is around $40 million dollars.

That does not include land, it does not include parking.

These things do not come cheap.

Our intention is that this is funded through federal and provincial contributions and a significant fundraising campaign to raise private contributions.

You will note that I did not list municipalities on that list.

It is not our expectation that municipalities would be contributing significant amounts to the capital costs.

Can I say that again?

This is not our expectation that municipalities would be contributing significantly to capital costs.

However, on the operating side, our consultants also looked at a model operating budget for this centre.

And obviously, it's going to be designed so that you know the financial model will as much as possible offset the costs, excuse me, of running the facility.

But just like all other sports and arts facilities, there is a shortfall, and our expect expectation is that that would be funded through the five municipalities.

The good news is if that amount is shared amongst all five municipalities, it works out to about seven dollars per person.

So Mr.

Chan talked about $1.32 a day.

This is less than a dollar a month.

So I think you can call that a pretty good deal.

So just to wrap up this section, we we feel we have a clearly identified need for this facility.

We've done our job of identifying the kind of spaces that should be included.

Location is to be determined.

We certainly have ideas, but it is it is not fixed.

If we are to make this happen, we feel that our group needs to be moving forward on three fronts this year.

The first is building partners.

Excuse me.

We do not want to build a standalone arts and culture center.

Land is too valuable.

There are too many other community needs.

So we are actively looking for who else is looking to build space, who else would make good partnerships as a part of this venture.

What are all the kind of synergies and collaborations that could happen out of this?

So, as one example, we've been talking with the Village Initiative, which you may be familiar with, who are looking for spaces for youth and mental health.

So that's the you know an example of the kind of partnership we're looking for.

We're also trying to work on fundraising.

We are an excuse me, we are an entirely volunteer group, and we have a very, very tidy budget.

We want to be in a position to hire a part-time coordinator this year.

So another piece that we're going to be working on is really trying to kind of step up our game.

We also need to have a very clear mandate from all five Bushore municipalities.

And to that end, we're looking at creating an intermunicipal committee.

So the thinking is it's an ad hoc committee.

Each council would designate one member of council to participate in the shared discussion.

The role is looking, you know, looking at those shared proposed shared spaces and saying, you know, is that kind of the right kind of list?

Looking at the financial model, is that something that everybody's comfortable with?

What location should we be looking at?

Because I think that's going to be a very interesting intermunicipal discussion.

We need to move towards a shovel ready project.

We have been frustrated a number of times by watching really good grant opportunities come and go, and we need to we need to be in a position to kind of go, yep, we're going to apply for that one.

Um, so I was very pleased to see Mayor Tobias and the other um mayors at the the recent Chamber of Commerce Visions West Shore clearly showing support for moving this forward.

That was that was wonderful to see, and it was also wonderful to see language in the CRD corporate plan that talked about moving this as well.

So, my request for you today, um through whatever appropriate process, is for the town of Uroyal to designate one of your council members as your representative on this intermunicipal committee.

And I want to to reinforce that there's no commitment at this moment in time.

Not any financial commitment or other.

This is simply a conversation, but it's an important conversation which kind of moves us to where where we need to be.

It's also not our intention to make it too onerous.

We know everybody's incredibly busy, so you need to make it something that's kind of a manageable piece for everyone.

But it is an essential part in moving this project forward.

And with that, I will pass it over for questions.

Thank you very much.

And if there you were willing to, we've got to build an RCMP building.

So if you guys could get together, that would be a thing.

Kidding, not kidding.

Is there any questions from counselors?

Councilor Matson.

Yeah, I'm just curious as to the size of this building.

And how many, how big a footprint are you do you need?

The consultant report suggested about 36,000 square feet.

Um I suspect the overall is going to be larger than that because I think we will be adding on um additional spaces, whatever those needs are.

But also looking at kind of how do we best make joint use of of space.

For example, if there's you know uh meeting spaces, you know, it's not just the arts groups who will use them, it's it's other groups who will use them as well.

So for example, if we were to go say to the West Shore Parks and Rec, we need X number of square feet of your space so that a building can be built.

What sort of square footage of their property would you need?

So what's the footprint?

I don't know the answer to that, um, because I'm I'm anticipating that we won't do it all on one level, that we will we will go go up.

Um so it's it's gonna depend on the architectural design and and we haven't gone there yet.

Thank you.

Councillor McKenzie, then Councillor Rogers.

Thank you for your presentation.

