After a majority of residents said they were opposed, Powell River Regional District’s board voted to decline an offer to acquire another property on Texada Island.
Earlier this year First Credit Union offered to gift its former Van Anda branch building, currently used by the community non-profit Texada Arts, Culture and Tourism (TACT) Society, for $1. In July, the board directed staff to conduct public engagement to see whether residents supported increasing taxes to cover the added costs.
Regional district staff organized a public information meeting on Wednesday, September 7, and also created a survey, open from September 6 to 19. The survey asked residents to choose whether they supported the regional district taking the building on and how they would want to pay for its upkeep; 112 surveys were completed.
“We completed a written survey, which clearly indicated the majority of the people who responded did not want the regional district to take over the building with its incumbent building costs and therefore taxes,” said board chair and Electoral Area A director Patrick Brabazon at the meeting on Thursday, September 22. “Director [Sandy] McCormick consulted and listened to the people and came up with the same conclusion.”
Brabazon said the regional district followed its public consultation policy in arriving at the decision.
“We want the broadest possible consultation in a reasonable time frame and the regional district did that,” he added.
McCormick, Electoral Area D’s director, told the board she was in favour of the regional district acquiring the building, but said she respects the wishes of the majority of islanders who participated in the survey.
“The bottom line is that the majority of people do not want us to acquire the building,” said McCormick.
According to regional district chief administrative officer Al Radke, island residents did not want to see a tax increase.
“A vast majority of respondents do not have an appetite for increasing taxes,” said Radke.
While the cost to accept the building was low, the overall financial impact for island taxpayers would be close to $11,000 in added costs, in addition to more than 20 other properties and facilities that taxpayers fund and maintain on Texada. Accepting the building would have added another $5.40 per $100,000 of assessed value.
According to the survey results, not only did residents indicate they did not want their taxes raised, a majority were also against seeing other services decline or suffer in exchange for funding the building, said Radke.
“The message the general public has sent is that they support tangible asset management and sustainability,” he added.
For the last few years, First Credit Union’s building in Van Anda has been used by TACT as a public venue. The building has been used for a variety of purposes, including as an art gallery and a community gathering space for workshops, concerts and meetings.
