What has been happening 2011 - 2015
Island View Beach Regional Park is currently governed by the 1989 park bylaw which you can see here
Since 2011 the CRD has been looking to replace that bylaw with a management plan. It expected to have a new plan in place by June 2011 and they intended to fill in the mosquito drainage ditches, stop the mosquito control program, and possibly open up the sea berm to encourage flooding of the park. Action by a the community and by Central Saanich Council caused the CRD to back off.
In January 2013 the CRD held an "information session" in the middle of winter in Sidney, at which every display board was incomplete or misleading. See here and also see here
In September 2013 the CRD released a "draft interim plan" for the park that was so riddled with exaggerations and misleading claims about the environment it was difficult to believe they could be accidental, and the CRD was forced to withdraw the plan. See here
In May 2014 the CRD proposed that it would undertake a 4 step process to get to a new park plan, the basis of which was to be in Step 1, an environmental assessment that would be factual, technical and scientific. The CRD published this environmental assessment on their web site in January 2015. Their assessment and ours can be seen here We immediately had concerns about the accuracy of the environmental claims made by the CRD, and that it was top heavy on the irrelevant - like speculation as what the park may have been like 15,000 years ago - but almost non-existent about the environment of the park today. We wrote to staff pointing out areas of concern and urged that they correct these before they went to the public meetings. They refused. We wrote repeatedly to the CRD Board urging that the data be checked before going to the public. They too refused. We asked the CRD to give us evidence to support the claims they made about species they said were "confirmed resident in the park" - proof that they were there, where they were, what protection they needed if anything, and when they might need protection. The CRD refused. You can see our letters and the CRD replies here
As the process continued on during 2015 we became aware that the CRD was not divulging all the information it had to the public and we wrote again, urging that the process be paused so it could be checked. The CRD refused. See the legal requirement on the CRD to to disclose everything here
Now return to the home page to pick up the story to the current time. Click here
Island View Beach Regional Park is currently governed by the 1989 park bylaw which you can see here
Since 2011 the CRD has been looking to replace that bylaw with a management plan. It expected to have a new plan in place by June 2011 and they intended to fill in the mosquito drainage ditches, stop the mosquito control program, and possibly open up the sea berm to encourage flooding of the park. Action by a the community and by Central Saanich Council caused the CRD to back off.
In January 2013 the CRD held an "information session" in the middle of winter in Sidney, at which every display board was incomplete or misleading. See here and also see here
In September 2013 the CRD released a "draft interim plan" for the park that was so riddled with exaggerations and misleading claims about the environment it was difficult to believe they could be accidental, and the CRD was forced to withdraw the plan. See here
In May 2014 the CRD proposed that it would undertake a 4 step process to get to a new park plan, the basis of which was to be in Step 1, an environmental assessment that would be factual, technical and scientific. The CRD published this environmental assessment on their web site in January 2015. Their assessment and ours can be seen here We immediately had concerns about the accuracy of the environmental claims made by the CRD, and that it was top heavy on the irrelevant - like speculation as what the park may have been like 15,000 years ago - but almost non-existent about the environment of the park today. We wrote to staff pointing out areas of concern and urged that they correct these before they went to the public meetings. They refused. We wrote repeatedly to the CRD Board urging that the data be checked before going to the public. They too refused. We asked the CRD to give us evidence to support the claims they made about species they said were "confirmed resident in the park" - proof that they were there, where they were, what protection they needed if anything, and when they might need protection. The CRD refused. You can see our letters and the CRD replies here
As the process continued on during 2015 we became aware that the CRD was not divulging all the information it had to the public and we wrote again, urging that the process be paused so it could be checked. The CRD refused. See the legal requirement on the CRD to to disclose everything here
Now return to the home page to pick up the story to the current time. Click here