Published in Focus Magazine (Victoria), February 2008.
See also the larger report on Langford’s Bear Mountain Interchange
As Langford prepares to blast a four-lane highway up Skirt Mountain, through Garry Oak meadows beside Goldstream Provincial Park, let’s look at some facts. In 2005, Langford city councillor John Goudy sold a swath of forest land to the Bear Mountain developer. The price? A tidy $1.25 million and the promise of “$10,000 upon sale of every lot sold.” A year later, Goudy helped approve $750,000 of municipal funding for the Bear Mountain Interchange – a project designed to service his former property.
Goudy Land
In the opening years of the 21st century, public and private forest land at Skirt Mountain in Langford, BC was transferred to former NHL player Len Barrie for the $2-billion Bear Mountain Resort. Source: Freedom of Information release by Land Reserve Commission, February 2007.
British Columbia’s Community Charter is clear: decisions should not be tainted with bias. According to the latin phrase nemo judex in sua causa debet esse, “no one should be a judge in his or her own cause.”
John Goudy’s land had been in the family since 1957, serving as a getaway where children played in a large pond and scrambled up the slopes of Miniskirt Mountain (named by Goudy’s father). In the 1980s, the Goudys benefited from the Small-Scale Forestry Program, part of the Canada-B.C. Forest Resource Development Agreement, receiving silviculture grants to improve the forestry value of their 187-acre property. “It is the owners’ goal to manage the forest resource to its best potential,” John Goudy informed the province in 1991.
Development pressures increased with Langford’s incorporation in 1992, as sprawl encroached on B.C.’s agricultural and forest land. The NDP government responded with the Forest Land Reserve Act in 1994, mandating that “private forest land reserve (FLR) land…must not be subdivided.” Goudy’s land was included in the new FLR.
However, beginning in 1996, Goudy and his sisters sought to remove parcels from the FLR, initially to construct dwellings for family members but later to provide a road for Bear Mountain. In April 2001, the Land Reserve Commission rejected the removal of 35 acres for the Bear Mountain Parkway on the grounds that: (1) “forestry can be practiced,” (2) “removal and subsequent subdivision would negatively impact” surrounding FLR lands, and (3) previous investment in forestry “would be lost.”
Crown grants to WFP
Skirt Mountain was transformed in 2001 when the province granted 249 acres of Crown land to Western Forest Products (WFP) – including a 100-acre parcel at the base of Mt. Finlayson originally slated for Goldstream Provincial Park. The land was flipped to LGB9, the Bear Mountain development corporation, along with several hundred acres of private WFP land.
The Crown grant reflected years of lobbying by Bob Flitton, a WFP employee, past president of the Canadian Home Builders Association, and former Deputy Minister of Lands and Forests in the Bill Vanderzalm Social Credit government (and Bear Mountain’s current Residential Project Manager). Crews had surveyed Skirt Mountain in 1998 but negotiations stalled over a proposed parkland swap on northern Vancouver Island and opposition from local First Nations.
In 2000, the Tsartlip First Nation of Brentwood Bay warned the province that demands to give up “traditional lands” had become “very critical.” Seeking to blunt opposition, Flitton arranged for the transfer of 22 acres from the Crown to the Tsartlip, but rejected the First Nation’s attempt to register a protective covenant. “That is something that we need to convince them not to pursue,” Flitton confided to a provincial civil servant. Opposition was also expressed by Rick Kasper, MLA for Malahat-Juan De Fuca, who wrote the environment minister “requesting the details as to how this sale was not tendered, but rather offered to a sole bidder.”
WFP took title to the Crown land in July 2001 but another obstacle impeded the Bear Mountain land assembly: FLR protection of the Goudy lands. In December 2001, Bob Flitton wrote the minister of sustainable resource management, Stan Hagen, requesting “urgent” assistance to remove the 35 acres owned by Goudy’s sister – a parcel needed for the Bear Mountain Parkway right-of-way.
“Western Forest Products, a Doman company, has an urgent requirement to obtain a letter from the Forest Land Commission by December 28, 2001 or we stand to jeopardize a $7.5 million business deal,” Flitton informed Hagen. “Bottom line is we need someone who is authorized to act and we need it quickly. This may be the Minister or the Deputy Minister.” Two days latter, the Land Reserve Commission provided the comfort letter and the WFP lands were transferred to LGB9.
