IN THE NEWS: Harbour likely to stay a point of conflict

Overlapping jurisdictions can lead to confusion, tensions, expert says

BY CARLA WILSON
THE TIMES COLONIST
FEBRUARY 27, 2010

No matter who wins the battle over a planned a marina in front of Songhees, conflicts will keep flaring up as other proposals come forward in the future, say harbour watchers.
"It will be a site-by-site fight around the harbour, I'm sure," said Diane Carr, a member of the Save Our Harbour organization.
As harbour advocates try to block the proposed 52-slip marina for luxury boats, they are also watching other potential issues. Carr points to the idea of a wastewater treatment plant at the Steel Pacific Recycling site on the Selkirk Waters area of the harbour, suggested to a regional sewage committee last fall.
Michael Prince, University of Victoria Lansdowne Professor of Social Policy, agrees with Carr. "This is going to be an ongoing issue for the city and for people who live here. It's an issue that involves all three levels of government and multiple agencies, and multiple, divergent interests," said Prince.
Developer Bob Evans and partner WAM Development Group are proposing to build a $20-million marina and two one-storey buildings in the water in front of Songhees. The development is aimed at the luxury boat market, where the vessels are valued in the multiple millions of dollars. Federal, provincial and municipal approvals are all needed.
Community opposition is coming from various groups, with concerns such as safety, environment, viewscapes, impact on sea life, how recreational boating could be affected and opposition to size in relation to the harbour. The developer says that all these issues have been dealt with and says repeatedly that the marina will not affect safety or views. He claims dredging the seabed to remove old industrial waste will improve sea life.
Victoria's harbour was developed with an industrial base but has moved to recreation and residential use in the recent decades.
The harbour is symbolically and substantially the heart of the downtown in many ways, Prince said.
"There is inevitably going to be tension and conflict. We should not expect otherwise. There will be competing values. How best to manage those in a democratically responsible way? I don't think we meet that test yet," he said.
There are strong views that the harbour is for more than just transportation or commercial use, Prince said.
If disputes are over facts, something like a judicial inquiry or an appointed judge to make a deliberation might be suggested at some point. Or perhaps there could be a new type of governance, with a transparent, intergovernmental organization involving stakeholders, public meetings, and a board of directors, Prince said.
Victoria MP Denise Savoie is critical of the current government evaluation process. A request for a federal environmental review with public hearings was rejected, she said. Critics complain that the process is difficult to understand, not transparent and that jurisdictions overlap.
Savoie has been involved in organizing public meetings to examine the plans, and to hear from government agencies and citizens. "The public really conveyed to me their sense of helplessness," she said. "There is continual ambiguity about where this project is at."
Savoie favours some kind of comprehensive process, with a harbour plan, to help resolve major issues like this one.
She points to the model of urban development agreements, which brought together three levels of government to work together on broad issues. They were set up in cities including Vancouver and Regina.
Evans has a different view on the process, saying there has been a "tremendous amount of public input over the last 25 years." Both the federal and provincial governments have sought public input on the marina plan.
"The system works very well, but the whole purpose of the opposition was to try to discredit the system so that they could intervene," Evans said.
Gordon Price is director of Simon Fraser University's City Program. He has also served on Vancouver council for six years and said these kind of battles just wear everybody down. "We ran into the same kind of complex issues of overlapping jurisdictions in False Creek and it's very frustrating," said Price.
The first thing needed is an inventory of what's there and understanding of who handles what, he said. "Then, I think you are going to have to have the politicians come to the table and say 'we are willing to have a process.' " After that, try to separate the harbour from other issues senior governments might bring to the table.
When we consider the future of urban harbours such as Victoria's, we need to recognize that communities see them as a type of park, Price said. "They are very necessary open space and they add immense value to whatever is along the borderline," at what he calls the "blue-green interface."
"There's just huge inherent value in that, for the public, for the private developer, for the users of the water," Price said from Vancouver. As a result, harbour issues can be very contentious.
"I think the first failure is not recognizing that when we zone for marinas we are taking up a kind of parkland."
Raised in Victoria, Price remembers heavy industry around the harbour. Just as parks contain playing fields and other uses, there's a legitimate need in harbours for a place for everything from canoes and kayaks to mega-yachts, he said. But there's a "huge difference" between marinas serving small vessels and large pleasure boats, he said.