Groups looking to establish emergency and extreme-weather response shelters on a short-term basis in Duncan will see a large reduction in the city’s permit fees.
City council recently voted to decrease the application fees for temporary-use permits from non-profit organizations for the shelters from $2,000 to $250.
Duncan Mayor Phil Kent said council understands that most of the groups and organizations that advocate for temporary emergency shelters are non-profits that have little financing, so lowering their application fees would allow them to use the money to assist vulnerable people in the community.
The city changed its bylaws last winter to ban emergency and extreme-weather response shelters in all zones after an extreme weather shelter for women was proposed for the former Charles Hoey school on Castle Place.
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The shelter’s proponents, the United Way and the Cowichan Coalition for Homelessness and Affordable Housing, received permission at the time from the Cowichan Valley School District to use the school and, under the zoning at the time, the city had no say on the issue.
But, after protests from the neighbourhood, the city changed its bylaws to not allow temporary emergency shelters in any of its zones so that all applications for the shelters would have to go through council and be required to undergo a formal public input process.
Plans for the extreme-weather shelter for women were subsequently dropped.
“We don’t want a repeat of what happened last year, so changing the bylaw was a way to ensure that such proposals would require a dialogue with the community,” Kent said.
“Our community in Duncan supports providing ways to help our most vulnerable people and, this way, the process would ensure that the community would be given notice well in advance and will be assured local residents will be involved in a dialogue about any applications for temporary emergency shelters in their neighbourhoods.”
robert.barron@cowichanvalleycitizen.com
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