Pulling the front office door closed securely behind him a few weeks ago, Sean Hodgins turned around and looked down 12th Ave. which was bathed in typical Tsawwassen summer sunshine. It was early evening, around 7 p.m., and the president of locally-based Century Group who had been working late to catch up on time spent vacationing was somewhat aghast at what he saw.

“It’s a pretty desultory place,” Hodgins says. “Coming back from a little vacation down in Oregon, Cannon Beach, there’s a little bit of a night life there. Here, I saw two people walking down the sidewalk, whereas in any other community on a sunny summer night the community is filled with people. There’s things to do. There’s restaurants, pubs.”

Hodgins adds that maybe a little spike in the local population through development could help add a spark to the community or maybe attract the social and cultural amenities other destinations seem to have and South Delta lacks.

Ron Toigo has a similar take.

The president of Shato Holdings which runs a number of large companies including White Spot Restaurants and is developing retirement residences on property adjacent to the Tsawwassen Golf and Country Club says, “Yeah, for a community that’s surrounded by water we haven’t taken advantage of it. You look at Richmond, what they’ve done in Steveston along the waterfront there. Probably Ladner is your best chance to try and create something like that.”

Both men grew up in South Delta. Both say they love the community. And both have the ability to transform the it—most notably Tsawwassen—into a hamlet possessing a vibrancy they both feel it now lacks.

The two sat down with the South Delta Leader recently and mapped out a few of the changes they would like to see take place, how the community has to be involved with progress, and what the future could hold depending on the type and degree of change that arrives.

Change is inevitable

Change is coming, says Hodgins who has spent the past two years or so inviting community consultation on his plan to develop Tsawwassen’s contentious Southlands parcel of land—531 acres that was the subject of Canada’s longest public hearing—into a mix of one third residential, one third community amenities, and one third farming.

What that change could mean 20 years from now is hard to judge given his ambitious project has yet to come before Delta council and is only now being addressed by those managing the Tsawwassen Area Plan.

But while unsure of what the future may bring Hodgins says he has witnessed what decades of limited development has visited upon the community.

“Schools closing, making it very hard to maintain a local business and one of the highest degrees of commuter traffic—people having to leave the community to go to their jobs,” Hodgins says.

Are South Deltans and specifically Tsawwassen residents ready for more of that?

Hodgins says he hopes there can be some positive movement and loosening of the stranglehold on development here. But he understands well the role residents have to play in helping design a new community that not only works well economically for the developer but for the community as well.

That’s a philosophy Toigo shares.

“We live in this community, and we care a great deal about this community,” Toigo says. “Anything that we’ve done, it’s been a question of asking ourselves, is the community better off after we’ve finished whatever project it is? And we go in that with that attitude—is it a good thing for Delta.”

Toigo is in the midst of early construction of Tsawwassen Springs, a collection of 437 units—townhomes and condos—at the Tsawwassen Golf and Country Club.

The deal came about to develop unused golf course land that was taken out of the Agricultural Land Reserve in exchange for prime farmland Toigo had near the Town & Country Inn—another Toigo property.

It’s that type of unique deal which may form the future of development in other parts of South Delta, he says.

“You are going to have choose your best farmland, enhance it and trade off for farmland that isn’t productive. That will play a big role in terms of growth as well,” Toigo says. “That kind of thinking is going to have be done over the next 20 years. It’s the food production of the land, not the size of the piece of dirt.”

The Tsawwassen Springs development (an aerial view of a phase 1 apartment building,) offers retirement homes for empty nesters. . Contributed image

Changing habits

The future for Hodgins rests partly with the development of Southlands. If approved he says it would be his “single most important accomplishment” in his business career.

He sees a time when Southlands—developed as a sustainable community with higher density housing and an adherence to environmental sensitivities—could help inspire a reversal of current trends.

“I think 20 years from now is going to be so different in the fact that it is going to be uneconomical for people to commute to their jobs,” Hodgins says. “That will completely fall apart. Undoubtedly, the community is going to have to make do with what it’s got. It’s going to be the exception to leave the community (for work), not the rule. And we are going to have to think really hard about what that means. It will be how we are useful to each other. We will have to rely on each other for the things we need. It will be a new form of ‘local’ that will evolve.”

