As a March 31 deadline looms, Savary Island Land Trust executive director Liz Webster has been tallying the amount of money raised every day.
“We have almost $2.5 million and we need $4 million,” said Webster.
After 20 years of effort to preserve the last piece of undivided and undeveloped wilderness on Savary, Webster has no doubt the money will be raised and the goal will be reached.
“We're almost there,” she said. “We're going to achieve this.”
Webster’s optimism is based on a purchase agreement signed in December 2017 between Bellingham, Washington, businessperson Roger Sahlin and Friends of Savary for the latter to acquire the remaining 50 per cent interest in the land, officially registered as District Lot 1375, and Lots 35 and 36.
“One of the things that fired things up most recently was Mr. Sahlin's bankruptcy in the US,” said Webster. “He wasn't ready to sell. All of the science is there. All of the community interest is there. It just makes total sense this project be protected land, but he wasn't ready.”
To the island trust and community, the land is “the heart of Savary,” the 350-acre middle third of the narrow, overgrown sandbar, which forms a saddle between the island’s two plateaus and encompasses both sides of the island with 12,000 feet of coastline and the north and south facing beaches.
Friends of Savary includes prominent Vancouver businesspeople and seasonal Savary residents John O’Neill, a co-founder of O’Neill Hotels and Resorts, Peter Armstrong, chief executive officer of Armstrong Hospitality Group, which includes Rocky Mountaineer, and Kip Woodward, president of Woodcorp Investments and chairman of Vancouver Coastal Health. All three have donated significant amounts of money and are involved in the final push for pledges and donations.
“We'll assign our purchasing sale agreement for the 50 per cent to the Nature Trust of BC,” said O’Neill.
The nature trust currently owns 50 per cent of the land.
“We'll raise the money and direct all of the funds to the nature trust,” said O’Neill. “The nature trust will have the money and buy out Sahlin on his 50 per cent interest and it will be a done deal.”
O’Neill said he shares Webster’s optimism, but there are still hurdles remaining, similar to any complicated transaction. Currently, the land is tied up, there is a subject removal date at the end of March and the deal has to close by the end of May, according to O’Neill.
“If our pledges are where we're comfortable with at the end of March we'll go firm on the deal, and by the end of May we'll have all of the money in the hands of the nature trust so they can complete the transaction,” said O’Neill.
The history of Savary Island Land Trust began in 1995 when the community rallied to conserve the 350 acres against the threat of the land being subdivided and developed as a 90-unit gated community by Sahlin. The plan was originally endorsed by Powell River Regional District.
In 2001, Nature Trust of BC acquired the first 50 per cent of the lands through partnerships with the provincial and federal governments, including 12 acres of adjacent waterfront properties donated by longtime Savary residents Dick Whittle and John Nicol.
“We've now held these undivided interests in three lots on Savary Island for about 17 years and there's been a lot of discussion involving a lot of people over that time,” said Nature Trust of BC chief executive officer Jasper Lament. “This is as close as we've ever been to finding a way to finish it all and come to a great conclusion of this story.”
Webster said she thought it would never take as long as it has to get this close to finally acquiring the land to preserve and protect it in perpetuity.
“When we came up with this vision so many years ago it just seemed to me it could be done,” she said. “I never believed it couldn't be done.”
The last two decades have not been easy, which is not unusual for land conservation stories, according Lament.
“Land conservation is a complex business and we like to say at the Nature Trust of British Columbia that land conservation takes patience, persistent and partnerships, and Savary Island is an example of all three of those,” said Lament.
Savary is one of the region’s treasures and unique among the islands of the Strait of Georgia.
Its sand dunes are considered the best example of a coastal dune ecosystem in Canada, according to Kwantlen Polytechnic University biologist Kathy Dunster. It is a habitat for red cedar, shore pine, Pacific yews, gumweed, red fescue and wormwood, and beneath it is a huge aquifer.
Not only is it important as an ecosystem, the land trust is different from most others in BC.
“On Savary Island, the population is mostly based seasonally, so it's an extraordinary accomplishment what they've done as a community wanting to preserve and protect the parcels of land there,” said Land Trust Alliance of BC executive director Paul McNair. “In most cases, for instance Salt Spring Island or Denman Island, the people would live there permanently year-round, so they have a much more permanent kind of base of people, whereas Savary Island is totally different from almost anywhere else.”
Savary was originally purchased by a logging company in the late 1800s, but when it discovered the trees were of such poor quality to make them financially viable, it was subdivided for development. Small lots, approximately 50 feet by 100 feet, were sold at the 1910 Pacific National Exhibition for $10 down and $10 per month.
The subdivision of approximately 1,400 lots on an island approximately seven and a half kilometres long and 1.5 kilometres at its widest point created the highest density of any of the Georgia Strait islands, according to Webster.
“We don't want Savary to be a city and the subdivision that's on most of it is urban-size parcels,” said Webster, who is also a cultural anthropologist at Vancouver Island University. “Heritage starts with the land. Many times it could have been destroyed.”