I'm glad you clarified that involvement in the uh intermunicipal committee doesn't necessarily mean the commitment to the funds at this point because I uh because it will be an ongoing cost, I assume that we will need to look at the budget.

I'm looking at John uh and and see how that would be funded on an ongoing basis.

That said, that normally happens you know next uh February time.

Is that what kind of timelines are you thinking in terms of the financial commitment decisions?

The good news is probably not during your term, because you know, of course, we we have to, you know, we have to get it built and all of the many stages involved in in getting to that point, including significant fundraising to get there.

Um and obviously operating costs don't kick in until it's it's built.

Um I could get incredibly optimistic in saying, you know, if if all hands were on deck and and we're moving forward at 100 miles an hour, we could we could start to see shovels in the ground in three years.

But um I've I've long since given up predicting when this is going to happen.

Thank you.

Counselor Rogers.

Yes, thanks.

I'll just point out that it's more than art therapy, there's also music therapy.

Um so uh uh there's many aspects to uh uh substantiate um uh the the goals that you're you're striving for.

Um and I think another one is um uh by having uh this facility in the West Shores is the um the green opportunity.

You know, we don't have to travel downtown, just be able to like shop local.

And um and what I also hope, I'm encouraged with the uh CRD's presentation today because it is a um and part of their vision is to have regional arts um uh amenities and facilities.

Um so if we do get to that point then we are um all in unison over 450,000 residents can benefit from the what's in the north um in the uh in Sydney and in the West Shore in the core.

Um and it's also really really good for tourism.

As you know, destination greater Victoria is is really pumping um uh the amenities and features of all parts of the regional district.

And I think if the uh the capital regional district and the five municipalities of West Shore join together, uh, we'll be much better to keep that tourism revenue to facilitate and augment the maintenance that's required.

Thank you.

And yes, I I would certainly support a uh um member of council being on your committee and i think uh um sarah just to make a note if we could to uh include some discussion on next week's council agenda for um a council representation on the intermunicipal arts and culture facility committee i think that's what we're gonna call it i don't know what that works out to an acronym i i think councillor lemon that would fit nicely under her portfolio but i won't uh second guess the will of council, and we could discuss that at that point.

Um, but thank you very much for your presentation.

Very supportive of your continued work and and commitment to this worthy goal.

Thank you.

Thank you all and thank you.

And I think that brings us to the agenda uh to the um uh public participation period.

So I'd like to start in the room if we could first, if anybody had a comment or question for council.

Um any volunteers to address council today.

Passive group here to listen.

That's fine.

Thank you for that.

Carl, I'll go to you and uh see if there's anybody on the phone that would like to address council.

Mayor Tobias, we have no callers this afternoon.

Okay, very well.

We can move down, and I would just encourage the chairs to mind the time.

Um, and I think uh having uh our next step is uh protective services, and I'll pass the chair over to Councillor Brown, please.

Welcome everybody to the Protective Services Committee portion of the meeting.

Um, I'll have a very short report just to let everyone know that the Crest radio system now has moved to the West Shore.

They're actually in uh Langford now, so they provide the radios for the ambulance police and fire and for emergency uh preparedness.

So uh I think it might be helpful.

I mean, you have to repair phones or replace phones and uh they're right in the West Shore Parkway by the big motorcycle shop there.

Yep.

So other than that, um see uh Superintendent Preston's here, and I'd like to call you to make your report, please, Superintendent.

Thank you, Council Rell.

Uh Mr.

Mayor, Council, thanks for having me as usual.

Um, I am a little tight for uh time added.

I have another engagement here in about uh 25 minutes.

I need to get to.

So I will uh start off by just going through some general set uh statistics here.

Uh thus far from January 1st to May 31st, we've had a 12% increase or 138 uh additional files over year over year uh from last year.

Um it's uh good to report that uh in that same time period we've had a six percent decrease in uh violent crime.

Fortunately, we've had a 23% increase in property crime.

Um, and that seems to be an ongoing trend throughout the West Shore.

Um, I think I've reported to you before about not only property crime, uh, but all-encompassing, obviously, um, including shoplifting, which was last year was up 100% uh in the West Shore.

Um, you've had a 17% increase uh in files at the casino.

So in the January to May 31st, we went to the casino 49 times for calls for service, most of which are uh alcohol uh and cause disturbance related.

Uh we had an 8% increase uh at the hospital uh during that same time period, um, which represents a seven seven file increase.

But overall, we went to the hospital 91 times thus far this year, this calendar year, uh, to the end of May.

