I was surprised by some of my results in the LiveableCRD survey, particularly on housing, arts and climate, where I thought my record and priorities were pretty clear. I share many of the goals behind the survey, and I’m glad LivableCRD is putting these issues on the election agenda. But in several cases, I don’t think my answers, or my decision not to answer, tell the whole story. I’d encourage residents to read my actual responses rather than relying only on the grades.
Compared with Victoria and Saanich, Esquimalt has a tiny staff. That means we have to be very strategic about what Council asks staff to do.
We can pass all the motions we want, but if we aren’t able to resource them, little is likely to get done.
That was my sense of Esquimalt when I joined Council in 2022. We had a lot of motions, targets and plans on the books, but much less was actually being implemented, particularly in some of the areas covered by this survey.
I believe in being focused on the things we can actually get done, and where we can have the most impact.
I encourage residents to read the questions and my full responses that show my dedication to housing, climate and the arts.
Housing
I strongly support increasing a diversity of housing options.
I also believe Esquimalt needs to lean into its planning role and create clear rules about what can be built where. If owners and developers follow those rules, the approval process should be easy and predictable.
That requires a significant update to our Official Community Plan, followed by an update to our zoning bylaw, so projects that comply with the OCP can increasingly be built by right, with a minimum of process.
This benefits both existing residents and the development community.
Staff have estimated that the OCP update alone could take five years, followed by another five years to update the zoning bylaw. I’m not willing to wait ten years. I want to get both substantially completed during the next 4 years. I have a plan for that, but it’s going to take negotiation with staff and the rest of council to get it done.
One survey question asked:
“Beyond the three to four units Bill 44 already requires, what is the most housing you think should be legal to build by-right (i.e. without rezoning) in traditional single-family areas of your municipality?”
I understand the intent of the question, but none of the answers reflected my position.
I believe we need more ground-oriented housing and more places where apartments are allowed. But that doesn’t mean the same density should be permitted on every residential lot in Esquimalt regardless of context.
Council recently received a report showing that some parts of Esquimalt have water and sewer capacity constraints, and accommodating substantially more growth in those areas could require expensive infrastructure upgrades.
So I don’t support making a blanket commitment about density everywhere. I want us to decide where different forms of housing belong through the OCP, update it quickly, and then pre-zone accordingly.
As there was nowhere to explain that distinction, I declined to answer and received no points for the question.
The infrastructure question raised a similar problem.
Esquimalt has a significant infrastructure deficit. I’ve written about it extensively, and over the past four years Council has increased the amount going into our capital reserves to start catching up.
The survey asked how we should pay for infrastructure renewal. I selected increased development charges or other fees on development and received negative points for that answer. In retrospect, I should also have selected increased property taxes, because that is exactly what I have supported over the past four years.
The scoring also reflects a particular view of development charges. I generally agree that very high development charges can discourage new housing, particularly at the levels seen in parts of Metro Vancouver. Esquimalt, however, currently has no Development Cost Charges at all.
I believe there is a reasonable middle ground: development should contribute something toward the infrastructure required to support growth, without imposing charges so high that they become a significant barrier to building housing.
The largest factor in my housing score was my voting record. LivableCRD’s housing section gives 30% of an incumbent’s score to their voting record, and my decision to oppose the 26-storey project at Head and Esquimalt significantly affected that calculation.
I believe I supported every other housing project that came before Council this term.
The Head and Esquimalt proposal was different. It was probably the most complicated land-use decision we made during the term. I believed it relied on an interpretation of our OCP that no reasonable person reading the plan would have expected, and it was probably based on a clerical mistake in the OCP adoption that provided a significant loophole that was the only reason it came to us in the form it did. I believed that its implications for the surrounding area deserved a proper OCP discussion.
I said at the time that if Council wanted that scale of development there, we should amend the OCP and say so clearly.
Smaller, OCP-compliant projects should get quick decisions. Very large projects that depart substantially from the direction of the OCP deserve more careful consideration.
Ironically, approval of that project also meant the loss of Esquimalt’s last private cultural performance space, which brings me to another category where I was surprised by my score.
