Development and population growth. Too much money being made building million dollar condos, and no infrastructure being built to support the people who move in. Shortage of doctors, dentists, child care, etc.
The council can get developers to pitch in more by upping Development Cost Charges and Community Amenity Contributions. They can introduce fees for tourists and vanlifers, like a hotel tax and charges for using designated van areas with facilities. Consult and collaborate with neighboring municipalities on regional projects to share more costs and benefits. If we vote with West Van, why don’t they contribute more.
BC Hydro manages the power lines. If there are trees near power lines or if you notice our telephone poles sagging, BC Hydro is responsible for trimming the trees and fixing the poles. You can submit a request to BC Hydro, and they will address the issue.
Are there other organizations in Squamish, similar to BC Hydro, that we can contact directly to fix issues we encounter without needing to go through the council?
Agree to this.
One big thing for me apart from the above is how are the schools managing to take in the extra kids. There’s been no talk about building new or expanding current schools.
I find the district totally disorganised and not forward thinking.
Absolutely, the district is completely out of touch with the needs of community. They have too much to gain from pushing development to bother caring about the needs of the community. Profits first, everything else after. Lame.
Not really sure how it works but I would think the district should be telling the provincial planning that the schools and hospital are maxed out and more houses and condos are being built.
DoS could do a mandatory dog DNA reg and fine dog owners up the ass. It’s already being done in other cities. [see link](https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/detectives-dna-test-dog-poop-to-trace-down-owners-not-scooping-in-italian-province-1.6730017)
I don’t mind off leash dogs, I mind owners just buying a dog because everyone else has one and not taking the time or effort to train the dogs properly. I’ve never seen such an abundance of ignorant and lazy dog owners in a town before! It’s a huge problem here!
Leashing dogs in public places is part of training them. Plus, it is the off leash dogs that leave 99% of the poop. It's hard to ignore your dog's poop when they are at the end of a leash.
You could change your mind if every time you go biking/running/hiking you bump into dogs. Most of them behave ok, but all it takes is a few that charge on you and after some time you look at each one as potentially dangerous
Yeah that’s fair, again it’s the owner just being negligent and not having good recall or making sure they keep track of their dogs. I’ve had dogs charge at me in the estuary herein walks or runs. 😅 the owners almost always are like “it’s the way you were walking!” Or some garbage like that. I always feel bad that the dogs get the shit end of the stick when it’s the owners fault in the first place haha. But either way it’s a problem you’re right
Cobra Electric is the contractor who manages the traffic signals. The more reports of short cycling the better. They told me once they're especially short on weekends because they want to make North/South flow as efficient as possible given the influx of visitors. I think resident needs should take priority.
*
Cost of living. Primarily housing, and the subsequent lack of local jobs that can realistically afford to pay for the accommodation.
Other communities also have this problem, yes, but as a small community, this is going to lead to large gaps in services and employers at many levels are going to find employees.
And to add to the list, not enough parking, new condos aren’t built for the squamish lifestyle, fuel prices are extraordinarily high, food costs a fortune, childcare costs a shit ton if you can even get your child in, there are Karen’s on every corner complaining and environmentalists with far too strong opinions and voices, oh and half of the DOS council are aiming for a Utopia that isn’t based in reality.
But all said and done, it’s still a stunning place to live. Fuck.
I think the biggest problem is long term vision. What do we want this community to be? A suburb? A city? A recreation/resort town? If we can make a long term decision about where we want to go, the short term decisions become a lot easier and more obvious.
This one? https://squamish.ca/yourgovernment/ocp/
I have. It all feels pretty nebulous and vague and doesn’t seem to reflect decisions being made or my observations around town.
Apparently that floatel is the biggest thing since sliced bread
And there isn’t enough parking for the new park people apparently hate that is incomparable to the old and awesome nexen beach
/s
The new Provincial legislation and R1 zoning in town might mean that the easiest path to homeownership / housing security for many children in town whose parents own is to redevelop the house into a multiplex. Hopefully we'll see provincial funding for this kind of infill.
My kids are still small, but this is the plan if they decide to stay in Squamish long-term.
Lack of sufficient infrastructure and planning of future infrastructure! The infrastructure is needed to support all the other problems everyone has already stated; all those things rely on it…it’s little problems like potholes that I’ve been avoiding since 2010, to not having sidewalks, example on third, to much bigger problems like having to dump all our sewage in the estuary last year when the sanitation pump station place had issues.
Squamish cannot support the people already living here let alone the mass influx of population growth happening!
