Squamish residents will soon have an opportunity to provide feedback on the Woodfibre LNG (WLNG) floatel.
At the March 26 committee of the whole meeting, Squamish council members unanimously approved scheduling a public hearing about the temporary use permit for WLNG’s floating worker accommodation, often called the floatel. The floatel is a proposed accommodation for constructing the liquefied natural gas export facility, which is to be located about seven kilometres from downtown Squamish on Howe Sound.
The hearing will be on Tuesday, April 23, and will likely be held outside of council chambers. However, no confirmations were made about the location at the meeting. Council will likely make their decision about the permit after the public hearing.
Municipal planner Vrish Prahalad said the vessel in question will hold between 400 and 600 workers at peak construction and has 652 available cabins. Prahalad noted that there are a few permits from Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) for the floatel that are pending approval, which include food service, water and sewage.
Workers residing in the District of Squamish are currently ferried to WLNG from Darrell Bay, but that may change to Site B in October. Workers who were not residents in Squamish before Sept. 20, 2023, will be required to stay on the floatel, including workers providing support services. Workers on the floatel won’t have non-work access to Squamish.
Council members largely did not hint which way they were leaning about the TUP, but Mayor Armand Hurford did ask if they could approve a shorter TUP with the possibility of renewal. Jonas Velaniskis, the senior director of community development with the District, said having a shorter permit is a possibility.
“With sort of unusual or uses that we haven’t had a lot of experience with, and I would say that this is certainly one of them, it’s not uncommon to have a shorter period of time as kind of like a testing period to make sure that the permit conditions are effective,” said Velaniskis.
Kate Mulligan, the director of major projects - industrial, added TUPs could only be renewed once for a maximum duration of three years.
Coun. Chris Pettingill said during the comment portion of the meeting that he was interested in the shorter TUP and called it a way to have some project accountability.
“The idea of a shorter temporary use permit makes a lot of sense. And, if things are going well, then maybe a renewal. I would definitely want the renewal to come back to council,” he said.
Also during comments, many council members said they looked forward to hearing from the public about the permit. Some council members still believed there were some issues and sought more information.
“I do think that this has come a long way in addressing many of the concerns that have been raised by our community over time, but there are still some outstanding ones,” said Coun. Jenna Stoner.
Hurford offered feedback to the proponents, saying that having FortisBC and WLNG work jointly on some aspects would be beneficial for the public understanding of the impacts of the project.
About 20 people were present in council chambers for the mid-day meeting, which could signal a large turnout for the upcoming public hearing. View the meeting on the District’s YouTube channel.