We've also uh within the hospital uh there was a 50% increase in relation to mental health calls uh as such at the hospital during that time.

But overall, uh, from last year we had a 13% decrease in overall mental health calls, but we still had 86 calls in your area uh since January 1st.

Um, and so I'll touch base on that.

And I know I've talked to you with the staffing increase this year, which is actually nine members.

So Callwood gave one member, uh, Langford uh gave four members, Machosen gave four members.

So a total of nine of that, uh, we're looking at creating three three positions, a corporal and two constables uh for mental health, uh, a mental health team.

And we're working collaboratively with the province, and I'm cautiously optimistic that we're gonna be able to uh hopefully secure some nurse practitioners uh to have a fulsome team that can go and address these very calls that perhaps aren't uh best suited to police officers going alone, uh, and perhaps their education and training isn't the best person for those calls for service, but certainly still needs to be part of the solution, oftentimes, and unfortunately, very unpredictable calls.

And we've seen, I think, in the paper, some of those calls.

So, anyways, I'm I'm pleased to announce that we have those positions and we should have those hopefully in place here by the uh the end of the calendar year.

We'll have that team up and running.

Uh, general information uh traffic traffic unit.

So this is just our traffic unit, which encompasses a corporal and uh through three constables uh in the month of May, just May, uh 17 interactions, through uh three school zones uh patrols, 12 uh speeding and uh sorry, speed warnings, six speeding charges, one prohibited driver, and two other charges.

That's just our targeted uh team of of traffic enforcement.

Uh that's not including statistics from our general duty officers.

Uh probably one of the more significant things and I'm I'm disheartened and dismayed to be honest is school district 61's decision to ask for the removal of uh our school resource officers.

I can't make sense of it.

I have uh uh I would strongly encourage if you feel the same way uh you have a stronger voice than I do uh to advocate perhaps for um more dialogue on how how we came to that decision.

Um I'll probably stop there before I continue.

Uh so um sorry do you want to Council Brown did you want to interject?

Yeah uh well we do have an item coming up on the agenda regarding school liaison so I don't know if you have time to stay for that or not but yeah I really appreciate the fact that your assistant provided such good statistics on accidents uh particularly at Watkiss Way um and I understand that's available for other areas too if you wanted to plot it and also the uh speed watch program uh very good that they went out and did two hours on Watkiss Way and provided some numbers that was very very helpful.

I appreciate that counselor yeah and again we're I'm happy to uh you know provide through our criminal analyst she has the ability to plot so when when uh your constituents come to you and say there's a horrible problem here we're having accidents all the time or or what have you we can we can discern whether or not uh that is actually the fact or where uh we should be focusing our resources based on our uh you know an educated approach here uh do you want me to come back i got a cut a little bit more but i can come back or do you want to touch base counselor matzon well this is just on the in case you're not here for when our sch we were talking about the school liaison uh officer i just wanted to point out at least from my perspective that school district sixty one's decision is incredibly stupid and short sighted and for anyone who is happens to be out there who can see this please pass it on to this the board thank you counselor I appreciate your supporting words counselor McKenzie.

I'm curious whether uh there is a cost associated to the school district for this program, which might have fed into No.

No, we I mean those those are funded through municipalities, municipal positions, and we listen to your priorities every year.

And your priorities are every year, you know, work with our youth.

The youth is the future.

Uh we need to act as mentors, we need to be role models, we need to be there for uh, you know, the youth that perhaps weren't dealt a great set of cards in life and advocate for them and provide them support.

Uh this does the opposite.

This uh and for those that feel that perhaps um you know, there's certain um groups that are scared or that are targeted to which is nonsense.

We don't target uh certain groups, uh youth in in school.

And and a lot of the I think the literature that they referenced was American.

Um, and I would suggest that we are substantially different than our American counterparts.

Uh but even even that, uh I think if you look at um you know some of the the recent articles, they're all reversing.

The the vast majority of them are have seen the the science experiment gone bad down south, uh and they are reversing a lot of those decisions and putting school liaison officers back in the school.

So I'm perplexed as to why somebody would need to go down the same path to learn the same mistake instead of educating themselves properly.

But um forgive me for for uh sounding a little um hurt or short.

Uh I'm just very passionate about uh being in those schools and being role models.

I I know the superintendent is busy, he's a busy man, and perhaps it's appropriate for me to make my motion now rather than wait for the next thing.

I'll just read it.

