There could be 2,010 housing units developed in the Lower Soo Valley, according to early conceptual discussions. One hundred more homes are planned for the land north of Wedge Mountain.
The Ravens Crest development near Pemberton could bring 350 homes to the area.
There are proposals for 1,400 homes at Porteau Cove, almost 100 more in Britannia Beach, and Furry Creek has been approved for another 800 residences by the time it reaches build out.
Add in Olympic development, an upgraded highway, and the possibility of a new airport, and you’ve got an area around Whistler on the cusp of great change, readying itself for an unprecedented rate of growth.
"It's coming at us like a locomotive," said Whistler’s Mayor Hugh O’Reilly, one of the nine members of the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District board.
To help manage this growth, the SLRD is fast-tracking a region-wide plan called the Regional Growth Strategy, which should be complete in 2006. It's a large-scale project which will end up costing the regional district more than $550,000.
Some officials admit this plan should have been done years ago to help the SLRD make decisions about the future of the Sea to Sky corridor and the area beyond. Though it may be late, they're pleased that it's now underway and gathering steam.
"Maybe we’re five years late in doing it, but we’re doing it," said Pemberton Mayor Elinor Warner, one of the only SLRD directors who supported Whistler’s push for the RGS in previous years when others at the SLRD would not.
In the next 15 years, the population of the SLRD is set to almost double in size, from 35,000 people to a total of 65,000, with most of that growth happening in the southern area of the district, from Pemberton to Lions Bay.
To put that in real terms, the regional district will need 15,000 additional residences to house those new people.
That's got SLRD Board Chair John Turner thinking, "OK, where are we going to put 15,000 new residences and how are we going to be able to manage that over the next 20 years?"
Much of the growth pressure has been sparked by the region's proximity to the Lower Mainland but also by Whistler’s enormous success, a reaction Whistler anticipated almost a decade ago. It’s just one of the reasons O’Reilly has been calling for a plan since he first became an SLRD director nine years ago.
"(Whistler has) always known that if we… had the kind of success that Vail or Aspen or some of the other resorts had, that our success would have impacts to our neighbouring communities," he said.
More importantly, Whistler knew that the decisions outside its boundaries, this so-called fringe development, could have a tremendous impact on the resort itself.
That's one of the reasons, O'Reilly has staunchly opposed the development at Wedge and why he's concerned about the plans for the Lower Soo Valley, which have yet to come before the board in a formal proposal. Indeed the current application before the province calls for far less development there than that conceptual and catchy build out of 2,010 units.
Whistler, for all intents and purposes, has reached build-out.
Those developments, though they may be self-sufficient with sewer and water lines, will draw on Whistler's services, putting pressure on its facilities without adding to its tax base.
"Obviously we don't think it's appropriate," said O'Reilly.
"I remind the regional district, just because you have capacity to grow, doesn't mean you should. Whistler has a lot more capacity to grow than we’ve allowed."
Likewise, the developments will undoubtedly impact Pemberton too, giving Mayor Warner pause for thought.
"Certainly I sit at the regional district table representing Pemberton but when you go to the regional district table you put your regional hat on and you think regionally," said Warner. "That's where I think growth strategies will help us the best, at least it will help me the best in looking at the Soo and Wedge across the way.
"(Some) things aren't really directly related to Pemberton but boy, they sure can affect the traffic and transportation and stuff on the highway, can't they?"
Developers argue they are filling a niche by providing more housing, some of which is affordable housing for Whistler's workforce.
The point remains, there is no overarching plan which looks at the area 20 years from now and asks the tough questions.
O'Reilly said a growth plan should force you to look down the road and ask: "What is it you want to be and how do you protect that?
"You're trying to protect your key things and that's what you have to define."
That was the goal of Whistler's Comprehensive Sustainability Plan, which asked the community what it wanted to look like in 2020.
That's also the ultimate goal of the Regional Growth Strategy.
And yet, for years there was a reticence to buy into the process at the regional district board table, despite Whistler’s arguments for planning.
"There were some fears and I think one of them was this is Whistler's attempt to try and control what other communities want to do, and that was never the intent of it," explained O’Reilly. "It was about working as a corridor because if we don't plan our future, someone's going to plan it for us."
And then, with a shift in the political climate south of Whistler at the end of 2002, O'Reilly said there was real support for a large-scale plan for the region.
The Regional Growth Strategy kicked off more than a year ago. The idea is to allow the region to plan at a high level to understand where every community wants to be and how they want to get there. This is a formal way of getting those ideas on paper and talking together about the future of the region.
"There are two thing that go with growth," said O'Reilly. "You have to have great land use planning and transportation. Those are the things you've got to anticipate."
Try as they might to fast track the plan and get it in place in time for November’s elections, it’s taking longer than anticipated.
In the meantime, the SLRD is making decisions that could impact the corridor without a guiding plan in place. This has prompted the need for a memorandum of understanding between the key players.
"The memorandum of understanding is viewed as a transitional step between now and adoption of the Regional Growth Strategy," said SLRD Administrator Paul Edgington. "And it is a way by which the parties will be respectful of each other’s various jurisdictions by agreeing on some guiding principles that they mutually believe are needed to address matters of regional significance between now and when the growth strategy is adopted."
For example, he said, the board could agree to follow only Smart Growth principles for any future development in the corridor to limit sprawl. Or they could decide to consider only those development applications already documented in Official Community Plans until the RGS is complete.
"It's recognizing that you can't just stop business while you're doing the growth strategy," said Edgington. "And so, because some things may have to be decided between now and then, these would be the principles that the elected leaders would use to guide their decision-making."
Edgington also pointed out that it's not just the development in the rural areas, which is affecting the future of communities in the region. Decisions made in one community could impact the surrounding communities he said.
For example, should Whistler try to house more of its workforce within the resort in resident housing, Squamish and Pemberton could feel tremendous impacts.
"Everybody's decisions have an impact on the others," said Edgington.
All of this means that the SLRD is at an interesting time in its history; a time where it needs to sit back and think about the future while it scrambles to deal with present events.
But if any community knows what a difference good planning can make it's Whistler. It’s one of the factors behind its success, said O’Reilly.
"I think the success we had here demonstrates that good planning pays big dividends," he said.
"What you're trying to do (when you plan) is anticipate what might happen. It's not going to answer all your questions but it's going to put you way ahead."