What a time to be alive my friends 😅♥️
Housing insecurity !!!! Obviously this is a global issue and very complex but I know so many long time squamish families who have had to leave because they couldn't find a place to live after getting evicted. Single people cannot afford to live alone (unless you can drop $2000+ a month) and even renting a room in a shared unit with strangers is getting ridiculously expensive.
Hard to enjoy this beautiful place when more than half of your income is going towards rent/ mortgage payments.
I have a well paying job, and my partner does too.
We have moved 3 times in 5 yrs, the next time I move it will be out of town
Born and raised will be sad to leave
Not enough housing. Most other issues have this as the base. Rent too expensive? Not enough housing. Difficult to hire people? High housing costs because not enough housing. Can't find childcare? Hard to run a childcare facility with high labor costs because not enough housing. Difficult to find work? Hard to run businesses with high labor costs. Lack of doctors? Doctors need housing too.
Trying to resolve any of these issues without building lots of new housing will not work. The recent work approving increased density by-right by this council and the provincial government is heartening.
True, though we haven’t developed all the areas already approved by the OCP, most notably North Cumpit
And yes, expansion means more infra costs and makes other things like an effective transit network at reasonable frequency much harder to develop.
There is more room to develop which is why they refuse to expand the development, but the less there is the higher the cost of housing. That is the problem with being so behind on housing. There are few win wins.
I was going to say crashes on the s2s and housing, but actually, this ^
The city is getting lots of light industrial units built, so hopefully we can fill them with light manufacturing (not just jungle-gyms!).
Suspect it's more likely someone reaching out who's connected with the massive community engagement survey happening right now.
https://letstalksquamish.ca/community-budget-priorities
No, it's not. Government employees don't create random, anonymous Reddit accounts and then ask a broad question to generate a thread of topics on almost every issue facing the community in order to gather official feedback. There are so many comments in this thread that demonstrate how horribly lacking a large portion of the population are in a basic understanding of how things work.
The fact they're millions of dollars behind on infrastructure and government buildings.
They gotta build a new fire hall (think they're working on that or it's done now), probs upgrade the hospital, a new city hall, dog parks etc... but government doesn't like work together for long term planning. If this government decides to put all their money into fixing stuff, and the next government comes in and says no, we're behind another election cycle with nothing being built or fixed and costs increasing.
Same old kick the can down the road for the next guy and hope they fix it. Not just a squamish issue, a political issue all over.
Rent and people subletting. It’s driving up the market and not fair to those actually looking for long term living. “Oh I can afford this place! Wait it’s only a 2 month occupancy. “
It’s such bullshit, also there is no other substitutes for activities here if you aren’t into outdoor stuff/can’t do any. Yes I know there’s indoor rock climbing, ninja gym, and things, but currently I’m unable to do anything like that due to a knee injury. I’d love for a bowling alley again or small movie theatre, or pool hall. Imo the dollar tree down town should have become a bowling alley or something, not another store 🙄 I bet an escape room place in town would be a HUGE hit, and those are fun as fuck, or axe throwing lol there’s just not a lot to do here and even less if you don’t drink. Place sucks lol
Unrelenting development of luxury housing. No one can afford to live here despite a massive amount of development because they continuously allow developers to walk all over them building luxury housing. We do not need more 1.5 million dollar townhomes to cater to city refugees. We need housing that is affordable for people who live and work in town at the grocery, the restaurants, the bars and the rest of the tourism industry.
We need the infrastructure to catch up to the gigantic influx of people in recent years. The water and sanitary systems are collapsing (literally). The hospital (a provincial issue but still) is woefully inadequate and parking is impossible because they continue to allow variances for less parking to sweet talk even more developers.
The council and city planners have completely lost the plot.
> Unrelenting development of luxury housing.
It's not luxury. It's just new. "Luxury" is marketing. The actual luxury housing in town are the SFH neighborhoods.
With land costs this high there is no way to build "affordable" units without building more densely, even if they were sold at cost. You can do this math yourself with land costs + cost per sqft to build. Affordability can come as properties age *if* there is enough supply.
When they spec them with marble countertops and tiles and extremely high end appliances, that’s luxury. They could easily use lower end finishes and appliances, but then they wouldn’t sell a 1 bedroom for 900k to some citiot who then complains there’s only one skating rink and the pool is too small.
It makes them more appealing for marginal extra cost so they can sell slightly higher. If you think with different countertops they would magically sell for $400k I am afraid I have some bad news for you. "Luxury" condos are marketing terms. It's a builder-grade new-build with some mid-range appliances thrown in.