Uh my motion is to send a letter to Superintendent Preston stating that View Royal Council supports and encourages RCP officers' presence in View Royal schools, including but not limited to crime prevention, traffic, and personal safety programs.

Second amendment by bias.

I will second it and uh just for a point of clarification, do you want that letter to go to Superintendent Preston or do you want it to go to school district sixty-one?

I think we can CC it to uh the chair of district sixty-one.

Friendly amendment.

Yeah, the value of school liaison programs.

I mean, uh I I was an SLO many, many years ago, including in your detachment, uh, started the first full school liaison program in Richmond and also the school liaison program in Burnaby.

Um, one of my uh officers in Richmond, uh the because of the confidence level he built up with those students, one of the students came to him with a tip that led to the arrest and conviction of a person that set a fire, an arson that uh someone died in.

So that's just one example.

Some of the officers were invited to graduation ceremonies to give uh speech speeches, um, chaperones, uh coaching football teams, coaching basketball teams.

And again, the school district plays zero.

And uh to for the school district to do that the day after they've said uh there's gang members uh recruiting in the schools, it just baffles me.

Absolutely baffles me.

Well, I uh look, I really do appreciate your uh overwhelming support.

Um, in fact, you know, we had two canoe cha canoe trips uh with our First Nations officer who's in one of those schools.

Uh we're supposed to take a hundred kids out on a camping canoe trip, and that had to be canceled.

Um I think it was a day before or two days before or something silly like that, because as a result of this decision, uh you know, the Esquimalt and Songhees nations were not consulted, and I spoke with Chief Thomas today.

Um, I won't speak for him, other than I know he has uh very similar support uh to what I'm hearing in this room here, so um I don't think they were uh overly thrilled with this decision either.

We have an incredible relationship with the Songis and the Squamble First Nation and their children, and this has directly uh affected that relationship.

Um point of order, uh Chair, if you could finish that motion.

We got to the second.

Sorry, we have moved over to second or so.

Can I oh join or yeah, Council Rogers, yeah.

Speaking to the motion, I'm I'm fully in support.

One of the things about um the Shoreline Community School that when we had the nights alive, uh the uh RCMP attendants uh in that was uh uh really supportive, very helpful, and and uh the youth really appreciated, and so did the coordinators, Bark Fretter Stonehouse.

And uh as a probation officer in Burnaby with um uh community schools there, the uh the police uh liaison with the youth was instrumental in in getting a greater awareness greater acceptance and greater comfort so fully in support i would just like to clarify the the funding arrangement you mentioned it's through municipalities so um uh staff maybe am i correct in that this has already been budgeted into our budget uh through the chair uh yes it would be okay thank you okay call question.

All in favor?

No, no opposed.

Unanimous.

Superintendent.

Thank you.

Yeah i'll i'll quickly uh finish up here if i could.

Uh and again, I appreciate really appreciate uh the overwhelming support.

Uh so we had a uh a substantial one of the I think you might have saw it in the paper there, six a significant drug bust, uh which we know affected all of West Shore here.

That was in May.

Our drugs and organized crime conducted a multi-jurisdictional investigation into drug trafficking in the Capitol Regional District.

Search warrants were executed on five vehicles, four properties located in Langford, Malahat, Sanage, and Victoria.

Six kilos of drugs uh suspected to be a combination of cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamine, philocybe, and approximately six liters of liquid drugs suspected to be gamma uh GHB is is uh the commonly known term.

Uh 50 caliber desert eagle handgun, AR 15, and more uh weapons were seized from there.

So just because they weren't uh executed in your area, make no mistake, uh those drugs were destined for every uh jurisdiction in this area here.

So uh a great a great job for uh not just the RCP but our our municipal partners as well that partnered with on that file.

Um just gonna read through a few of the files here.

We had a uh a fight, an assault with a weapon on the 1500 block at Middle Road.

Neighbors uh called an assault on their neighbor, uh involving a baseball bat.

Verbal threats of a gun were also made.

No, no gun was actually seen.

This was likely related to drugs, and the victim was uncooperative during that uh file.

We had a single vehicle collision on Craigflower Road and Admiral's Road.

The driver was impaired and tried to leave in a taxi, but was stopped by police and issued a 90 day IRP.

Uh, we had a possession of stolen property.

The complainant saw his uh stolen tools on Facebook Facebook Marketplace and attended with the police officer recovered the tools.

The subject of the play was a chronic offender and has been arrested.

