It may be a clich茅, but Council has an obligation to look for the "greater good".
We deal with it in every meeting, where opinions from the public collide and the seven of us must determine the course of action that we believe is best overall for Squamish.
With this in mind, I will bring forward a motion Tuesday that I believe is necessary as our community continues to change. In short, it's a motion that will stop the rezoning of any land from trailer park use to another use until we can put a plan in place to deal with those affected. Angelo's may be the case in front of us at the moment, but you can be sure owners of other parks are watching the Angelo's file with interest. So are the owners of mobile homes in these other parks.
The simple fact is that a lot of mobile homes are not really that mobile at all. In general terms, any trailer that is more than five years old might be impossible to move safely, and getting insurance for that move is almost impossible for older units. Even for those that can be moved safely, the question remains where can they be moved to? The residents of Angelo's - and their counterparts from other mobile home parks - have made a compelling case that Council should intercede on their behalf. I hope we do that Tuesday.
In the normal course of events, we would let the rezoning process work its way through the process at City Hall before dealing with it at the Council level. However, the people who in many cases have their life savings tied up in these houses have been in limbo for too long. This is not the fault of the park owner - he has simply been following the process laid down by provincial regulation.
There is no point in keeping both the owner of the park and the residents waiting any longer. Rezoning is a land use issue, and Council does have the ability to deal with it at any time. By sending a clear message Tuesday - regardless of the decision - we can let the affected parties know where everyone stands.
The work on affordable housing continues regardless of what we decide Tuesday. Obviously, the owners of mobile homes are just one component of the affordable housing mix. We have to ensure that people can continue to move to Squamish, and that young people who grow up here can stay in Squamish.
Council has asked the planning department to bring forward an affordable housing strategy that will work for Squamish. This is a problem that cannot be solved quickly, but it must be tackled now in a manner that gives an effective long term solution.
We've also hired a consultant to work with Land and Water BC to help secure Crown land for 撸奶社区in the Cheekye Fan that can be used for both residential and industrial uses.
The latter is an important point, since commercial and industrial land users face the same problem as those looking for housing. Certain business uses are only viable when land is available at a certain price. As well, it benefits a community to obtain land that can be used in this way. It also ties in to Coun. Dave Fenn's concept of a Forestry Industrial Park, where economies of scale for the operators can be realized with the assistance of all the stakeholder groups.
Land use is a big challenge for any local government at any time. It is even more so when you have a community going through tremendous change with an accompanying heavy demand by land owners and prospective land owners trying to get the maximum benefit from that land.
The challenge for Council - with the professional guidance of our planning and engineering staff - is to make decisions today that will stand the test of time.
