In May 2024, Islands Trust Committee of the Whole received a new draft of the Policy Statement. This updated draft reflected all the changes requested by Trust Council in its 32 resolutions of June and September 2022. Since then, Committee of the Whole and Trust Programs Committee have met more than a dozen times to fine-tune the document’s principles and policies to ensure they reflect Islands Trust Council’s perspective on the future of the Islands Trust Area and the Object of Islands Trust.

The updated draft Policy Statement includes guiding principles that set out shared principles and priorities that are intended to guide daily planning and decision making by Islands Trust bodies.

Directive policies are policies that local trust committees and island municipalities must address when adopting or amending local regulatory bylaws and official community plans. They are policies that are deemed integral to carrying out the Islands Trust Object, but which are general enough that they can be appropriately adapted to local circumstances.

Directive policies are policies that local trust committees and island municipalities must address when adopting or amending local regulatory bylaws and official community plans.

Advisory policies are policies about issues or topics that are important to Trust Council, but may not be within Islands Trust exclusive jurisdiction or that require some additional level of cooperation or engagement with external agencies or Indigenous Governing Bodies.  Trust Council hopes that local trust committees and island municipalities will try to move these issues forward when opportunities arise, either through their own policies and regulations, or in an advocacy role, but is not requiring them to do so.

The updated Policy Statement contains the following definition of “restrict”: To confine, bound or limit, not necessarily prohibit. So, where the Policy Statement requires local trust committees and island municipalities to “restrict” development, Islands Trust Council will expect local trust committees and island municipalities to demonstrate how they have done so. This could range from maintaining permitted development potential in an area at its current levels rather than increasing it, introducing a new development permit area to address the issue of concern, or reducing the zoned development potential in that area to help mitigate the concern.

To identify the ecosystems that need to be preserved, protected and restored, local trust committees and island municipalities will start by reviewing extensive collection of ecosystem mapping data already in the Islands Trust inventory. If Islands Trust data is outdated or insufficient, local trust committees and island municipalities can explore what information might be available from local conservation groups. Furthermore, Islands Trust Council may, through its Policy Statement Implementation Plan, fund the procurement of new ecosystem data at a Trust-wide level. Alternatively, LTCs and island municipalities may fund the collection of fresh ecosystem data as part of an ecosystem protection project.

To prioritize the preservation, protection and restoration of these ecosystems, Trust Council expects that local trust committees and island municipalities will not make planning decisions that risk their degradation. LTCs and island municipalities should put ecosystem protection before all other considerations in their decision making. Examples of how a local trust committee or island municipality might preserve, protect, and restore these ecosystems include maintaining permitted development potential in an area at its current levels, introducing new development permit areas to protect the ecosystem in question, or reducing the permitted development potential in an area to reduce the risk to the subject ecosystem.

The updated draft proposes that local trust committees and island municipalities will limit or prohibit new private docks in areas identified to be:

• culturally significant;
• critical habitat for species at risk, and;
• recreationally significant;

and that local trust committees and island municipalities will consider the cumulative effects of docks (see draft policy 3.5.21).

Islands Trust Committee of the Whole will receive the draft new Policy Statement at a special meeting in early July 2025. At that meeting, Committee of the Whole will decide whether to endorse the document and send it on to Islands Trust Council for first reading in late July.

Once Trust Council gives first reading to the draft new Policy Statement, the bylaw will be referred to Indigenous Governing Bodies, local trust committees, Bowen Island Municipality, regional districts, provincial ministries and agencies, school boards, improvement districts, and the Islands Trust Conservancy Board for their review and comment. It will also kick off a six-month public engagement period. At the end of that six-month period, Trust Council will consider all the feedback received from Indigenous Governing Bodies, agencies, and the general public and whether or not further revisions should be made to the draft new Policy Statement and whether/when to proceed to second reading of the bylaw.

If Trust Council gives first reading to the draft new Policy Statement this summer, public engagement on the draft new Policy Statement will kick off in Fall 2025. Trust Council will seek the public’s views through an online/print public survey and an online workshop. Local trust committees have also asked for on-island community engagement opportunities in a form that best meets their communities’ needs.

You can also e-mail your comments to islands2050@islandstrust.bc.ca, or contact your local trustees directly, using the contact information available here.