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Saturna Island Property Owners Association

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

July 5, 2011

Re: Proposed Bylaw 104

Recently the Saturna Trustees asked the Islands Trust planner to draft an amendment to Bylaw 99. It would apply to all building on Saturna. Bylaw 104 received first reading on June 22, 2011. The public is being asked to comment.

Members may wish the SIPOA Board of Directors to take a position on the proposed amendments contained in Bylaw 104. It will be considered on 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.

The proposed bylaw would impose a requirement that any storage building constructed anywhere on Saturna Island would not receive a building permit unless a water catchment and storage facility for 1000 gallons of water was first installed. We understand that the LTC wishes to have Bylaw 104 passed into law in the current term. The proposed bylaw is set out below as it would amend Bylaw 99.

Members are asked to submit their comments on this proposed bylaw to the Board of Directors by July 31, 2011, so we can consider this issue at our meeting to be held in August.

Some issues that members have already raised are as follows: Is this legislation necessary, or can its laudable goal of water conservation simply be achieved by common sense solutions? In other words, should the goal of the Islands Trust in this regard be education or regulation?

Is this “one size fits all” approach necessary or desirable on Saturna? For example, there may be no water problems in certain parts of the Island, and yet the requirement would apply everywhere with equal force.

There may be some commonly held properties on the Island which have their own water solutions and which may not need this bylaw to achieve water conservation goals: for example, Black Bird Hill Estates, Old Point Farm, or The Group of 30. There appears to be no exceptions in the Bylaw for such common property areas where solutions may already be at hand. Some would say that all that is needed in such circumstances is to apply for a variance. Yet should all property owners be required to go through this exercise?

We look forward to any comments that you would like to submit as SIPOA formulates a position for the consideration of the LTC.

Murray Rankin
President, SIPOA

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Bylaw 99:

2.18 Water Storage

A building permit shall not be issued for any residential building, visitor accommodation unit, or addition to a residential building or visitor accommodation unit in the water management area depicted on Schedule C unless a building on the lot is equipped with a water catchment system and cistern(s) for the storage of rainwater. Minimum cistern capacity is required as follows:

A minimum cistern capacity of 21820 litres (4800 gallons) is required for any new construction of a residence or visitor accommodation unit, or any addition to a residence or visitor accommodation unit that exceeds 11.6 square metres (125 square feet) of floor area.

Bylaw 104 is a modification to the above to read:

2.18 Water Storage

2.18.1

A building permit shall not be issued for any residential building, visitor accommodation unit, or addition to a residential building or visitor accommodation unit in the water management area depicted on Schedule C unless a building on the lot is equipped with a water catchment system and cistern(s) for the storage of rainwater. Minimum cistern capacity is required as follows:

A minimum cistern capacity of 21820 litres (4800 gallons) is required for any new construction of a residence or visitor accommodation unit, or any addition to a residence or visitor accommodation unit that exceeds 11.6 square metres (125 square feet) of floor area.

2.18.2*

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 2590 litres (1000 gallons) is required.**

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* Note the area affected by 2.18.2 is not restricted to Schedule C.
** Difficulties with metric conversion in the last line have been noted—we believe it is intended to refer to 1000 gallons or 4500 litres.