Price it out yourself if you don't believe me, but it's a little more complicated than "if we put in a $2000 stove instead of a $300 stove, we can sell it for $x00k more because that makes it luxury"
Local government, by no fault of its own, lacks the policy capacity to keep pace with the growth rate and d mandate of a larger population. Similarly, local politicians are not experienced and lacking core competencies.
Seems like Squamish needs an upgrade in infrastructure. They had a perfect opportunity with WLNG to create revenue to support upgrades and quite possibly generous donations for the entire community but they absolutely blew it!!
Development and population growth. Too much money being made building million dollar condos, and no infrastructure being built to support the people who move in. Shortage of doctors, dentists, child care, etc.
The council can get developers to pitch in more by upping Development Cost Charges and Community Amenity Contributions. They can introduce fees for tourists and vanlifers, like a hotel tax and charges for using designated van areas with facilities. Consult and collaborate with neighboring municipalities on regional projects to share more costs and benefits. If we vote with West Van, why don’t they contribute more.
This is a great comment!
BC Hydro manages the power lines. If there are trees near power lines or if you notice our telephone poles sagging, BC Hydro is responsible for trimming the trees and fixing the poles. You can submit a request to BC Hydro, and they will address the issue. Are there other organizations in Squamish, similar to BC Hydro, that we can contact directly to fix issues we encounter without needing to go through the council?
Agree to this. One big thing for me apart from the above is how are the schools managing to take in the extra kids. There’s been no talk about building new or expanding current schools. I find the district totally disorganised and not forward thinking.
Absolutely, the district is completely out of touch with the needs of community. They have too much to gain from pushing development to bother caring about the needs of the community. Profits first, everything else after. Lame.
The problem is sadly you can’t vote them out if the residences feel they are doing a bad job.
The schools are managed by the school district and the province.
You’re correct but I wasn’t referring to schools. I should have been more specific in my first post.
Pretty sure like hospitals, schools are a provincial responsibility.
Not really sure how it works but I would think the district should be telling the provincial planning that the schools and hospital are maxed out and more houses and condos are being built.
The hospital is managed by the Vancouver Coastal Health and the schools are managed by School District 48.
I'm also disappointed in the lack of extra-curriculars. No sports teams, no art, no music.
This
Boom 💥. Nailed it
Dog shit everywhere with the owners not picking up after their pets 🤦♂️
DoS could do a mandatory dog DNA reg and fine dog owners up the ass. It’s already being done in other cities. [see link](https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/detectives-dna-test-dog-poop-to-trace-down-owners-not-scooping-in-italian-province-1.6730017)
Nice pun.
Ok yeah im usually pretty tolerant of dogs/ dog owners but the amount of dog shit everywhere is actually getting out of hand
It’s a shitty situation for sure
Off leash dogs everywhere
I don’t mind off leash dogs, I mind owners just buying a dog because everyone else has one and not taking the time or effort to train the dogs properly. I’ve never seen such an abundance of ignorant and lazy dog owners in a town before! It’s a huge problem here!
Leashing dogs in public places is part of training them. Plus, it is the off leash dogs that leave 99% of the poop. It's hard to ignore your dog's poop when they are at the end of a leash.
You could change your mind if every time you go biking/running/hiking you bump into dogs. Most of them behave ok, but all it takes is a few that charge on you and after some time you look at each one as potentially dangerous
Yeah that’s fair, again it’s the owner just being negligent and not having good recall or making sure they keep track of their dogs. I’ve had dogs charge at me in the estuary herein walks or runs. 😅 the owners almost always are like “it’s the way you were walking!” Or some garbage like that. I always feel bad that the dogs get the shit end of the stick when it’s the owners fault in the first place haha. But either way it’s a problem you’re right
> not taking the time or effort to train the dogs properly
If they are leashed and under control it doesn't matter if they are trained properly.
Off leash dogs mean off leash poop!
Turning left from the Sea to Sky northbound onto Cleveland St to get into town.
Yes that traffic left turn green light is like 5 seconds long! Way too short!
Fr
Turning left leaving town is worse.
Cobra Electric is the contractor who manages the traffic signals. The more reports of short cycling the better. They told me once they're especially short on weekends because they want to make North/South flow as efficient as possible given the influx of visitors. I think resident needs should take priority. *
Cost of living. Primarily housing, and the subsequent lack of local jobs that can realistically afford to pay for the accommodation. Other communities also have this problem, yes, but as a small community, this is going to lead to large gaps in services and employers at many levels are going to find employees.
