MOVING TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE SERVICE DELIVERY IN THE COMOX VALLEY: “Asset Management for Sustainable Service Delivery is much more than setting some money aside for infrastructure replacement. It must be a comprehensive and integrated approach that links the past, present and future,” stated Geoff Garbutt, City of Manager, City of Courtenay

July 22, 2023 - Posted in 2023 posts, BC Framework for Asset Management for Sustainable Service Delivery establishes expectations for community planning, Contextual Resources

Note to Reader:

Waterbucket eNews celebrates the leadership of individuals and organizations who are guided by the Living Water Smart vision. The edition published on May 30, 2023 featured the story behind the story of the “experiment in collaboration” involving the four local governments in the Comox Valley over the past two decades. 

To download a copy of the Comox Valley story, click on Stream Systems and Watershed Stewardship in the Comox Valley: Moving Towards Sustainable Service Delivery.

Moving Towards Sustainable Service Delivery

“The Comox Valley was the first region to embrace the vision for Asset Management for Sustainable Service Delivery as a regional goal. Keep in mind that this was in 2011, four years before the BC Framework was jointly released by UBCM and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs through Asset Management BC,” states Kim Stephens, Executive Director, Partnership for Water Sustainability in BC.

“An over-arching takeaway from the Comox Valley story is that the collaboration journey must be measured in terms of decades rather than years. Collaboration has built trust in the Comox Valley. The four local governments are looking beyond their boundaries to figure out how they can help and support each other.”

To Learn More:

To download a copy of the Comox Valley story, click on Stream Systems and Watershed Stewardship in the Comox Valley: Moving Towards Sustainable Service Delivery.

DOWNLOAD A COPY: https://waterbucket.ca/wcp/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2023/05/PWSBC_Living-Water-Smart_trust-is-currency-of-collaboration_2023.pdf

 

STORY BEHIND THE STORY

“The Eco-Asset Symposium in 2017 put the Comox Valley on the map,” continues Kim Stephens. “It attracted a capacity crowd of 160 delegates from as far as away as the East Kootenays and many were reluctantly turned away. The symposium was a collaboration of the Comox Valley Conservation Partnership and four local governments and included a public event.”

“The symposium was the first high-profile event on Vancouver Island, if not British Columbia, to draw attention to Natural Asset Management and the potentially powerful and cost-effective role that ecosystem services can play in an infrastructure strategy. In effect, it served as the springboard to so much that has subsequently unfolded.”

 

Being an early adopter of the vision for Sustainable Service Delivery also put the Comox Valley on the map

“In 2011, the regional team was ahead of the curve when we turned our minds to the challenge of a regional response to infrastructure liability,” Derek Richmond informed the Comox Valley Regional Board in October 2017.

“When one reflects on how understanding of how the goal of Assessment Management for Sustainable Service Delivery: A BC Framework has evolved in BC, it is evident that the Comox Valley has played an important and significant role as a catalyst for action.”

 

 

Importance of a champion at the highest level

“Looking back, the arrival of David Allen in 2013 as Courtenay’s Chief Administrative Officer created the momentum necessary to move from awareness to action,” observes Kim Stephens. “A champion of Sustainable Service Delivery, David Allen presented a vision of what could be, and subsequently left a legacy foundation for successive municipal councils to embrace this vision. In 2019, under David’s watch, Courtenay adopted BC’s first Asset Management Bylaw.”

 

 

PART ONE: What intergovernmental collaboration looks like in the Comox Valley

 

Lines of communication are open ”With four local governments in the Comox Valley, how do we stay on the same path? Our shared vision developed through the Regional Growth Strategy has us working together, with shared principles, and are rowing in the same direction. With this backbone, collaboration can then be really powerful. A lot of that rowing in the same direction is going to be supported by our focus on the natural environment, environmental management, climate adaptation.” “The four CAOs have diverse backgrounds which include individual and group strengths in financial management, economic development, governance, services and planning. We are working closely together, and those lines of communication are open. We are looking for shared service models.” “We are looking at opportunities to develop a level of consistency to manage a variety of issues. And we are looking to tackle them in a common way. One of the goals from our OCP is to incorporate similar rules from the different jurisdictions. The objective is to be consistent while also helping our development community.”

Asset Management for Sustainable Service Delivery “In my mind, the phrase Asset Management for Sustainable Service Delivery is a euphemism for make the right decisions, think about the future, and then take action. It is much more than just the physical infrastructure. It is more than just setting some money aside for infrastructure replacement.” “It must be comprehensive and integrated in linking the past, present and future. And furthermore, Asset Management for Sustainable Service Delivery has got to evolve because the future is NOT the past.”

 

PART TWO: A local government’s water stewardship journey meanders like a creek

 

Benefits of inter-regional collaboration

“We no longer meet every month like we used to back in 2009. In years past, CAVI meetings were scheduled in our calendars because sharing sessions with other Comox Valley local governments were ongoing. However, everything we learned is enduring.”

“For example, right now CVRD is doing a watershed stewardship study across the entire regional district to determine whether a watershed stewardship service similar to what is in place for the Nanaimo and Cowichan is something that the Comox Valley community will support.”

“Without the knowledge of what has been done in both the Regional District of Nanaimo and Cowichan Valley Regional District, and the contacts that we have made through the IREI, we might have gone a different way or reinvented the wheel. But we do have these models and these contacts as a result of inter-regional collaboration.”

 

PART THREE: Working towards the Sustainable Service Delivery goal in the Town of Comox

Collaboration and knowing who to contact

“Oak Bay is demonstrating what a difference it makes when municipal staff have clear direction from Council to achieve two outcomes. So, we reached out to Christopher Paine, Oak Bay’s Director of Financial Services, to see what we could learn from Oak Bay experience.”

“Oak Bay’s first objective is to stem the incremental erosion of levels of service in the short-term. Their second objective is to translate an intergenerational perspective into a life-cycle plan of action for perpetual infrastructure renewal.”

“An appealing aspect of what Oak Bay is doing, and Comox can do it too, is to put money in the bank. The advantage of that strategy is that a local government can use the interest earned to pay for the inflationary costs of infrastructure replacement.”