To the Islands Trust Executive Committee,
We are Bowen Islanders who, like you, are committed to the preservation and protection of the fragile ecosystems on the islands in the Salish Sea.
We believe your decision to oppose the park rezoning at Cape Roger Curtis, as proposed to date, has been made without full information or consideration of its consequences.
We know that you received coordinated letters protesting camping at the Cape, and understand that you want to reflect certain constituents’ concerns. Those writers are genuinely worried about the future of the island. But at the same time some have promoted fears as facts, and without recognizing the actual facts of the proposal from Metro Vancouver.
Take for example, an erroneous claim in one letter that forested area would be logged to make space for park infrastructure. In fact, the sites would be exclusively on areas that were cleared by the previous owners for building sites. MetroVan is not proposing any kind of logging. The project as a whole expands sensitive area protections, adds buffers and barriers, introduces ongoing monitoring of the flora and fauna of the area, and would re-wild about half of the existing clearings.
Indeed, this would preserve, protect and improve the integrity of the environment. Camping is just one component, as outlined in MetroVan’s proposal. Twenty-four private estates, which the property is zoned for, on the other hand, would not offer any of those advantages.
Conversely, rejecting out of hand a rezoning for the proposed park brings back the strong possibility that the land would be sold off to private developers. This would leave it unprotected and inaccessible to anyone other than the 24 owners and friends, once houses are built there. Future subdivision would be likely.
Reading the park proposal in detail changes everything. When you have the opportunity to review MetroVan’s full proposal and the accompanying technical reports, you’ll find that many concerns raised in your August 25 letter are already fully taken into account. If approved, camping would be phased in gradually so that its effects could be monitored - on and off-site. Certainly, there are outstanding challenges to address, and we look for Islands Trust’s help in finding solutions that keep alive the decades-long dream of a park at Cape Roger Curtis. But we think turning down the heat a bit and looking for answers is the wisest approach.
Instead of 24 multi-million dollar estates with many potential outbuildings fragmenting the natural environment and excluding the public, the proposed park would preserve a large area of ecologically important and sensitive ecosystems and provide opportunities for Bowen Islanders and other residents of the region, regardless of wealth, to enjoy this precious nature.
We strongly support the mission of the Islands Trust to preserve and protect the unique habitat of the islands within the Trust. The park on Bowen Island as proposed will do exactly that: create a framework of cooperation between Bowen, MetroVan and Islands Trust to credibly protect the rare ecological richness of the Cape.
We hope that you will reconsider your recent decision, and look forward to engaging in further dialogue.
Sincerely yours,
- Nicholas Belluk, John Dowler, Jennifer Hall, David Hocking, Charles McNeill, Michelle Marie Pentz, Shari Ulrich
