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Local housing advocate honoured

Park to be named after Steve Bayley

By Vivian Moreau

Long-time Whistler resident and housing advocate Steve Bayly was honoured for contributions to the community at Whistler council’s meeting this week.

Bayly was a founding member and former general manager of the Whistler Housing Authority as well as both a private and public employee housing developer. With partner Jon Paine he built the Barnfield Farm housing project and as a director and general manager with the housing authority was instrumental in getting several projects off the ground. He was also one of the key players in building Function Junction.

Councillor Tim Wake worked with Bayly at the housing authority.

“I have learned things from Steve Bayly every month for 10 years,” Wake said after the council meeting. “He understands the mechanisms and the components of a deal and he knows how to keep things moving forward, knows how to move a project through a political process.”

Mayor Ken Melamed presented a plaque to Bayly, who was accompanied by wife Andrea and children Matthew and Nancy, at the start of the March 5 council meeting. In addition Melamed said a park will be named after Bayly in the proposed athletes village at the village’s south end. Bayly quietly accepted the plaque but laughed when one councillor asked if he’d also like a bridge named after him. Two bridges in Whistler are already named after former politically-active locals.

Marla Zucht, president of the Whistler Housing Authority, has known Bayly for seven years.

“He’s funny, insightful, and very grounded,” she said, adding that she learned about the construction industry from the ground up from Bayly.

Whistler Housing Authority has organized an informal tribute to Bayly open to the public for Friday, March 9, 5:30 p.m. at the Brewhouse Pub.