According to Patricia Heintzman, who chairs the district's Economic Development Committee, "governments don't create business... our policies have to somehow inspire the business to relocate here." To some degree, Squamish has become more open to commerce than ever before, but in various instances local decision makers have been less than inspirational.
Our annual double-digit municipal tax increases are becoming investment deterrents. Taxes are a business cost that cuts into profits, or gets passed on to consumers. They have the potential to drive established ventures out of town, or out of business, while prospective merchants may decide to avoid this prohibitive marketplace altogether.
Beyond the taxation issue there are also blatant examples of interference with the free flow of trade. District officials have mandated that a coffee shop planned for the base of the Sea to Sky Gondola must be accessible only to visitors who have already purchased gondola tickets. That restrictive measure is in place to prevent the facility from competing with downtown java outlets. No such constraint has been placed on a coffee vending operation in the municipally owned Adventure Centre.
And when a local food vendor applied for a mobile wood-fired pizza cart licence, his ambitious project was thwarted by an outdated local portable food vending bylaw. That regulation sanctions a meagre five food carts to service a busy 10-kilometre-long commercial zone, accessed by thousands of visitors annually and populated by over 18,000 permanent residents.
Even the Official Community Plan is misguided when it comes to assessing the local marketplace. The OCP states that the municipality "supports the downtown as the centre for retail, service, institutional, and office employment in the District." Despite some signs of recent commercial and residential development downtown, the Squamish mercantile hub has shifted north, between Finch Drive and Garibaldi Way.
During the recent kerfuffle over plans for a combined CIBC/Tim Hortons drive-through, on the northeast corner of Garibaldi Way and Government Road, Coun. Susan Chapelle gazed into her crystal ball and told Squamish Reporter, "imagine if all of our large parking lots were used for retail and business development. Walkways in-between the shops. Taxes coming in from commercial development as opposed to single car parking... we can use the taxes for real, affordable transportation that everyone can use."
But in this sprawling residential archipelago, reaching across the length and breadth of a valley frequented by the rain gods, the comfort and convenience of personal vehicles will trump public transportation for the foreseeable future, no matter how affordable or accessible it becomes. In the final analysis, the most successful retailers will be those who can rise above fuzzy business logic and best adapt to existing geographic and demographic realities.
