Squamish needs drive redevelopment
Some W. Van consultation promised
By Benjamin Alldritt, North Shore News December 5, 2010
West Vancouver residents can expect some consultation when the Squamish Nation begins to develop its waterfront lands, said Chief Gibby Jacob, but what that development ultimately looks like will be driven primarily by the economic needs of the nation.
"We may undertake an outreach program with the non-natives from the surrounding communities," Jacobs told the North Shore News. "It would be nice to demystify who we are in this community and provide more insight as to who and what we are. We have a long and traditioned history here in these lands."
The 2004 Capilano Master Plan, which is currently before members of the nation for approval, calls for the eastern portion of Capilano IR 5 to be reserved for use by members, namely for housing and small businesses. The land to the west of Lions Gate Bridge will be designated an economic development zone. The plan documents, which are still quite general, suggest that economic development could include several high-rise apartment towers. Waterfront residential towers would be a profitable venture to be sure, but also likely to affect the views of nearby West Vancouverites.
Similar clashes of priorities are brewing around the province as First Nations work aggressively towards economic self-sufficiency. At a UBC-sponsored discussion in October, co-hosted by Jacobs and West Vancouver Mayor Pam Goldsmith-Jones, Jacobs reminded the audience that the southern part of Park Royal shopping centre is on Squamish land, and that the centre supported as many as 5,500 jobs.
"When we put our land in play there are not only local benefits, and regional, but there are provincial and national benefits that accrue," he said.
During the panel discussion, titled Empowerment or Too Much Power?, UBC law professor Douglas Harris recapped the legal footing for aboriginal title and what that means for neighbouring communities.
"The Supreme Court of Canada said that aboriginal title and aboriginal rights more generally are based on the fact that aboriginal people lived in organized societies in this place before the rest of us arrived," Harris said. "This is one of the central challenges of a settler society -- how to recognize and respond to that prior aboriginal presence in what becomes a shared territory."
While many First Nations in British Columbia are in the midst of an extraordinarily slow-moving treaty process to extend and formalize their territories, reserves currently represent only a third of one per cent of the land area in the province.
"Most of these are very small," continued Harris. "They were postage stamps that gave aboriginal peoples a toehold, but not much more in their much larger traditional territory. They are islands of federal jurisdiction, some of which are now surrounded by the largest urban centres in British Columbia. These are islands over which municipalities and the province have no jurisdiction, at least when it comes to land development. . . . At a legal level, municipalities have no capacity to assert their jurisdiction. But that certainly doesn't mean there isn't space for discussion. What's needed is some government-to-government relations that will probably include the province. This has to happen not just at the political level but also at a bureaucratic level."
Howie Charters, a vice-president of the real estate firm Colliers with a long record of advising First Nations on land use, said municipalities and their residents first have to accept the legitimacy of their neighbours' government.
"The first thing you have to look at is that these First Nations' leadership are democratically elected government, very similar to the government in West Vancouver, Victoria or Ottawa. They all act in the perceived interest of their constituents and their community. Fundamentally, the main difference is that First Nations democracies are far more participatory than you find at a standard municipal government. In any undertaking, they go to a vote or referendum before making a decision," Charters said. He then addressed the discussion's theme head-on, comparing choices made by First Nations governments with those made by non-aboriginal councils.
On the one hand, Charters mentioned the success of Park Royal and residential projects built by the Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam and Tsawwassen.
"None of these brought about hardship or threatened the communities around them. In fact, they brought employment and housing that was badly needed," said Charters. "On the flip side of that, we'll have a look at what some municipal governments do and consider whether they were empowered or had too much power. Can you imagine the City of Vancouver actually expropriated private property to let a real estate developer build Pacific Centre? In today's context you might say that was a bit of an abuse of power. . . . In the Fraser Valley, there are numerous municipalities that have chosen to apply to take land out of the agricultural land reserve to create housing and commercial development. Is that too much power, an abuse of it, or are they acting in the interests of their constituents? The City of Surrey, most recently, started a development company and they're going out to compete with development companies that work in Surrey and pay municipal taxes."
What's more, said Harris, reserve lands have already seen substantial development projects pushed forward by the federal and provincial governments. "The Capilano Reserve is bisected by the Lions Gate Bridge. The False Creek reserve has the CPR railway and the Burrard Bridge and a military barracks. The Tsawwassen reserve has the coal ports. These small parcels of land were massively developed but in ways that aboriginal people had little or no control. There is going to be a trust-building relationship, but when we talk about too much development it's important to remember that these places have been massively developed. This is going to pose some challenges to the non-native communities," he said.
Tewanee Joseph, a member of the Squamish Nation and one of the most visible leaders of the Four Host First Nations during the Olympic Games, said recent moves by the federal government to shift decision-making away from Ottawa -- a process Charters agreed is "a horrible experience" -- and closer to the local, reserve level, were making more innovative projects possible for First Nations.
"The relationship with the federal government for over a hundred years has been this parent-child relationship," he said. "Anything we did on the reserve lands had to go through the Minister of Indian Affairs for approval. Everything. So we couldn't function on an everyday basis. This dysfunctional kind of relationship has emerged over the years. So what we're trying to say as people is 'Yes, things have happened in the past, but how do we make it better?'
"The Indian Act is outdated and archaic, but there have been legislative changes in the past 20 years that have allowed First Nations to gain more tools to develop their lands. You look at the relationship before that, you had this landlord and tenant relationship; that's what Park Royal really is. But now you're looking at development by First Nations."
The Squamish Nation is already well on its way, said Jacobs, with townhouse developments in Gibsons, plans for residential towers in Vancouver's Kitsilano neighbourhood, and gas stations in Squamish. These projects, he said, have been net benefits to all concerned.
"You don't achieve everything 100 per cent in negotiations by any means, but when we've been involved everyone has walked away with something as a benefit and we've tried to achieve win-wins. But we need to develop and we need to control our own destiny.
"That's the objective of this whole piece, is to become financially independent and not beholden to anybody. We didn't come into this world that way and the current leadership's perspective is we won't go out that way."
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Read more:
http://www.nsnews.com/business/Squamish+needs+drive+redevelopment/3930126/story.html#ixzz17Iy3ecSj
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