Saturna Island Property Owners Association

P.O. Box 27, Saturna, British Columbia V0N 2Y0

Re: Proposed Bylaw July 21, 2011

Dear Members

On July 5, 2011, the Board of Directors sent an email to members and asked all members to provide comments on Bylaw 104 which received first reading on June 22, 2011. This notice can be found here.

Since then, we have heard from some of you with strong views regarding the proposed amendments. We intend to bundle all the comments that have been submitted in writing and orally and will send them to the Local Trust Committee.

However, we have yet to hear from our members as to whether you wish the SIPOA Board of Directors to take a position on the proposed amendments contained in the Bylaw to be considered at the next Local Trust Committee (LTC) meeting, which is scheduled to be held at the Community Hall at 12:30 pm on August 31, 2011.

More recently the Islands Trust sent out a letter and a copy of the proposed amendments to property owners. It appears to say two different things: The letter from Peter Luckham, Chair of the LTC, suggests additional water storage for outbuildings would only be required for those properties without existing buildings. However, the proposed Bylaw does not read as the letter suggests. Rather, section 2.18.2 explicitly states, "A building permit shall not be issued for a storage building unless it is equipped with a water catchment system and cistern(s) for the storage of rainwater. A minimum storage capacity of 4546 litres (1000 gallons) is required".

Notwithstanding the uncertainty with respect to the intent and the application of the proposed Bylaw, SIPOA understands that the LTC wishes to have Bylaw 104 passed into law in the current term which ends at the end of 2011. Therefore, if you have yet to comment on the proposed Bylaw, or whether you wish the Board of Directors to take a position on the proposed Bylaw, please submit your comments to the Board of Directors by July 31, 2011. We would like to consider this issue at our executive committee meeting to be held in August.

Thank you to those of you who have already commented and we hope to hear from more of you. Democracy only works if you participate.

Murray Rankin

ps: You can respond to this request by replying to sipoa@yahoogroups.com

or you can send us an email to sipoa@saturnanet.net