What Next For Bear Mountain?

They couldn’t have timed it better. It was the last-but-one week in June and the Telus World Skins golf game was being hosted at Bear Mountain Resort. Ontario’s Mike Weir  beat out an international field to win in front of a gallery of 5,300 fans and the verdict was that the event had been a resounding success. What better way to begin a new chapter in the colourful story of Bear Mountain, Vancouver Island’s largest resort development project?

A month earlier things could hardly have been worse. The BC Supreme Court declared the Bear Mountain Master Partnership bankrupt after it been placed under creditor protection at the request of HSBC, its largest secured lender.  The bank was owed $250 million, or over 80% of Bear Mountain’s total debt.  The Court issued a short stay of proceedings to allow the Telus event to be held but for Len Barrie and his colleagues in the Master Partnership, the game was up.

So what does the future hold for the Bear Mountain Resort, its several hundred residents, property owners and other interested parties?  First, it’s clear that HSBC is intent on systematically recouping as much of its debt as possible. It has appointed a new CEO to replace Len Barrie the former NHL player who in 2001, with other investors, purchased 1,235 acres of managed forest land at Skirt Mountain and began the real estate ride of his life.

HSBC and Bear Mountain’s new CEO have much to do in order to realize the resort’s remaining assets at the kind of values that justify the bank’s new level of commitment to the project. Patience, courage and a clear vision will be essential. There are some big decisions to be made in addition to the myriad day-to-day issues associated with a major real estate development that, according to HSBC, has been defaulting on its debt repayments since 2008.

The stakes are high, not only for HSBC but also for its current residents. Most bought into the Bear Mountain dream during a rising real estate market and, for a while, watched their investment make rapid and considerable gains. They were delighted to be part of the largest, most ambitious and most talked-about master planned community on Vancouver Island.  Len Barrie is best described as a ‘force of nature’ (though others might use a less flattering epithet). His personality helped feed the hype that extended from Victoria to Calgary and beyond. The old adage that home values in a master planned community command a 10% premium over comparable homes in ‘unplanned’ neighbourhoods seemed conservative once Mr. Barrie’s sales team began talking.

The best master planned communities exude consistent higher-than-average quality, well maintained and managed amenities and common areas – and, most importantly, a clear, compelling vision that stands the test of time.  These places attract discerning owners; ones that are proud of their homes and their neighbourhood and who become important ambassadors – and, in reality, the best sales people – for the community as a whole. All well and good when the sun is shining and demand outstrips supply.  However, these same folk react badly when they feel abandoned or let down by the community’s developer.
Its once-proud property owners watched Bear Mountain slip into bankruptcy while detractors rubbed their hands in glee. The information vacuum was filled quickly by rumor and innuendo.  An unfinished highway interchange, essential to the long-term future of Bear Mountain and dependent on it as a source of funding, became the ‘bridge to nowhere’ while Len Barrie’s increasingly threadbare claims to have found a new purchaser for Bear Mountain further stretched the credibility of the community. Even tactics that in different circumstances would go unnoticed were pounced upon; some heavily discounted condominium prices, promoted by the Bear Mountain sales team, were described in the press as ‘a fire sale’.  This, while other condo sellers in Victoria were quietly raising their asking prices.

Now is the time to fill the vacuum with facts – and a new vision for the future. When will the vital interchange be completed? How will development over the medium and long-term be planned and executed? How will the vacant commercial property be tackled? Do the two golf courses and the hotel have sustainable futures? What will happen to Robert Quigg’s stalled Capella development, a component of the resort?  We know that the new Bear Mountain management team will have to address these questions, and many more, as it markets the property to potential purchasers and developers.  Keeping the residents informed and winning their confidence in the future will be just as important.

Perhaps the biggest conundrum for HSBC is how to maintain Bear Mountain’s standard of quality – set during the good times – while generating cash from the sale of its parts and maximizing the absorption of its building lots.  As a friend of mine said to me recently “Once a community of this size lowers its standards by chasing the market downwards, its brand never recovers”.

With the patience and support of HSBC, Bear Mountain’s new CEO has the opportunity to create a vision and a strategic plan that are forward looking and capable of repositioning the master planned community as among the most desirable of its kind in North America.  The success of the Telus World Skins Game and the positive news coverage that it generated must have been a great relief to the dispirited residents and battered investors in Bear Mountain.  Now the challenge for HSBC and the new CEO is to build on that.

Nanaimo’s Secret

Nanaimo is a paradox.  For those arriving by ferry or float-plane from Vancouver, its beautiful, sheltered harbour is the gateway to a dispiriting four-lane crawl of strip malls, used car showrooms, superstores and drive-throughs. The town prospers and grows despite its unpromising reputation as a resource-based town reliant initially on coal, then forestry and pulp.  Its downtown has been refurbished and re-organised to highlight a sparkling new conference centre but, in the evenings, Nanimo’s residents steadfastly stay put in their suburban enclaves at the foot of Mount Benson.

