While we welcome all remarks from residents on initiatives of Council,  we do need to correct any errors of fact.  Several are needed as regards an e-mail circulated by a resident within the last several days, within the Village. 
 
The subject is Council’s current Age-Friendly Housing initiative.  For those not familiar with it, we will give the background to the initiative, first,  Then we will address the errors of fact in the e-mail.
 
IMPORTANT:  The resident has also circulated draft surveys on this initiative.  Please do not complete any 'draft' survey on Age Friendly Housing that has not been sent to you directly from the Village of Lions Bay.  You will not be working with a correct, finalized survey instrument and we will not be able to use your response.  Thank you for your attention.
 
1.       Background of the Age Friendly Housing Initiative
 
·         A process is underway; a survey is being designed.  Council has engaged a consultant to design a survey to elicit Villagers’ interests, opinions and needs regarding age-friendly housing.   To date, one workshop has been held to feed back on the draft survey.  One more is scheduled, intended for those who attended the first.  It will be for the purpose of getting further advice on the scope and nature of the questions for the survey – not for collecting the opinions of this group, or any other, as that is what the survey will do. A survey of residents will then be conducted.  The work is being funded through a grant we received last year under the Age Friendly Communities initiative ,sponsored through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
 
·         We need to look into Age Friendly Housing.  Council undertook this initiative when we saw that grant funding was available for work on Age Friendly Communities.  This is  an area where Council needs to explore and understand Villagers’ opinions and needs.   With over a third of our population over age 55 in the last Census, we are among many communities in the world with a high population of elderly residents – in the last Census, over one-third of us were aged 55 and over.  Council’s talks with Lions Bay seniors have revealed that housing is a main concern.  Many might like to downsize, but Lions Bay lacks options for those who might like to do so.  We are a community of large, single family residences.
 
·         We are looking for views; not to support a development.  All Village residents would receive the surveys on Age Friendly housing.  In this initiative, Council is working from the ground up. We have no specific ideas around appropriate kinds of age-friendly development for the Village - not at this point.  Our intent is to run as neutral a process as possible to draw views from the community at large as to what the needs and interests are in age friendly housing.  The consultant is under our instructions to that effect.
 
·         There will be opportunity for feedback and more input.  The results of the surveys would be discussed at a public meeting to be scheduled in May.  The data and residents’ views from the meeting could feed into decisions around building codes, programs to help older people stay in their houses as long as possible, etc.   They might conceivably also point to having Council explore age-friendly developments.  Our OCP does say that Council should "explore" multi-family developments.  However, there would be much more work to do, and a comprehensive process of community input and consensus-building, to arrive at any go-forward on development of age-friendly transitional housing.
 
 
2.        Errors of Fact Needing Correction
 
The recent e-mail was from a resident who participated in the first workshop and circulated a first draft survey form.  Errors of fact that Council would like to address are the following remarks:
 
·         “… the sole purpose of the group of attendees was to bring about a condo/townhouse development for "seniors", without consideration of any other solutions around ageing or alternative ways to assist seniors to stay in the village.”
 
Correction:  In getting participants for the workshops, the Village of Lions Bay asked for people to attend two workshops, scheduled one week apart, to look over the draft survey of attitudes and needs, with respect to age-friendly housing.  We invited residents to sign up if they fell into one of three different categories – a) people soon to need transitional housing, b) those who might need it within five years, and c) members of the general public with an interest in age-friendly housing.   Certainly, some workshop participants would like to see some development of transitional housing in Lions Bay.  However, the workshops are only intended to develop a questionnaire that is fair and objective, to explore the needs and opinions of all Villagers, which may vary widely.  It is those views from the wider community which will help shape anything that Council might undertake as follow-up – not the opinions of the group who fed into survey design.
 
·         “The workshop is being run by a small, special interest group including a developer who has been spearheading this initiative for some years.”
 
Correction:  The workshops are being run by Raymond Penner, a professional consultant with over 30 years experience in community processes.  He is being paid by the Village of Lions Bay, under the Age Friendly grant we received.  No developer is spearheading this initiative; it is being conducted by Council.  To our knowledge, one developer did participate in the workshop.
 
·         Those attending had obviously had extensive discussion around such a development, because they already know it a) will be a "Whistler-style" multi-unit structure b) would not cater for seniors in need of care or with mobility issues c) would not be available to other age groups and d) should only be available to those who have lived in the village for many years.
 
Correction:  Since Council is neither envisioning nor fostering any particular development, the workshop group could not “know” anything around a development.  These notions did surface at the workshop itself, as background issues or ideas of what to ask residents in surveying their opinions and interests regarding Age-Friendly housing.
 
·         “I asked how council could ensure that at least a a quorum of responses was obtained, and Brenda's response was that flyers in the mailbox and e-mails from the village were sent out, which means council has done what is required, and that a questionaire in mailboxes is sufficient communication to gauge public opinion on the hot topic of condos/townhouses in Lions Bay.”
 
Correction:  The Mayor advised the gallery at the March 15th meeting that two e-posts and two  mail outs had gone out to the community to invite participation in the survey design workshops, and further we phoned to invite people as a result of receiving a low response to the Village invitation for volunteers to participate. The Village of Lions Bay Council discussed later in the meeting how we could create further communication with the community on the upcoming survey, and on other Council initiatives.
 
·         The questionnaire does not allow for an unequivocal "no condos/townhouses" response.
 
Correction:  The resident chose to circulate the first draft of the surveys on Tuesday March 16th, in advance of seeing the second draft of the survey at the second workshop on Saturday March 20th.   The consultant advises Council that the second draft would address this point.
 
Again, we would also request – importantly  - that no-one fill out any survey they receive by e-mail.  It is regrettable that copies of draft surveys are now circulating, as this may be confusing to people.  The Village will be sending all residents a finalized survey, when the design is complete, together with instructions on returning it.
 
Thank you.