| If you owned a small- to medium-sized enterprise and were looking at Sechelt as a potential place to invest, the treatment of Target Marine by the District of Sechelt in the past few years would make you strongly reconsider. It is all fine and good to create a Mayor’s Economic Development Task Force in the months prior to the municipal elections, but when you don’t follow through with effective and tangible results, what’s the point? Target Marine, a small, locally-owned business has been operating since 1986 as a hatchery and, in the last eleven years, has grown white sturgeon, native to the west coast of North America. A success story that Sechelt could point to when seeking to welcome other businesses and investors, the facility is now hoping to expand by processing sturgeon roe, or caviar, onsite. To do this, the present Marine 3 bylaw zoning needs to be rezoned to Marine 3-A. The only change from what Target is presently doing will be to take each large fish manually (no mechanization here) from the outside tank in which it has grown up to a small building where the roe will be removed and then canned, again by hand, rather than only hatched or grown as it is now. As stipulated by the Sechelt Mayor and Council in previous meetings with Target, the processing will be limited to sturgeon only, there will be a cap on the amount of sturgeon processed, and the smoking of fish will not be permitted. The processing facility and its water use will continue to operate under regulation and permit by the BC Ministry of Environment, the BC Minister of Agriculture and Lands, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Target has also acquired its Ocean Wise certification for sustainable seafood and is attracting curious tourists who want to see how sturgeon are raised. However, with head-spinning regularity, Target Marine’s application for rezoning has been denied, approved, and rescinded. By June 2011, Council was so firmly entrenched in their indecision that they decided to let us figure it out for them in a non-binding referendum to take place on November 19th, election day. It would seem that this is intended to enable the Mayor and Council to campaign until they get another three-year mandate, instead of making the decision they should have made in 2010. Rather than stringing Target Marine along for years, why haven’t all Council members (many of whom have been invited repeatedly) gone to visit the Target site to see for themselves what effect the operation may or may not be having on the area? They managed to visit sewer treatment plants in Washington State, so why can’t they travel to Tuwanek? Target has complied with all requests made by Council yet even when they have done everything Council has asked of them, their fate is still up in the air. And why are they the only business specifically addressed in the new OCP? Let’s face it, in our increasingly mobile society, there are few impediments for businesses to locate in any community. In Target’s case, they are long-time local residents who are well thought of and trusted, and they have used a good amount of their capital in building up a world-class fish hatchery that, with the added caviar production, will make Sechelt proud. That is why the treatment at the hands of the District is so confusing – why has Target been made to jump through so many bureaucratic hoops in order to expand their business? What kind of financial hardship is Council levying on Target Marine at the same time as the Mayor preaches that Sechelt is |  open for economic development? And what are taxpayers paying for research, staff time and ongoing meetings? All of this to-ing and fro-ing seems to be the result of some, but by no means all, residents of Tuwanek and Sandy Hook who query the idea of spot rezoning in what is zoned a residential neighbourhood. But spot rezoning, or simply rezoning, is done all the time. This is not a new concept. It was done in 1987 when this area was made residential (previously, a fish hatchery had been operating in the adjacent – now Target – land), and it will be done again as communities and with them, businesses, grow and develop. If there is no rezoning, things are at a standstill and that is surely economic death for Sechelt. Why is that? Because Sechelt’s tax base is approximately 87% residential. This means that, as residents, our taxes are high because we don’t have enough businesses contributing to the funding required to provide the various government services we expect. If this continues, we will either go broke or be stuck paying even bigger taxes. Seniors will be forced to pay higher taxes even though they may well be on fixed incomes. About the size of a garage, the new building Target wants to construct on their 60 acre site for the purpose of processing sturgeon roe into caviar is pretty basic. There will be no additional noise or smell, and many of the nearby residents are supportive, if not employed by the company, well-employed at that, with good salaries and pension plans. Various people have stated in public meetings that Target Marine is a good corporate citizen and employer. Still, some detractors say that allowing Target Marine to add a processing function is a mockery of the original Vision Plan. But the Vision Plan had clear intent when it stated that what Sechelt stands for is “to encourage clean, low impact and value-added activities; to support entrepreneurship, innovation, self-employment and small- to medium-sized business expansion; to develop and promote the District as a tourist destination; to develop a skilled and diverse workforce”. We want to attract economic development but it looks as if we don’t even want to work at keeping our existing businesses here. Step up, Councillors, and walk the talk. The non-binding referendum question on the ballot for the District of Sechelt 2011 general elections is: “Are you in favour of the District of Sechelt Council adopting bylaws to permit the processing of sturgeon and sturgeon roe onsite at 7333 Sechelt Inlet Road, pursuant to the application submitted by Target Marine Hatcheries Ltd?” [ ] Yes [ ] No We encourage you to vote YES! By Leslie Henderson “Why do people think that ordinary individuals are so far apart from businesses? I don’t get it. Ordinary individuals are the ones who open businesses, aren’t they?”
|
Click to Enlarge