Nanaimo and its harbour

Lively, unlovely, underwhelming Nanaimo’s biggest paradox is also it’s best-kept secret. Just over the hill from the newest sub-division of competitively priced homes, along a rural, paved road, is one of Vancouver Island’s hidden gems.  To get get to Nanaimo Lakes, you leave the main Island Highway just south of town and follow the Nanaimo River Road inland for 20 kilometers to a robust yellow gate.  Sometimes the gate’s open and sometimes its manned.  Beyond the gate a private road connects four lakes in a beautiful river valley that stretches 27 kilometers to the Island’s mountainous spine.

Nanaimo is the nearest Island 'gateway' to Vancouver

This whole valley is in the hands of a single owner, TimberWest, and is devoted to growing trees.  When you stand on the shore of the first lake (imaginatively named First Lake) you are struck by the solitary peace.

As you turn slowly through 360 degrees, taking in the scenery, the close proximity of the surrounding steep hills describe a giant, natural

‘room’.  Between First Lake and the head of the valley lie two more substantial lakes, a series of side valleys punctuated by smaller lakes and a long-abandoned ski hill called Green Mountain. This quiet, private landscape with its fast-flowing river and numerous tributaries comprises at least 20,000 acres; or enough space to accommodate the city of Nanaimo and all its 80,000 inhabitants.

The solitary beauty of Lake Two on a February morning

It’s no coincidence that TimberWest consistently features stunning photography of Nanaimo Lakes in its Annual Report and any other publication it can think of.  The company recognizes that the growing city of Nanaimo creeps inexorably closer to the Valley every year, reinforcing the belief that Nanaimo Lakes could have other uses than simply a tree farm.

So the future looks bright; a fast-growing community in a beautiful and accessible part of the world, a magnificent piece of land and an owner with aspirations.  It would seem that the ingredients are in place to create a special place of international standing and repute.

If only that were the case.

Instead, it is more likely that before long, the table will be set for a lengthy, expensive battle for the hearts and minds of the community and its elected local government.  On the one side will be TimberWest, its consultants and any development partners it might have recruited facing, on the other, an array of conservation groups, concerned citizens and individuals with specific reasons to

maintain the land in its current form.  In the case of large and significant land use changes, this combative process can be best described as a grueling and wasteful war of attrition.

The Nanaimo River, connecting First Lake and Second Lake

But does it have to be this way?  When the future use of a privately-held piece of land, so extensive and environmentally challenging as Nanaimo Lakes comes into question surely all those involved deserve to be engaged in a consistent, clear, open, timely and fair process.  And why shouldn’t there be a role for the Provincial Government in the consideration of land that is of national significance?  The answer to these questions is to be found in the way that the rural fastness of Vancouver Island is governed and planned.

Nanaimo Lakes is outside the city boundaries and falls under the planning jurisdiction of the local Regional District, an agglomeration of seven sparsely populated ‘electoral areas’ and four municipalities where the  majority of the region’s 150,000 residents reside.  Nanaimo Regional District is about to publish the first draft of its most important land use tool; the Regional Growth Strategy.  With its stated ambition to depart from previous efforts, it’s too early to tell whether or not this Strategy will be yet another one-size-fits-all blueprint for the region’s land use. It’s unlikely, however, that it will acknowledge the fundamental issue that has led to the re-evaluation of Nanaimo Lakes; that the forestry industry on Vancouver Island is undergoing a seismic change that has a direct bearing on the future use of its land base.

Looking west across Second Lake and the results of second-growth logging

Instead of preserving Nanaimo Lakes as a gated tree farm, accessible only to unwitting trespassers and those able to book a spot on its single primitive camp site, it should be possible to bring all the stake holders and governments (including First Nations) together to engage in and create a visionary plan for this land.

Imagine a valley, this close to the region’s largest and fastest growing population centre, planned so that it exceeded all of the sustainability targets set by the Regional Growth Strategy; whose forest was subject to the highest standards of stewardship while providing wood for local value-added manufacturing; whose lakefronts became public trails and open spaces, reserved for all; whose rivers and mountain tops generated energy for the entire region; that included a significant conservation component and whose settlement pattern provided a new model for sustainable rural living.

A blanket prohibition on development, based on the increasingly tenuous argument that growth in rural areas is unsustainable, helps no-one in the case of Nanaimo Lakes.  Large-scale conservation opportunities disappear, the lakes remain private, the opportunity for all to enjoy a rural lifestyle continues to diminish and the land-owner retreats behind its yellow gate to grow, harvest and export another crop of second-growth timber.