Len G. Barrie, a former NHL Florida Panthers “enforcer”, took control of Langford’s Skirt Mountain.
Rezoning and Roads
Langford rezoned Skirt Mountain in June 2002 from “Greenbelt 2” to a new “Comprehensive Development 6 (Bear Mountain)” zone. Councillor John Goudy absented himself, citing a conflict of interest related to his ownership of adjacent property. Development was capped at 700 units “until a new north/south road that joins the subject property directly to the Trans-Canada Highway is constructed and operational.” Bear Mountain was born – along with plans for a highway interchange.
In the years that followed, Bear Mountain carved its way up Skirt Mountain, blasting Garry Oak meadows and Douglas Fir forest through “terraforming” – leveling the landscape to construct roads and houses on uniform rocky terraces. Two Jack Nicklaus-designed golf courses and a Whistler-esque village centre took shape, part of a projected $2.5 billion development. Traffic congestion on Millstream Road worsened in tandem with a sprawling “power centre” big-box mall at the base of Skirt Mountain.
In 2003, Langford approved a capital projects list with the proposed connector “from the southerly Bear Mountain property boundary to the Trans-Canada Highway.” LGB9’s allowable density increased from 1500 to 2200 units and 400,000 square feet of commercial space, and council removed a five-storey building-height limit – foreshadowing proposed 40-storey condo towers. A staff report pegged the cost of the interchange at $36 million, with an extra $3.6 million needed to extend the parkway from the property boundary to Bear Mountain’s village centre. Traffic covenants that had limited Bear Mountain’s growth were relaxed in 2004, allowing development approvals on a “phase by phase” basis.
In February 2005, John Goudy sold his Skirt Mountain property to LGB9. He held a mortgage for $1.5 million, at an annual interest rate of 12.5% with a clause providing “the sum of $10,000 upon sale of each lot sold.” Langford rezoned the Goudy Lands from Greenbelt 2 to CD6 (Bear Mountain), increasing LBG9’s development ceiling to 2983 units. While project manager Les Bjola claimed that Bear Mountain had “been very diligent in protecting the sensitive ecological areas,” Langford residents disagreed. One speaker at a public hearing argued that “this type of development will scar our landscape” and result in “the logging of Mini and Skirt Mountain.”
Conflict over the Interchange
On February 6, 2006, Langford council granted pre-budgetary approval for “Bear Mountain Interchange Design Development,” authorizing $750,000 in municipal spending. John Goudy seconded the motion, which, according to the minutes, passed without an opposing vote.
The Community Charter, which governs B.C. municipalities, devotes a section to conflicts of interest. Council members with “a direct or indirect pecuniary (financial) interest in a matter” “must not
a) remain or attend at any part of a meeting…during which the matter is under consideration,
b) participate in any discussion of the matter at such a meeting,
c) vote on a question in respect of the matter at such a meeting, or
d) attempt in any way, whether before, during or after such a meeting, to influence the voting on any question in respect of the matter.” (Section 101)
John Goudy appears to have a stake in the Bear Mountain Interchange, due to his ongoing financial interest in LGB9. Despite attempts to spin the highway project as having broader community benefits (i.e. the recent moniker “Spencer Road Interchange”), it has been tied to Bear Mountain from the start. In March 2006, Les Bjola told the Victoria News that the interchange was essential for the “ultimate build-out” of Bear Mountain.
The interchange is designed to service two arterial roads: the Bear Mountain Parkway, which winds its way along the Goldstream park border to the Bear Mountain village centre; and Echo Valley Parkway, a new road above Florence Lake to the sprouting subdivisions on the former Goudy Lands. LGB9s real-estate sales – and Goudy’s “$10,000…for every lot sold” – will be facilitated by the Bear Mountain Interchange.
The Community Charter provides a clear remedy when conflict of interest rules are breached: “A person who contravenes this section is disqualified from holding an office…unless the contravention was done inadvertently or because of an error in judgment made in good faith.”
This article is based on a larger report prepared for West Coast Environmental Law.
