A draft renewable energy plan for the town of Ucluelet was presented to mayor and council during the March 12 regular meeting.
Maya Chorobik from the Community Energy Association ran through a presentation that highlighted Ucluelet’s climate action goals across four sector categories: transportation, buildings, waste, and municipal operations.
Chorobik, who has worked on similar green energy projects in small communities across B.C. and Alberta, said transportation emissions are the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Ucluelet.
Transportation goals within the draft plan include attracting key services to the area so residents don’t have to travel, promoting low-carbon transportation modes like biking, connecting to a regional transportation service, and supporting the transition to electric vehicles.
“This plan has been developed closely with district staff as well as a result of a few engagement opportunities with the public. A general open house presenting some opportunities for climate action in Ucluelet as well as a deeper dive on electric vehicles and potential there. You’ll see that [EVs] are a large focus of the plan,” said Chorobik.
In November 2018, the Government of British Columbia announced that by 2040, all new cars and trucks sold in B.C. will have to be zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs).
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District of Ucluelet CAO Mark Boysen pointed out that many of the commitments in the draft renewable energy plan draw from the Official Community Plan process.
“Fortunately there was a lot of sustainability and climate action pieces in that discussion and so it helped with developing this plan. There were policies already there for us to build on and bake into the plan,” said Boysen.
He went on to highlight the importance of forming partnerships.
“I’ve said several times, these are regional issues. For me, I did this type of work for 10 years. My successes were partnerships. I was working with partnerships. They were always lower costs and more successful in general because they were working with other organizations. Composting is a huge one. Transportation as well. These are all regional issues we can work on,” said Boysen.
Mayor Noël thanked district staff and Chorobik for the 45-page draft renewable energy plan.
“Usually when you see something like this there’s all that pushback and ‘how does it relate to me?’, but when you start to break it down to some of the stuff that’s happened like the Builders Energy Step Code and more of ACRD using organic, sometimes it looks like they are unreachable goals, but when you start to break it down a little bit it seems like we’ve already taken positive steps,” said Noël.
Boysen said there could be an opportunity to brand Ucluelet as a low-carbon tourism leader.
“We’d like to move the conversation along gradually. We have a lot going on in the town, but we’ll try to keep this conversation alive,” said Boysen.
The District of Ucluelet is partnering with the District of Tofino, the ACRD, and BC Transit for a transportation service between Tofino and Ucluelet. Public open houses are scheduled for April 3 in Tofino and April 4 in Ucluelet.
A final adoption of Ucluelet’s draft climate action plan was scheduled for the March 26 regular meeting. Anyone interested in providing feedback is encouraged email: info@ucluelet.ca by March 19.
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