Arts and Culture
I was genuinely surprised to receive a poor score on arts and culture.
I have consistently supported increased municipal funding for the arts, including increased funding through the CRD Arts Commission ( an amazing regional program that provides a variety of grant programs to art organizations) and support for local festivals like the Jazz Fest and organizations like the Township Community Arts Council.
For a municipality Esquimalt’s size, I think regional collaboration makes a lot of sense. I’d rather put money into artists, festivals and grants than duplicate bureaucracy that already exist elsewhere in the region.
One question asked:
“If elected, what specific action will you commit to in your first year to strengthen your municipality’s arts and cultural sector, and what measurable outcome should residents expect by the end of your four-year term?”
I don’t like committing to things that I don’t think I can actually deliver.
So I chose something concrete: increasing the amount of money available through our Local Grants program for arts and culture.
The amount Esquimalt spends on these grants is tiny compared with our overall operating budget. We could substantially increase it with almost no noticeable impact on property taxes, while having an outsized effect on local festivals, arts organizations and community events.
That’s something I intend to push for early in the term.
Another question asked whether I would support “a cultural space implementation framework with defined tools, timelines and public reporting.”
Esquimalt doesn’t currently have a cultural strategy or dedicated arts staff. I’d like us to do more work on cultural spaces, but I’m reluctant to commit staff to creating another major strategy when we already have a long list of priorities and limited capacity to deliver them.
I would absolutely support regional work on cultural spaces, including Esquimalt paying its share.
Perhaps I read too much into the word “support.” But when I’m asked during an election whether I support doing something, I tend to interpret that as a commitment to actually try to get it done.
Climate
My climate score was probably the most disappointing one for me personally.
I’ve spent nearly 20 years working professionally on municipal climate policy. What I learned from that experience is that there can be a large gap between ambitious targets and actual reductions in emissions.
I care much more about closing that gap.
Before 2022, Esquimalt had ambitious climate targets but relatively little concrete implementation. During this term we’ve implemented the Zero Carbon Step Code, incorporated climate and GHG considerations into municipal decision-making and spending, adopted an EV strategy for our municipal fleet, invested in energy retrofits to municipal facilities and supported new fast-charging infrastructure.
There’s much more to do.
Next term, I want us to develop an urban forest strategy alongside our OCP and zoning work, continue reducing emissions from our own facilities and fleet, work regionally on retrofits to existing buildings, and make transportation alternatives more practical.
Where I differed from the survey was on some of the more symbolic measures.
I don’t support refusing to meet with representatives of fossil fuel companies. I believe elected officials should be willing to meet with people and organizations they disagree with.
I strongly disagree with some of FortisBC’s positions on building regulation and with advertising that presents a very one-sided picture of LNG. But refusing to have a conversation isn’t, in my view, how we make better policy.
I had similar concerns about banning new gas stations. There are no proposals that I’m aware of to build one in Esquimalt, and given the economics and remediation costs associated with existing sites, I think it is highly unlikely that we’ll ever see one. Writing a bylaw still takes staff time.
The same principle applies to gas-powered leaf blowers. Electric equipment is improving rapidly and gas equipment is already becoming less common. Oak Bay deserves credit for pushing that issue forward when it did. But for Esquimalt today, I don’t think writing and enforcing a new bylaw would be the best use of our limited staff resources that we can allocate to climate issues.
I’ve done this kind of emissions modelling professionally. The effect of banning gas powered leaf blowers on Esquimalt’s overall greenhouse gas emissions would be imperceptible.
I’d rather put that effort into building retrofits, transportation, infrastructure, tree canopy and other measures that can have a much larger impact.
That is probably the biggest philosophical difference between some of my answers and the way this survey was scored.
I strongly support climate action. I simply believe a small municipality needs to be ruthless about focusing its limited resources on measures that will actually make a difference.
Final Thoughts
I share many of the goals behind the survey. Where I sometimes differ is on the approach, the priority, or what I think a small municipality can realistically accomplish. That’s an important distinction, and one that I don’t think comes through very well in a letter grade.
And I’d welcome the chance to talk about any of them. You can reach me at duncan@duncancavens.ca or 250-412-3830.