We had two reports from View Royal Elementary of a suspicious mail on the rail tracks near the school.

The mail was partially clothed, shorts on, not reporting of him approaching anyone, not uh no confirmed indecent act, but just they were concerned about um the uh perhaps his presence with no shirt staring into the playground.

Um so we are investigating that, not to say that this individual did anything wrong, other than perhaps um yeah, we we want to speak with this individual just to see what um the intent was.

Uh and we are a little sensitive to these files because we have had, and again, this is not in reference to this specific individual, and I can't clarify that enough, but we've had bona fide rapes on the trail.

Uh, we've had sex assaults on this trail.

We have a uh an employee, a municipal employee, in fact, I believe we have two that have now been uh traveling during the trail here recently, and a male has uh exposed his genitals to our female member or female staff members.

We know that there is um a number of individuals that are uh committing these indecent acts.

And so um when we get files, we are sensitive, not to say that in every instance somebody's done anything wrong, but we will want to speak with these individuals just to see what the intentions were.

Um, so I know that there is some people saying, Why are you investigating this?

Um, again, we've had acts in the past there, um, and a lot of them throughout the uh the West, and we're not alone.

I mean, the whole Greater Victoria area, and uh, it would suggest any area.

There's these acts, and so we we pay close attention to them.

Um, we had a male apprehended assault with a weapon, reported um a family dealing with a mental health relatively was assaulted by the family member.

The assault was going on when the officer arrived, and uh we had to actually break up that fight.

We have it, we had a child abuse investigation, allegations against a mother, and our special victims unit's been involved in that one.

So this is just in the last month here.

Uh, we had a complaint from a resident of View Royal advising their children's bike had been stolen uh near the home located on Burnett Road in Verie Royal.

Um the bike unit were patrolling on the trail at the time when they spotted the female susp suspect who was identified uh to them by the uh uh the victim.

Uh we were able to arrest that individual, but unfortunately we weren't able to seize the bike.

The bike was uh nowhere to be found.

Uh we had a break and enter at a daycare on high street.

It happened overnight.

About $30 uh value was taken.

We had a road raid incident near a six-mile.

The report of a driver yelling at another driver swerving the suspect driver brandished a knife uh displaying it while he was driving.

The victims uh refused to uh pursue the matter.

Um we were able to identify the individual and caution that individual about their behavior.

Um we had a flight for police on Craig Flower.

The officer tried to conduct a traffic stop on somebody actually on an e-bike, which is uh not common.

But the individual uh ditched the bike and fled through a yard back fence, and uh we weren't able to locate this individual.

We had a vehicle uh versus cyclist on Watkiss way and Burnside Road.

The vehicle stopped at a red light and was trying to proceed uh with a right turn onto Watkins, but did not notice the cyclist.

The cyclist was taken to the hospital.

Um a disobey traffic controlled device ticket was issued.

And finally, we had a uh MAHA, a mental health individual um patient at Craigflower Road.

The uh individual self inflicted minor wounds, and we called our insert uh the mobile crisis team.

Uh that's a CRD bound uh team, and they created a uh safety plan with this individual.

And the individual actually wasn't apprehended.

We were able to um defuse the situation.

So uh with that, I have time for maybe a couple quick questions, and that's uh probably it.

Just uh could you pass on kudos to Corporal Sager?

I really appreciate getting her press releases.

Oh, great.

I think especially for missing people and uh other issues, and very very short, succinct, and uh very timely.

She's an outstanding member, so I'll pass that on.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further questions?

Well, thank you very much.

Thank you guys very much.

Thank you.

Next on the agenda is the building department report.

I think it's just to receive for info, I believe.

Moved moved by Councillor Rogers, seconded by Council uh Councilor Mattson.

All those in favor, none opposed, passed.

And last but not least, Coral Henderson from CRD bylaw and animal control.

She actually ran the department.

Welcome, Coral.

Coral used to work for me.

I just as a figurehead.

But anyways, uh, I'm glad to see you here today.

I know um your boss Mark was here last maybe two months ago and he had some questions.

I think some of the counselors had some questions to ask, and um if they have still have them, they can ask you.

Otherwise, uh I like your report.

Um I have nothing.

Does anyone else have any questions?

Uh uh thank you very much for coming and and for the report.

Um I am curious.

The um in in the month of May, um uh we had uh it seems like an extraordinary amount of um uh concerns or complaints uh with respect to uh animals.

Um 17 where the average seems to be about six or or so.