Rails to Trails

Even from the air you get some sense of its immensity. In contrast to the dense green forest canopy, the bleached, gray timbers of the abandoned trestle stand out clearly. Almost 130 feet below the old rail bed, the Koksilah River is barely visible.

The Kinsol Trestle, spanning the Koksilah River

This is the Kinsol Trestle. In 1920, it was one of the world’s largest wooden structures completed by the Canadian National Railway, for the world’s largest lumber company. This was an age of superlatives; the trestle was 615 feet long, 135 feet high and built to carry trainloads of immense old-growth logs along an ambitious route between Victoria and Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Even the trestle’s title carried weight, derived indirectly from the nearby and grandiosely named King Solomon’s Mine.

However, ambition and money ran out at Cowichan Lake. The rail line stopped at Youbou, a considerable distance short of its planned destination. Nevertheless, the Kinsol Trestle carried lumber trains for almost 60 years, until, on June 6th 1979, the last load of logs made the vertiginous river crossing.

The last load to cross the Kinsol Trestle. June 1979

For the last 30 years, the Kinsol Trestle has served as a dormant, decaying reminder of the Canadian forestry industry as it once was. Meanwhile, the rail bed on either side of the river has been transformed into Vancouver Island’s link in the Trans-Canada Trail.  South of the Koksilah River the trail follows a ridge above  Shawnigan Lake and eventually connects with the Galloping Goose Trail. To the north, the trail meanders through the Cowichan Valley, crossing and re-crossing the fast-flowing Cowichan River, all the way to Cowichan Lake. The only break in the 120 kilometer trail is the Kinsol Trestle. In it’s current state of disrepair, it’s unsafe for walker or cyclist.

But not for much longer. After many years of fund-raising and a healthy slug of support from the Federal and Provincial stimulus package, work is about to commence on a $6 million trestle refurbishment program that will connect the south and north sections of the Trans-Canada trail. Some have questioned the logic of sinking so much money into a structure that is less than 100 years old while others are quick to point to the trail and trestle’s importance  as a world-class recreational amenity for locals and tourists alike.

The trestle, towering above the Koksilah River

It would not be surprising to find some of the trestle refurbishment program’s biggest proponents among the owners of larger tracts of land that abut the trail. Especially when those tracts are on the edge of existing communities. Take, for instance, the 1,000-acre TimberWest property overlooking the western shore of Shawnigan Lake. This recently logged land is bounded by almost a mile and a half of the southern section of the Trans-Canada Trail, a ready-made public footpath that leads through the woods to the Kinsol Trestle, less than 4 miles to the north. Compared to  a golf course, a trail system is not only more economical to build and maintain it is also cited increasingly as a ‘must-have’ feature by potential purchasers in new planned communities.

A refurbished rail trestle on the Galloping Goose Trail, near Victoria

The Kinsol Trestle is a unique and spectacular connector between Shawnigan Lake and the Cowichan Valley and it is destined to become another important link in Vancouver Island’s burgeoning trail network. For the price of five or so golf holes, the community will be restoring part of its proud industrial heritage and opening a breath-taking and truly memorable river crossing for cyclists, walkers and those who simply want to stand and stare in wonder at one of the largest wooden structures in the world.

'Keep Off'...but not for much longer!

What Next for Vancouver Island?

Climbing the west Coast Trail

Last week a friend from Florida emailed me.  Just back from Vancouver Island, she couldn’t wait to tell me she’d hiked the daunting, spectacular West Coast Trail – and loved every minute.  Then my neighbor stopped by, excited by his next ‘big idea’, conceived as he watched the growing numbers of touring motorcyclists cruise past his modest business in the Cowichan Valley.  Once again, Vancouver Island’s diverse attraction was underscored for me, this time by Harley riders and a hard-core trekker.

It’s an easy day’s drive on a four lane highway from Victoria in the south to Campbell River, about half way up the Island.  This is the most populated segment of Vancouver Island.  From time to time the road touches the coastline to your right but you’re always aware of the Island’s heavily forested, mountainous spine away to your left.  Almost every mile of your journey offers another tempting stopping place or intriguing detour.  If you have the time and turn west to cross the mountains to Tofino the reward is a spectacular journey that ends on the wild and barely inhabited Pacific west coast.

It’s this kind of experience that gets under your skin and turns many a casual visitor into prospective resident.  But island living is a romantic notion often undermined by stark practicalities like finding a job, accessing healthcare, or just getting around.

Victoria Harbour

Vancouver Island, though, is bigger than many people realize (you can fit Jamaica into it almost three times), has pretty good roads, over 750,000 residents, balmier weather than anywhere else in Canada, a bustling Provincial capital, a growing agricultural community, good hospitals and schools and a broad-based economy. Plus quite a lot more.  Little wonder then that the last five years has seen the Island tip from being dependent on forestry and fishing to a diversifying second-home and retirement destination underpinned by a wide range of service and other industries.

