Powell River Regional District will examine making matters more convenient for Savary Island visitors requiring public toilets.
During the regional district’s rural services committee meeting last month, directors reviewed a request from Association of the Savary Island Committee (ASIC) for public toilets to be installed on the island.
Patrick Brabazon, Electoral Area A director and regional board chair, said Dr. Ronald Wong, a Savary Island resident who wrote a letter of request for public toilets to the regional district on behalf of ASIC, has long maintained there should be some kind of public washrooms on the island.
“If we decided to go forward with this we would have to decide what they would be, where they would be, and how many they would be,” Brabazon said. “The question is, do we even accept in principle that there should be public toilets on Savary Island?”
Colin Palmer, Electoral Area C director, said there is need for toilets on Savary Island at some point. He asked Brabazon if he was recommending any specific number of toilets.
“No, I’m hardly qualified to recommend the number of toilets on Savary Island,” Brabazon said. “I would recommend that staff research the subject in cooperation with Dr. Wong. He is an authority.”
Brabazon said after discussion with ASIC, staff could come back with a recommendation one way or another. “At the moment we have no recommendation from staff,” he said.
However, there was a written recommendation at the meeting from Laura Roddan, the regional district’s manager of planning services, suggesting that the rural services committee promote public toilet facilities on Savary Island to the 2015 strategic planning session for priority setting.
Theoretically, the regional district could rent three portable toilets for three months and put them around the island, said Palmer. “That would make sense to me instead of something permanent,” he said.
Brabazon said toilets would have to go on Crown or regional district land. “So far, nobody has come forward to have one in their front yard,” he said. “The regional district land, of course, is three fire hall locations.”
Wong, in a letter to the regional district, said visitors are becoming more blatant and or desperate in relieving themselves behind beach logs or in the bushes, for lack of public facilities.
The rural services committee voted to place the matter on the agenda of the regional district’s 2015 strategic planning session.