Um was there any particular area or park that creates you uh gives you the most uh concern?

Thank you, counselor, and thank you for having me here today.

Um there were there's an uptick and your total is 17 and it's missing a line item that we're gonna be adding into our reports is dogs and hot cars.

Uh we're missing four um calls that we received dogs and hot cars and May is the the we had that hot spell right there.

And that is a major concern in all the municipalities.

Costco is one of our Costco and the hospital are our worst um places for it.

Uh Costco's unenable to announce uh if your dog's in this car, please go to the vehicle and kind of same with the hospital.

We are putting out an outreach program and decals for every business in all the municipalities that we cover and the hospital and anywhere else that'll put them.

Something like it's not cool to leave your dog in your car.

And Costco has, and the hospital is also approved that we're gonna give them some sandwich boards to put out front that state, please do not leave your dog in your vehicle, and just a cute little picture of a dog and some statistics of how quickly the temperature can rise.

That's really really great to hear, and thanks for doing the proactive uh uh prevention in that regard.

I I do have just another comment, if I may.

Uh, one of the um I I was assisting um Chris and and others for um invasive species removal in Portage Park, and um uh a woman came up with her two dogs very concerned that um the um you know a jogger had uh had passed by on the park where it was off-leash uh and became so abusive that she uh called the police.

Um she felt very threatened.

And I I guess my concerns or maybe this is also the staff is um Portage Park does not have clear signage as to what is and what isn't off-leash.

Um and I wonder if that might be is that confusing for you as well in terms of in uh creating uh having solid grounds for enforcement?

Yes, thank you for the question.

Um Portage Park and Chilco Park are probably the biggest concerns.

I just sent a message to Public Works Center by law enforcement officer for View Royal regarding proper signage.

Chilco Park at one point, I think um someone put forward a council to make it an off-leash park, and that didn't go through, but I think some people still think it is because we are there constantly and people just don't have their dogs on a leash, but then they state there is no sign.

So Chilco Park doesn't have a sign.

Portage is kind of confusing.

Um we have been in contact with View Royal staff and they have adjusted the signage.

I think it's just people not passing or reading them.

Um so we just encourage that.

We also have uh something in development that it's going to be a GIS map of all of the parks that dogs are allowed in the Capitol Regional District.

And if you hold your mouse over that park, it'll tell you the rules of off-leash, on leash, if your dog can be in the ball field, what times they can be on the beach and stuff like that.

So that should help educate people.

Sorry, I have to beg the question when will that um functionality be available?

As soon as I can get it done.

Tomorrow is great.

Yeah, I'm hoping to have it done before um the end of the summer.

And it's just timing.

You're welcome.

I did mention uh to Mark when he was here before about uh the summertime and patrols and parks, and I really appreciate that.

I see the numbers have gone up, and I've noticed it myself.

I spent a lot of time uh walking in the parks, and uh that's great.

And also uh congratulations to you because I understand you've got your 25 years in with the CRDs.

Yes, thank you.

Does anyone else have any questions for Coral?

Well, thank you very much for your report.

I just wanted to mention the question at the last meeting that I was here to answer was someone had asked what general hours meant on the report, and I just we'll probably change that wording.

I understand that is confusing to investigative hours.

So you have your park hours that you've asked specifically the hours, and then the other hours are how long it takes us to investigate, how much time we're spending on V royal complaints.

Great, thank you very much.

Moving sheet of the report.

Motion okay, thanks, John.

Nobody opposed.

Passed the ads.

That ends are protective services committee.

Thank you, Councillor Brown.

And uh we'll go in to finance and administration and skipping down to staff reports.

We will um go to the budget variants and projects update.

That you don't.

Uh thank you, um Chair.

I don't have anything to add to the report, just available for questions as needed.

Just my usual question.

How are we doing in the budget?

Anything keeping you up at night?

Thank you for the question uh through the chair.

Uh certainly not at this point in time.

As you will remember, the budget really just got uh approved in May.

And so staff have hit the ground running, and we are in early stages of many of the projects.

So we will uh increase the monitoring of the budgets as we approach uh nearer to year end.

I do anticipate we have identified and and is identified for you in the report uh just one one or two, or there may be a couple more items that uh tell me we will be bringing back a budget amendment at some point in the future.

So you can look forward to that, and we will have more information at that time.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Move receipt, the report.

Moved by Councillor Mattson, uh seconded by Councillor McKenzie.

Seconder.

All in favor?

Any opposed?