Of course there has been some froth, especially in the real estate market. At one point it seemed like every low-cost flight from Calgary was full of prospective retirees, second-home purchasers and investors.  Developers up and down the Island scrambled to cash-in and ride the coat tails of Victoria’s new, 2,000 home Bear Mountain Golf Resort, the first stop for many a potential purchaser.  Home prices rose on a tide of market exuberance, alienating many locals and encouraging the major Vancouver Island landowners to review their land holdings.

View from the Highway, near Campbell River

And then the market turned.  Calgarians stayed home and fretted about the fall in oil prices.  The economic malaise south of the border undermined confidence, froze lending, spooked investors and precipitated the suspension – or worse – of several development projects.  The major landowners re-evaluated, retrenched and refocused on their core business.

A year later, following a beautiful British Columbian summer and a modest recovery of the local housing market, it’s time to consider the future for the largest of Vancouver Island’s landowners.

Four forestry companies control almost all of the private land in the southeast quadrant of Vancouver Island.   Island Timberlands and  Western Forest Products (both Brookfield entities), Hancock Timber Resources (a subsidiary of Manulife) and TimberWest own over 1,500,000 acres of mainly contiguous real estate, including lakefronts, mountains and land in the Agricultural Land Reserve. Each has taken a different approach to the real estate boom of the last five years.

TimberWest and Island Timberlands have the most land, much of it in the path of development.  TimberWest has created a real estate arm, called Couverdon, to execute a development strategy that was devised with the help of international planning firm EDAW.  Brookfield, meanwhile, quietly introduced another of its companies, Carma Developers, to the Island Timberlands properties, especially those on the northwest slopes of the Malahat. Some of Hancock’s  Comox Valley land was transferred to community and resort developers who have, so far, met with varying success in rezoning it from managed timberland. Western Forest Products were the most aggressive and controversial of all, offering for sale former Crown land, including a much-loved beach a short drive west of Victoria.

On paper, all four companies have intriguing property that lends itself to a wide range of uses.  However, it has been tough to convince Vancouver Island communities to allow the forestry companies to rezone their private land to achieve higher, better and more profitable uses.

Qualicum Beach

To begin with, many of the Island’s residents have grown up enjoying the private forests for recreation, often with the tacit, and sometimes open, agreement of the landowner.  The forests have also provided jobs to generations of Islanders, creating complex and emotional relationships between working families and the forestry companies.  And then there are those who see no reason to make it easy for the powerful forestry companies to become wealthy real estate developers.  Finally, there are the First Nations, intent to claim aboriginal rights to land that the Dominion granted in the late 19th century for the construction of a railroad and which was subsequently sold to the forestry companies.

The stage would seem to be set, not for the unleashing of unprecedented real estate development as some fear but, for a battle of attrition between communities and forestry companies up and down the southeast quadrant of Vancouver Island. And, sadly, the passing up of a unique opportunity for Vancouver Island.

As unbending and remote as the forestry companies sometimes appear, their vast contiguous land holdings offer considerable potential to the communities that they encompass.  With every proposed rezoning and development of former forest land comes the opportunity for communities to acquire, in exchange, land that contains the source of their drinking water, places for parks, trails and green belts, land for agriculture, industrial use, affordable housing, hospitals, schools and other social facilities.  The list is limited only by one’s imagination because the land base on which the forestry companies can draw seems limitless in scale.

Campbell River below the peaks of Strathcona Park

Taken a step further, here is an opportunity to address some of Vancouver Island’s   most important long-term land use issues including striking a realistic balance between town and country living.  Visitors appreciate Vancouver Island for its diverse rural and urban places, as well as its spectacular mountain and coastal scenery.  How will the Island conserve open space around its towns while sustaining demographic growth and job creation for its residents, their children and grandchildren?  Should a home in the countryside be exclusive only to those able to afford a faux farm and a Range Rover?

And what about all of the mountains, lakes and lakefronts owned by the forestry companies?   How can they be made more accessible to Island residents and visitors while maintaining their environmental integrity and essential beauty?

It is wishful thinking to expect the Provincial Government to pursue a comprehensive, long-term approach to the alternative use for forestry land in the path of development on Vancouver Island. The debate on the future of this land will continue, most likely, in a piecemeal fashion in rural Regional Districts and urban Municipalities up and down the Island.  I hope that the land owners and the communities have the vision and courage to pursue this unique opportunity that they face together; to unlock the value of this land to strengthen Vancouver Island’s reputation as a place of boundless beauty and strong, healthy sustainable communities.

A crowded West Coast beach