We have a choice to make on April 30. The residents of Bowen will be voting in a referendum to purchase the GVRD surplus lands around Snug Cove. This is an important vote, because owning those lands will mean that the community will control their development. That might include preserving some of them as parkland, constructing a community centre for performing arts and building our own municipal hall. If we don't buy these lands, it's likely that private developers will buy them, subdivide them and sell them and Bowen will have lost a chance to develop civic amenities in a prime location in the Cove.

There is a good set of reasons for voting YES at Bowen Online.

Now I don't generally publish rumours here, but this time I will, only to tease out some more information. A Bluewater resident today tells me that an off-island developer is building 37 new houses in Bluewater using off-island labour and generally being quiet about it. This is the area of the island that has the least water, and faces extremely severe shortages every summer. Thirty seven single dwellings is a huge increase to that neighbourhood. Unless the houses have their own water collection systems and very large cisterns, they are going to have a major negative effect on the surrounding water sources.

I have a lot of questions about this development, not the least of which is the sustainability of this new construction and whether or not prospective homebuyers know that they are buying into a virtually guaranteed suspension of water service in the summer. If you have info, or can clarify these speculations, leave a comment below.