Guiding Principles for the October 17 Election--and After

Guiding Principles for our Shared Island Home

We at Transition Salt Spring developed these guiding principles for our submission on Salt Spring’s decades-old Official Community Plan. We need a new plan that addresses today’s big challenges.

We offer these principles to bring us together as we prepare to choose new local leadership on October 17. They're meant as a set of shared intentions – to put residents, elected officials, local government staff, and island businesses on common ground. They aren't the last word; they're a starting point, to help us agree on what matters, and why.

10 guiding principles for stewarding our shared island home

1. Plan for the climate we’re already living in, and the harder one ahead. Salt Spring must prepare for heat, drought, wildfire, flooding, sea-level rise, food insecurity, and other climate risks while cutting emissions within local control.
2. Grow where we’ve already built. Focus most remaining growth in existing villages and serviced areas to make better use of roads and community infrastructure while reducing pressure on forests, watersheds, farms, and rural land.
3. Don’t build tomorrow’s risks. Steer new development away from places where significant water, fire, flood, emergency access, or ecosystem risks can’t be well-managed.
4. Measure what matters, then act. Maintain and use the best available local evidence – both scientific data and Indigenous knowledge – on climate risk, water, ecosystems, and development capacity. Set clear measures of success, and report results regularly and publicly.
5. Enable housing people can actually afford. Support smaller, water-wise, climate-smart homes to rent and to own – including suites, co-ops, land trusts, and other models that help people stay on Salt Spring.
6. House the people who keep Salt Spring running. Put limited land and water toward year-round homes for people who live and work here – workers, families, farmworkers, caregivers, young people, elders, and multigenerational households – closer to jobs, services, and community life.
7. Make local food security a land-use priority. Protect farms and farmers by making zoning flexible enough to allow the worker housing and value-added activities – like processing and on-farm sales – that a working farm needs to be viable. Protect their access to water, whether from a private well or a water district, alongside strong conservation practices.
8. Care for the living world we belong to. Protect and restore forests, soils, wetlands, watersheds, shorelines, marine systems, and wildlife habitat – for what they give us, for their own wild flourishing, and because we are actually a part of this place, not apart from it.
9. Plan in partnership with First Nations. On these unceded Coast Salish territories, move from consultation toward shared decision-making: engage Nations early, seek their agreement before making decisions that affect their territories, and give Indigenous knowledge genuine weight in what’s decided.
10. Make the rules clear. Turn these principles into plain-language policies, so residents, staff, trustees, and applicants understand what's expected and why it matters.

how to get ready for voting day

These principles grew from what we heard across the community at a summit of 70 community leaders we held in May 2025 and are a part of our submission for a new Official Community Plan — a shared hope for an island that stays livable, resilient, and welcoming for generations to come. Elections are how we turn that hope into direction. However you choose to vote, the strongest thing any of us can do is show up, listen, and ask good questions.

taking action with the future in mind. it takes all of us.

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