The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) is moving toward the next phase of the process to solve the dispute over the draft Regional Growth Strategy (RGS), as the planning document has continued to linger in limbo since the District of Squamish rejected it in Nov. 2008.
The parties involved were working through a non-binding dispute resolution process to address the concerns raised about the document by Squamish officials, but the SLRD board voted in October to end that process and enter "final proposal arbitration by a single arbitrator." In December, the District of Squamish also passed a resolution to end the non-binding process.
At Monday's (Jan. 25) regular board meeting, the SLRD directors voted to endorse a timeline for a dispute process of "final proposal arbitration," which is the binding settlement process they chose to reach an agreement on the RGS, and to endorse potential choices for a preferred arbitrator and backup, selected from an approved list established by the province.
The District of Squamish needs to agree to a process by March 9, and agreement would be followed by a 28-day period to choose an arbitrator.
Squamish officials have explained that they objected to the draft RGS "because it impedes on decision-making authority of incorporated municipalities," according to a Sept. 24 report from Squamish Chief Administrative Officer Kevin Ramsay.
Mayor Greg Gardner has said Squamish's leaders want a strong RGS to guide planning, but their concerns are about a governance issue, namely that under the document a proposal inconsistent with a member municipality's Official Community Plan would necessitate an amendment to the RGS with unanimous consent of all member municipalities and adjacent regional districts.
A Jan. 11 letter signed by Susie Gimse, the board's vice chair and director of Electoral Area C, said that discussions in the prior non-binding dispute resolution process helped bring the parties "very close" to achieving an agreement to resolve Squamish's concerns.
Squamish and the SLRD board have both presented suggested solutions for the elements of perceived prescriptive language.
The letter, addressed to Bill Bennett, B.C.'s minister of community and rural development, goes on to state that "it became apparent that full consensus was unlikely," and that if they made changes to the RGS to address Squamish's concerns, "it was quite possible that at least one of the affected local governments would refuse to accept the amendment."
Also, the letter said, it seemed that the only way to end the non-binding process after reaching an agreement was to amend the RGS and reopen it for a new period of 120 days for affected parties to wade back in with comments on the document.
"All parties involved believed this would be counter productive as any future referrals and deliberations would not be limited to the matters under dispute. None of the participants wanted the entire RGS to potentially be reopened at this stage," the letter said.
Under the province's regulation for regional growth strategies, final proposal arbitration involves the arbitrator considering only written submissions by the participating parties, with no meetings with any of them or any other people, and choosing one of the specific proposals presented by the parties to address each of the jointly identified issues.
The RGS provisions will then stand as settled by the arbitrator after the chosen final proposals are incorporated into the document, and the arbitrator won't give any written reasons for the decision. However, the timeline for the process also includes a 60-day "cooling off period" that follows the arbitrator's decision, during which the parties could reach an alternative agreement.
SLRD Community Planner Lisa Griffith said on Tuesday (Jan. 26) that the parties had been "getting very close" in their discussions, and the issues seem to have been narrowed down to the wording of certain sentences within the land use section of the RGS.
The parties' proposals "could end up coming in really close," Griffith said. "We gained a lot of ground through non-binding."
In October, when the board passed the resolution to support a proposal for amended language and end the non-binding dispute resolution process, Whistler Mayor Ken Melamed offered a dissenting vote, saying he was speaking as an SLRD director to indicate that he couldn't support "any weakening of the language" in the RGS.
On Monday, Melamed said the Resort Municipality of Whistler officials want to be involved in the upcoming settlement process. The Village of Pemberton has resolved to participate, while the District of Lillooet wants to stay out, according to an SLRD staff report.
"I know that we want to participate," he said.
Griffith said Squamish and Whistler officials have been having conversations to try to reach wording that would work for the RMOW.
