The Town of Qualicum Beach’s 2016 annual report isn’t meant to just highlight the town’s accomplishment’s but also success stories from the community, says the town’s chief administrative officer.
CAO Daniel Sailland said new in this year’s report are success stories from the community that the town supported, which he said he was quite pleased with.
“It’s not just employees or not just council, it spoke to those in the community that stepped up,” Sailland said.
In the success stories section was the Johdee (refugee) family who arrived in Canada last summer. Sailland said a request for expression of interest on a town-owned home on Sunningdale Road suggested using the house for a refugee family. Because of that, Sailland said, the town hosted an evening at the civic centre to see who would be interested in bringing a refugee family to the town, and from there a group was formalized.
Sailland also highlighted the use of the former firehall, which houses Island Soda Works and Cloudhead Games, and the annual volunteer appreciation celebration which honoured 210 volunteers.
The report also states:
• Chesapeake Shores filming pumped $2.1 million in direct spending into the local economy. Of that, $300,000 was spent per day in local businesses.
Sailland said while the town doesn’t know how much money was injected specifically into the town’s economy, he said the crews do need to fill out forms and permits and a charge goes toward using certain spaces. Also, if the crews require any of the town staff’s time there is a cost associated.
Filming is set to wrap up in Qualicum Beach on July 19, Sailland said at last Monday’s (June 19) council meeting.
• Forty-four single-family dwelling building permits and five secondary suite permits were issued, along with more than $19 million in new construction of single-family dwellings within the town. This is compared to 2015 which saw 37 single-family dwelling permits issued and seven secondary suite permits issued which totalled more than $15 million in home construction.
There was also $950,000 spent in multi-family dwellings and more than $1.1 million spent in commercial construction within the town.
• In 2016, only six incidents of vandalism were reported compared to 2015 which had 20 incidents of vandalism on public property reported.