Seeing not opposed, we can carry on with the agenda.

And we do have a CAO update.

If not, it speaks for itself.

Councilor Rogers.

Yes, uh, thanks for the report.

Um, gosh, what page two?

Last um paragraph of finance, uh, staff have developed a new app for streamlined data collection.

Is that is this um something that is is going to be um is it accessible or is it just something that we would see in the dashboard?

The information is passed through this collection data collection tool through to the dashboards that are that you do see on View Royal's website.

So it's just making it a little bit more efficient and streamlined to collect the data for staff.

If I may another comment.

Uh again, um very impressed with uh staff uh jumping on to the emerging sinkhole that had unfolded in Prince Arbor Drive.

That's uh that's it's quite remarkable that you got onto it so fast and also super impressed with uh the cleanup of the encampment under the crayflower bridge extraordinary achievement thank you counselor i'll pass on that compliment and if i'm also on on uh praise i am really happy that um with the staff's work in viewow park um the tree work and and removing the dead one and um i've got many compliments uh with respect to opening up the vest at the at the bottom of helmkin it's quite astonishing thank you thank you counselor uh rogers will go to council mackenzie and then councillor Mattson.

I would also like to echo the thanks to the park staff for for cleaning up that encampment.

I'm sure it wasn't the most glamorous uh job.

Um and I actually have a question in regards to that: whether there'll be ongoing checks to ensure that that it doesn't get to that state again.

Uh through the chair, generally there's a lot of parks that we tend to, and a lot of these encampments are based on the complaint spaces.

That said, I don't know the background behind how they found this one.

I would imagine that um how they found this, and that would be that'll how it be how they'll find subsequent ones.

Well most of them are are done on the complaint spaces or through secondary inspection, which I believe which was what happened to this.

That uh one underneath Craig Floyd Bridge took two weeks to get that full.

We'll go to Councillor Matson and Councillor Brown.

Thank you, Councillor McKenzie.

Just following up on the uh under the bridge, I mean yeah I could certainly understand how it would take two weeks to clean up.

I'm just wondering if it we could do something a little more proactive for example on something like that.

You know, wire it or mesh it um it can't happen again.

You know that's a very good point.

And I I should clarify to the chair that um it took two weeks for it to get that full it took a couple of hours for the park staff to clean it up.

So um they definitely uh wanted to make sure I got cleaned up very, very quickly to avoid uh having this again.

Um when it this is the first time it's happened on this bridge, so should it continue to happen, then uh staff will certainly look at options on how to prevent that.

Um, like I said, there's a lot of other uh bridges in and around that uh that have uh we have observed the same.

So um the good news is that we haven't heard anything knock on wood, obviously, recently for those ones.

But uh, like I said, we'll we'll be on it.

Thank you, Councillor Brown.

I should have said this when Larissa Hutchins was here from Parks from C or D, but I know we've had the letters from people worrying about the fire hazard with the uh heavy growth along the EN trail or the railway trail.

And I saw two young fellows out there, uh nice guys, uh UVIX students out for summer, and they were doing a great job weed whacking today.

So it's nice to see that.

I I didn't catch their names, but two young fellows, nice guys.

And they were employees.

Employees of C or D parks.

Thank you.

Seeing no other questions, uh, I think we can uh move uh to the vote for it uh to be received for information.

All in favor?

Any opposed?

None opposed.

Do we have movers and seconders for that one, Sarah?

Discorrect me.

You got the you already have that.

See, I'm not I'm not losing the plot too badly.

Uh so I think that brings us to any other committee reports and no other business.

I think we can have a motion to recess to reconvene at uh 7 p.m.

Please be seated before then council.

And uh can I get a motion to recess?

Councillor Brown move, Councillor Mattson seconded.

All in favor.

Quickly getting through tonight's agenda.

I'm it warmed my heart given what's happened in some of her recent meetings.

Thank you.

Yes, and uh I think we're uh we may uh have some more interest uh when we come back at seven o'clock uh this evening with some uh development uh feelers, but I think um and some other topics on the agenda.

So we will uh reconvene, Carl, at uh at 7 sharp.

Thank you.

Um good evening.

I'll call the um committee of the whole for the town of View Royal um to order for June 13th, 2023.

And uh we recognize the Laquangwin speaking people known today as the Esquimalt Nation and the Songhees Nation, for the and that their historic connections to these lands continue to this day.

This evening we have a public participation uh portion of the agenda uh and a question period portion of the agenda.

