Q&A: Armand Hurford, Matt Gunn talk about housing, transit, downtown entrance

Armand Hurford and Matt Gunn: Insights on Squamish’s Urban Development Challenges

This is the second part of an interview with Squamish Mayor Armand Hurford and planner Matt Gunn. Both answered questions on varity of topics, from transit to single-family homes, permit wait times and Garibaldi Estates development. The first part of this interview can be read here.

Question: Let’s talk about transit in Squamish ?

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Hurford: I want to thank you for bringing up the transit challenges. Last council approved a five year transit future plan, and that involves doubling of our transit service and a lot of our planning work is around development that is well served by transit to support our transit system and support those residents transportation needs. The challenge with transit currently is that the five year doubling is quite ambitious, but in the last provincial budget, there was exactly $0 for transit expansion for BC transit.  I use transit often to get to where I need to go. But when I  meet with people that are new to the community, I’ve had multiple conversations where people tell me, this is the first place they have lived where they need to have a car to participate fully in the community.

Question: There is also a sentiment that District is too focussed on multi-family homes and the District doesn’t want single-family homes ?

Gunn: Well, I think firstly, having one housing form broadly applied across the landscape doesn’t have good outcomes. You mentioned in your question some larger parcels (Cheema, Crumpit Woods) and if those larger parcels are exclusively single family, that can be really hard to service with things like transit. They’re really hard to create the density to provide the services in their neighborhood. But I also think that if it’s exclusively apartment buildings, that is also not something we are interested in. So, it goes the other way as well. We want a wider range of housing options, and single family’s a part of that.

Quesiton: But there is a perception that single-family homes are not welcomed.

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Gunn: Yeah, I think maybe one of the perceptions is that there’s some heavy-handed effort to eliminate single families. And that is not the case. I think you could look at it from another perspective and see that we have used heavy-handed regulations to only allow single families. Much of the work we’re engaged in is to pick these lots and say yes, single-family is of use that can be continued here, but let’s provide people with additional options should they want it. So, may be take that lot and subdivide it in half and have two single familly homes or maybe allow a duplex or a triplex in that same footprint. So, instead of using heavy-handed regulations to only allow one housing form, let’s allow a broader diversity of housing forms.

Question: Is there a policy that allows subdivision of single-family lots into duplexs or triplexes. Do we have a policy applicable to all of Squamish ?

Gunn: Well, we haven’t implemented those types of changes yet. There’s been a lot of discussion about those types of changes. And so, you know, it’s quite a process and as you probably know, there’s lots of feelings about that type of regulatory change, and so we’ve been engaged in some discussions. There’s been a few different processes where they’ve been discussed.

Question: With respect to Garibaldi Estates, there are some people who feel like they have not been heard.

Hurford: Well, I think there’s absolutely a challenge with ensuring that all the voices that need to be heard are heard. We hear people when they fill out the importance of filling out surveys and participating in meetings. When you look at the engagement summary there, a few things that jumped out for me is the gaps. We had 3.6% responses were from those under 30, in a community where the average age is roughly 37. We did not hear from those people at all. That represents a massive part of our community.  We also had 90% of the respondents were landowners. We do not hear from the renters directly in that. So, with those gaps, we heard from those, the people that engaged and that’s amazing. So, those folks are as important as they are not the only stakeholders in the community and our community’s goals and aspirations for the future. So, there we had the housing society’s feedback was important, and we’re also planning for the future. This is a future-looking piece. So, we are looking for input into the people that wish to live in our community and in that neighborhood specifically. We have to consider our kids and our grandkids and that’s not necessarily, something that we’re going to be able to get from just that portion of the community that engages in the process. So, then you are s left to engage with agencies that represent renters and that represent the missing pieces and the personal experience of the folks around the table to fill in those gaps.

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Question: What are District’s plans for additonal entrance to downtown.

Hurford: An additional entrance to downtown is something we talked about earlier about the DCC bylaw, where we put important infrastructure that development pays its portion of and we do have in the DCC bylaw is the bridge that parallels the train bridge.

Question: This Laurel Wood Bridge was supposed to be built by the district.  

Hurford: I gree that second entrance is great…and it’s just over the five-year horizon. There are some pieces that need to happen. it’s not just funding the bridge, there is the downtown entrance study that needs to happen. There are all these pieces that if a bridge appeared there today, we’re not ready. Okay. But we’re working towards that, quite aggressively, and if there are infrastructure funding from the province or the federal government or a grant or something that could speed that up, we need to pursue that.

 Question: There is also frustration voiced by those building in the community about wait times.

Hurford: It’s really hard to quantify exactly what a wait time is for someone because it depends on the quality of the application. So, when someone says a process took two years, it’s not processing the perfect application that was submitted. It’s making sure that is refined to the point where it can be supported and something can be issued.
So, I’m not saying there are not improvements in the process to be made but the concept that we submitted a perfect application and  it sat on someone’s desk for two years before it was magically approved one day, that is not what happens at all. It’s ensuring that those applications provide the supporting documentation and everything that is required, which is very clearly communicated before they’re approved. So yes but new processes and and streamlining absolutely. But it’s more complex than that.