“Gimme shelter!” howled the Rolling Stones. But Keith Richards omitted the tagline: “That I can afford!”
By December 2023, Hornby’s housing crisis had “reached a critical point,” Katherine Ronan reported. The island needed more housing for workers and their families “as quickly as possible if it is to survive as a community.”
HICEEC and Wellesley Consulting were “exploring the option of applying for a parcel of Crown Land” off Central Road, “extending from behind the Cemetery eastward to the Recycling Depot driveway,” she wrote. This central location within walking distance of key services was “optimal for affordable housing.”
The same patch of planet had already attracted another consultant. While searching BC’s online Crown Land Registry database, Brian Gregg had come across File #1413862. Survey plans for Block L Section 11 near the old fire hall looked ideal for his client. Fittingly, the date of Gregg’s discovery — Dec, 7, 2020 — marked the anniversary of an attack on another vulnerable island by a foreign power bent on conquest.
On August 17, 2022, Rogers Communications’ Crown Land Tenure Application #100396495 sought a Licence of Occupation for a freestanding 206-foot cell tower to be erected on 24 hectares of relinquished native land. The proposed industrial structure could be stretched another 40 feet without additional permits.
But there was a hitch.
“Local governments have authority over land use by third parties on Crown Lands,” the Crown Lands webpage stipulates. “Independent, autonomous and accountable orders of government” — including the specifically named “Islands Trust” corporation — are “land use decision makers” authorized under the Local Government Act “to govern matters within their boundaries.”
To go ahead, the Toronto-based telecom giant needed approval from Hornby’s Local Trust Committee. But our LTC had already turned down a similar Telus application in 2017. To forestall an electoral uproar, complicit corporate Trust planners “forgot” to reveal the Rogers tower proposal until after the October 2022 elections.
Ever since close to 500 Hornby Islanders either signed a “No Tower!” petition, or expressed their opposition during November ’22 calls from campaign organizers, local residents have been demanding an LTC vote of non-concurrence.
When trustee Alex Allen made that motion on Sept. 8, 2023, he was instantly shut down by an off-island planner for improper procedure. But in a legal opinion by a barrister & solicitor specializing in Trust proceedings, Carla Conkin found that our LTC can turn down a tower application at any time.
Allen has never demurred.
Though he and Lasqueti’s tie-breaking Tim Peterson publicly oppose the tower, and trustee Grant Scott prefers an unspecified location outside Hornby’s centre, 19 months of LTC hand-writing could prove disastrous.
In response to this reporter’s email, Peterson has revealed that during an April 26 confab with the province and the feds’ rebranded Industry Canada (ISED), Trust planners were informed that because the proposed cell tower site occupies Crown land, “there will be no request for concurrence from Rogers to the LTC.”
Instead, with longstanding protocols broken and our local government shoved aside, Hornby’s trustees will only be allowed to “comment” on pending provincial approval.
Over Grant’s objections, Tim Peterson has called an as-yet-unscheduled Special public zoom meeting to formulate a response. Provincial box-checking could take from 8 to 30 days, unless an extension is granted. This “does not seem right”, Carla Conkin replied to my heads-up. But who will fund another legal opinion?
A longtime resident spoke for many, saying, “We’re screwed.”
“Not yet,” I replied. What if we judo-flip ministerial interference to our advantage by using the #1 provincial priority against Rogers?
Hasn’t the BC Government declared that its Land Use Operational Policy “applies to publicly oriented Crown land use by community groups and local governments for the purpose of providing a beneficial community service”?
Doesn’t its shiny new Housing Supply Act require more populous municipalities to fast-track “rental housing” and “affordable housing”?
And wouldn’t rallying ‘round HICEEC to prioritize community housing over a redundant cell tower on the same patch of Crown Land be the best way forward?
“There is plenty of space for housing or other uses,” Brian Gregg has argued, beneath a telecommunications tower constantly radiating powerful electromagnetic fields (EMF) within environmentally Protected Area IIA. But Section 59 of our Official Community Plan (OCP) stipulates: “For safety, no dwellings permitted within… a maximum of (3) times the height.”
Similar EMF concerns recently shot down cell towers proposed by Telus and Rogers in the Courtenay/Comox Agricultural Land Reserve — after PubMed and Environmental Health Trust documents submitted to the CVRD demonstrated clear harm to bees, birds and trees from “Rising Ambient EMF Levels in the Environment”. EHT’s National Institute of Health study cited nearly 1000 references.
“Radiofrequency radiation (RFR) from cell towers has not been proven safe for people, animals, birds, insects, and trees,” concurs the latest BioInitiative meta-study. “We now have ample evidence linking low intensity cumulative RFR exposure to DNA damage, cancer & tumors, mitochondrial damage, lowered sperm count and infertility, miscarriages, sleep disorders, memory and cognitive problems, headaches, migraines, damage to the blood-brain barrier, tinnitus, diabetes, heart palpitations, neurological disorders, and more.”
Children, elders and the immune-compromised are especially vulnerable. According to Canadian building biology experts, “No country’s RF guidelines provide less protection than Canada.”
After strapping a cellphone to a plastic head for six minutes, industry-compromised Safety Code 6 continues to dismiss voluminous biological warnings. With zero environmental exposure limits, placing community housing beneath seven transmitters powerful enough to reach offshore (in violation of our OCP), would be like sending conscripted Ukrainians to the disintegrating front lines.
Will HICEEC move quickly enough to preempt the Rogers application with its own? After lengthy procedural delays, Katherine Ronan says they intend to submit their community housing application “within the next couple of weeks.”
Right now, concerned readers can write: Dave Peterson, Assistant Deputy Minister, Tenures, Competitiveness and Innovation (in charge of Crown Lands) at Dave.Peterson@gov.bc.ca.
willthomasonline.net
EDITOR’S SOURCES:
Email correspondence with Tim Peterson.
Interviews with Katherine Ronan and “No Tower” campaign organizers Judith Walmsley and Christiane Brown.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/crown-land-water/crown-land/local-government
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/bc-government-housing-supply-act-10-cities-list
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/bc-municipalities-small-scale-multi-unit-homes-single-family-lots