For members of the audience.

Uh the council is a safe place and a respectful place that we value your opinions and would want you to follow the rules so I don't have to call you out on them.

If you're participating by telephone, if you wish to provide comments, call 778-402-9227 and when prompted, enter conference ID 611-711-937 pound.

At the appropriate time of the agenda, I will then announce the last four digits of your phone number, ask you to mute the live webcast to avoid feedback, ask you not to use your speaker phone to ensure sound quality, and ask you to unmute yourself by pressing star six.

To begin, please indicate your name address for the record.

Speakers will have five minutes to speak during the public participation period and two minutes to ask a question or questions during question period, and you'll be timed.

The meeting will be recorded by participating in the webcast.

You are consented to being recorded, and the recording will be available on the town's website for further access.

And I think we can dig into uh the agenda right away and invite the petition and delegation, Mr.

Doug Ford from uh Inviticus uh for rezoning of 339 341 345 Ireland Highway.

Good evening, Mary and Council.

My name is Doug Ford, as you just mentioned from Invictus Commercial.

Um, I'm merely here to uh have my team introduce what I think is another exciting project for View Royal.

We've done spent a lot of time designing this, working with staff, and hopefully it's it's something that can move forward.

We're anxious to move it forward from from the point of view of providing housing for a lot of homeless people these days.

I'd like to point out that that Jeff Klaus is here from Boardwalk Reed out of Calgary.

Jennifer is here from Town Hall, isn't it?

Town Square Planning and Rob Wetter from DHK Architects.

I'd like to introduce Jennifer.

She is going to speak first if you don't mind.

So we do have a lot to say tonight.

I just wanted to start with uh a thank you for your time and allowing us to be here to present uh a brief introduction of the rezoning application.

Uh importantly, it's uh a proposal for redevelopment of the former Cambridge Motel site into new purpose-built rental housing, providing 259 new homes in View Royal.

The existing structures, as you are all likely quite familiar with them, they currently accommodate 32 units of market rental housing, down from 36 following the loss of four units just recently due to a fire just last month.

As a result of their age and their poor condition, they have been offered or offering really low end of market rents, but the buildings are in need of replacement.

Redevelopment will support the existing tenants to find alternate accommodation, and a tenant relocation coordinator has been hired to lead this initiative.

The application is to rezone the property considering the use and density of the site.

We've worked collaboratively with neighborhood neighbors and staff to shape the application over the past 14 plus months.

And we know that continued refinement is part of the development process and will continue into the development permit stage.

To date, we've hosted three neighborhood information meetings, the first back in April 2022, and then again in December 2022, both before we submitted the application.

A third meeting was held just last week on June 6th to share an update prior to tonight's meeting.

I'm assuming one of these buttons will let me switch the slide forward.

If not, maybe staff could do that for me.

Thank you.

So we started with an initial concept about rental housing, indicating that was the concept from the outset, and provided updates along the way as the site and massing plans took shape with input through technical analysis, community consultation, and with staff direction.

We've taken a great amount of care and time over the many months to listen to the neighbors and to have the plans reflect their input and the input that received from staff.

Notably, we've worked to balance the need for new homes, which we're all well aware of, in this context of an escalating regional and even national housing crisis with a number of site planning considerations, including site access, parking, tree preservation, retention of views from neighboring properties, and other items.

We're all aware of the housing crisis, and we use that phrase not loosely but seriously, in that we know that the housing crisis is also being compounded now by escalating construction and financing costs that all have an upward impact on the ultimate cost of housing.

There's also a shared understanding as planners, as we've had for many years, with acknowledging that there's a need to build more complete and more compact communities so that we're uh we're having a more sustainable result and addressing the parallel climate crisis.

While one development really can't solve all these problems, we know that incremental positive change is what we're striving for to create more housing in a more sustainable way.

We've worked with staff to create um to create a plan that is addressing a number of interests, sometimes even conflicting considerations, to arrive at what we believe to be an economically feasible plan that will see this site redeveloped to serve a larger community need.

Next slide, please.

One of the key highlights of our work with staff was to include a mixed-use component to the to the development.

Adding a small commercial retail unit or a cafe on the ground floor in this location, right at the corner of Prince Robert and Island Highway, provides a complementary use to the future potential redevelopment of the designated Fort Royal property, which is part of your town center.

We've also worked, maybe to the next slide, please.

We've also worked to balance tree retention with the realities of site redevelopment.

A tree survey and an arboris report have been completed.