One big plus is that the agrarian nature of South Delta lends itself well to the new philosophy, Hodgins says, adding, “Jobs local will be critical. That will be big.”

But is South Delta ready for change that favours compact neighbourhoods surrounded by farmland and a small town centre readily accessed by foot?

According to both Toigo and Hodgins they feel there is a shift in the mood in the community and municipal hall to listen to such non traditional ideas.

Changing attitudes

“It’s interesting to see how much the attitude though has really changed,” Hodgins says. “You look back after the Spetifore (Southlands) thing (public hearing) and it was a big seminal event in terms of putting positions for people. That was a huge achievement for the community to stop a development that would have changed the community, arguably, for the worse. But now people are saying, ‘We said no to that and other things we didn’t want to see.’ But don’t try to tell us now that a small group that is still holding on to that position that it means no to everything.”

On the contrary. Where “no” was the usually first and last word in development discussion, there is an increased willingness to listen to what is being proposed. And that is considered to be a huge step, although neither developer is saying their future plans locally are slam dunks.

Far from it. They both realize the community has an important role to play in any new development and its impact on the region. But they each hope the old, rigid positions of nixing any ideas long before they surface—something they contend is a product of a vocal minority—is a thing of the past.

“There were always people dressed up as environmentalists or community activists and presenting themselves as the voice of the community when they were the voice of their little group of NIMBYs who didn’t want anyone else here. And the community has suffered from it,” Toigo says.

He adds a lack of growth preceded the decision to downgrade services at Delta Hospital, and most recently, the action taken by the Delta School District to close a pair of elementary schools in South Delta.

“The reason we were being hit by those kinds of things was no growth,” Toigo says. “The places that had all the growth got more attention and more of the money. It’s just straight economics then.”

But he understands the push to try and preserve the status quo.

“I get it, to some extent, because this is a great community, and I think, the greatest place in the country,” Toigo says. “It’s surrounded by ocean and it’s a beautiful place to live. But we’ve missed out on some of the amenities. If the entire province continues to grow out of sync than what we are, we’re going to be faced with those (same) issues (hospital downgrades and school closures) down the road.”

“Unfortunately, what happened with the original Spetifore lands years ago, it was a bad plan at a bad time that created this political movement that wanted to stop all development. And it‘s unfortunate that’s what came out of it,” Hodgins adds. “People say they want to see the community preserved or they want to save the community. Well, no community has been saved or preserved—it’s always changed. That’s what got communities thriving. The communities that survived and thrived have changed and grown, generally. They haven’t thrown up a moat.”

And the time is now to get the community back on the right track, both men say.

The Southlands plan calls for a community that relies less on cars. . Contributed image

Time for change

“It’s not growth just for the sake of growth,” Hodgins says. “We want to make sure it’s good quality growth that ties into the needs of the community. That’s the only thing a developer can do.”

“Hard calls are going to have to be made, and we’ve gone through that already in this community,” Toigo says. “That’s why we need good provincial representation and be part of the equation and not be on the outside looking in.”

But one of the best ways of viewing what change is possible is to take a broader look at the picture. And that can mean taking a big step back and see what works elsewhere and how it might work, or be adapted here.

“It’s pretty hard to say where specifically it’s going to go. I think, unfortunately, that change happens and you either push change in a positive direction or change just hits when you never expect it,” Hodgins says.

“We can’t have a parochial view of our community. It’s how our community is going to evolve in the world.”

“Everyone who lives in this country—and particularly this area—sometimes they probably need to leave to find out what they have,” Toigo says.

“And what we could be as well,” Hodgins adds.

“It is a great community, but like anything there could be improvements,” Toigo said.

“It’s very easy to say no to everything, but it takes guts to get into a good solid discussion about things,” Hodgins said. “That’s the problem, saying no is just the easy route out. It actually takes work to negotiate."

(What do you think of Sean Hodgins’ and Ron Toigo's comments about local development? Email a letter to the editor.)

editor@southdeltaleader.com

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