In support of Co-housing on Haida Gwaii

Today I rose in support of the Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District proposed bylaw amendments 604, 2016 and 605, 2016, to rezone two lots in the Tow Hill Road community as “R-4 Cohousing”. There was near unanimous support in the room and from abroad, so they certainly didn’t need my support alone, but below is the text of my comments.

I’d like to address two issues in our community that I think that this proposal serves: economic diversity and availability of quality housing.

Many folks in the room tonight derive their incoming and their living from on-island. But there are many others in the community who do not. Haida Gwaii and Masset are home to writers, artists, doctors and nurses who work in other cities, software engineers who work in Victoria or San Francisco, carvers who run their galleries in Vancouver, tree planter, tree fallers, biologists and ecologists and many others.

One of the hallmarks of a healthy and robust community and economy is diversity in employment, diversity in economic inputs and outputs.

One of the biggest struggles of my household when we moved here and every time we decide whether to stay or leave, is how to find good quality housing. When we moved here, we showed up in town two days before the moving truck and had 48 hours to find a place for our family and possessions. All in a community where advertising only happens through word of mouth and personal connections that we did not have. This lack of good housing continues to vex many of the professionals that we know who have moved here since.

There are many lots and much land where ambitious and creative people could invest in building something special, but such an undertaking is rife with risk and uncertainty. Being able to distribute this risk across a group of committed individuals is an ideal way to encourage investment in our community.

My opinion is that this zoning change helps to provide a pathway for committed people to invest in our community. It helps to encourage economic diversity by providing the opportunity for people to create high-quality housing for themselves, while mitigating some of the uncertainties of doing so.

I’m in support of this proposed zoning change, and I hope that you will be as well.