Attracting talent will be important to Squamish’s economic development, says Mayor Patricia Heintzman, but it’s just part of the equation.
On Monday, the mayor spoke with The Squamish Chief about the District of Squamish’s proposed economic development strategy and action plan.
The strategy, she said, will produce a comprehensive plan for Squamish in the coming years in terms of strengthening existing businesses and attracting new ones.
At present, there have been separate plans over the years focusing on areas such as land use, retail and business retention and attraction. This strategy will combine all the concepts into one vision of how the land can accommodate employment growth.
“We have a number of different documents that sort of feed into our economic development strategy,” Heintzman said. “The idea of this is coalescing them all…. This is really the synthesis.”
For a community like Squamish, which has moved away from its old economic roots, the strategy can help outline areas where the community wants to grow not only in the future but now.
Heintzman said that new areas of the economy – for example, high-tech – need a threshold population of people with the right skills, in other words, a critical mass to sustain a particular sector. She cites Mississauga, Ont., as an example, as it had been losing talent to head offices in nearby Toronto but eventually grew to point where head offices started moving to Mississauga.
Attracting this business and talent means focusing not only land use but on lifestyle, housing, amenities and facilities.
“You’ve got to have all those things in place to be competitive,” Heintzman said.
At the same time, Squamish’s challenge is to avoid becoming a bedroom community.
While the improvements to the Sea to Sky Highway before the 2010 Olympics did make it more feasible for people to live in Squamish and work in the Vancouver area, the mayor thinks there are ways to keep people working close to home, or moving here to work.
As an example, she points to Pinkbike, the popular mountain bike website that relocated its offices to Squamish, as a sign that there are attributes that the community can use to bring in businesses.
“We seem to be an enviable place to live.”
Asked about the recent BCBusiness magazine poll that ranked Squamish as the fourth-best place for work in B.C., Heintzman said it was reflective of lifestyle rather than only job opportunities. “I always take this with a grain of salt,” she added.
It might be a sign that the community is heading down the right path, the mayor said, but there are still challenges for many residents including housing and cost of living.
Changes on the horizon include the Oceanfront development, which the mayor expects to get underway very soon.
Heintzman hopes the economic strategy and action plan will be in place by March.
The district is also devising a new official community plan (OCP) for Squamish, a process that is now getting underway.
“OCPs have really evolved over the last 10 or 20 years,” Heintzman said.
“They’ve really become sustainability documents.”
The district worked with a consultant that held focus groups in the latter part of 2015. As well, there is an online survey to get people’s vision for economic growth in the community.
The survey asks participants to set out their top priorities, highlight any issues they face, as well as the community’s assets or areas where the economy could be diversified.
The Squamish Chamber of Commerce has distributed it to its more than 500 members to get a sense of the priorities for local businesses. Chamber executive director Suzanne McCrimmon said they should have an idea of what members hope to see following the survey deadline later this month.
