The Squamish Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) has worked long and hard to come up with a document to address development and growth in the Sea to Sky Corridor, but are regional communities ready to be good neighbours? It appears the writing is on the wall for the Regional Growth Strategy (RGS), and if it's anything like the process toward its adoption, the future ain't pretty.Council candidate Paul Lalli asserts the document, which commits all corridor communities to a certain set of growth principles, is going to lead to regional in-fighting. And as he leads the charge in opposition to the strategy, it appears he may be his own self-fulfilling prophecy. But Lalli isn't the only dissenting voice. Coun. Corinne Lonsdale is also maintaining that the document in its current form is unacceptable. Both agree that a final vote on the matter should be differed. "What's the rush?" they say. It's been in the works for 10 years. And with whispers of a mounting campaign to re-create the regional district's boundaries, they may have a point. According to Barry Forward on his blog, North Vancouver Politics.com, North Shore councillor Doug Mackay-Dunn has been on the campaign trail the past week pitching the concept of creating a Sea to Sky regional district. The proposed new regional district would remove North Vancouver (and the other communities on the North Shore) from the GVRD and join them with "West Vancouver and the communities up to Whistler/Pemberton, forming a new regional district that would take care of the needs and concerns of the North Shore."It would create "a regional district unencumbered with the ever increasing demands of places like Langley, Abbotsford and Surrey," he writes, adding, "Not sure how Squamish would feel getting lifted out of the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District and lumped in with the major urban areas here on the North Shore."Not sure how Squamish would feel? At a guess, we'd say this concept would make the RGS debate look like a love-in.The comments posted on the blog suggest split support for the idea. "Congratulations to Doug MacKay-Dunn for showing the kind of vision which is so often lacking in municipal politics," states one respondent. Another states: "Communities, such as Whistler (58 per cent of budget paid by residents) or Squamish (56 per cent by residents) would be wise not to 'partner' with such resident-focused, high service-consuming communities such as the Districts of North and West Vancouver."Plenty of Squamish groups and individuals will fight tooth and nail to maintain autonomy. But with communities increasingly encroaching on one another as growth continues, is it inevitable that governing become ever more regional? Time will tell.