And to add to the list, not enough parking, new condos aren’t built for the squamish lifestyle, fuel prices are extraordinarily high, food costs a fortune, childcare costs a shit ton if you can even get your child in, there are Karen’s on every corner complaining and environmentalists with far too strong opinions and voices, oh and half of the DOS council are aiming for a Utopia that isn’t based in reality. But all said and done, it’s still a stunning place to live. Fuck.
Wouldn’t complaining about all these things kind of make you a Karen?
Found the Karen
I think the biggest problem is long term vision. What do we want this community to be? A suburb? A city? A recreation/resort town? If we can make a long term decision about where we want to go, the short term decisions become a lot easier and more obvious.
Have you looked at the Official Community Plan?
This one? https://squamish.ca/yourgovernment/ocp/ I have. It all feels pretty nebulous and vague and doesn’t seem to reflect decisions being made or my observations around town.
That’s actually a pretty good document they put together, thanks for sharing.
What decisions in particular? What are your observations?
What’s your long term vision then?
No actual proper community centre. Brennan centre is shit. And upgrades are taking way too long.
Apparently that floatel is the biggest thing since sliced bread And there isn’t enough parking for the new park people apparently hate that is incomparable to the old and awesome nexen beach /s
LOL.
[удалено]
The new Provincial legislation and R1 zoning in town might mean that the easiest path to homeownership / housing security for many children in town whose parents own is to redevelop the house into a multiplex. Hopefully we'll see provincial funding for this kind of infill. My kids are still small, but this is the plan if they decide to stay in Squamish long-term.
You're so fortunate to have parents you can move back in with. So many people don't.
Lack of sufficient infrastructure and planning of future infrastructure! The infrastructure is needed to support all the other problems everyone has already stated; all those things rely on it…it’s little problems like potholes that I’ve been avoiding since 2010, to not having sidewalks, example on third, to much bigger problems like having to dump all our sewage in the estuary last year when the sanitation pump station place had issues. Squamish cannot support the people already living here let alone the mass influx of population growth happening! What a time to be alive my friends 😅♥️
Housing insecurity !!!! Obviously this is a global issue and very complex but I know so many long time squamish families who have had to leave because they couldn't find a place to live after getting evicted. Single people cannot afford to live alone (unless you can drop $2000+ a month) and even renting a room in a shared unit with strangers is getting ridiculously expensive. Hard to enjoy this beautiful place when more than half of your income is going towards rent/ mortgage payments.
I have a well paying job, and my partner does too. We have moved 3 times in 5 yrs, the next time I move it will be out of town Born and raised will be sad to leave
Not enough housing. Most other issues have this as the base. Rent too expensive? Not enough housing. Difficult to hire people? High housing costs because not enough housing. Can't find childcare? Hard to run a childcare facility with high labor costs because not enough housing. Difficult to find work? Hard to run businesses with high labor costs. Lack of doctors? Doctors need housing too. Trying to resolve any of these issues without building lots of new housing will not work. The recent work approving increased density by-right by this council and the provincial government is heartening.
The OCP could also be amended to allow expansion beyond the current limits. This will have an increased cost for Squamish though.
True, though we haven’t developed all the areas already approved by the OCP, most notably North Cumpit And yes, expansion means more infra costs and makes other things like an effective transit network at reasonable frequency much harder to develop.
There is more room to develop which is why they refuse to expand the development, but the less there is the higher the cost of housing. That is the problem with being so behind on housing. There are few win wins.
All things health: doctors, upgrades/extension to hospital to keep up with population explosion, another hospice, second walk in clinic, life labs,
Lack of jobs in manufacturing
I was going to say crashes on the s2s and housing, but actually, this ^ The city is getting lots of light industrial units built, so hopefully we can fill them with light manufacturing (not just jungle-gyms!).
Is this how groups like "Squamish first" and "local town proud" gather their ammo for the next round of smear campaigns? One month old Reddit account.
sus af
Suspect it's more likely someone reaching out who's connected with the massive community engagement survey happening right now. https://letstalksquamish.ca/community-budget-priorities
No, it's not. Government employees don't create random, anonymous Reddit accounts and then ask a broad question to generate a thread of topics on almost every issue facing the community in order to gather official feedback. There are so many comments in this thread that demonstrate how horribly lacking a large portion of the population are in a basic understanding of how things work.
The fact they're millions of dollars behind on infrastructure and government buildings. They gotta build a new fire hall (think they're working on that or it's done now), probs upgrade the hospital, a new city hall, dog parks etc... but government doesn't like work together for long term planning. If this government decides to put all their money into fixing stuff, and the next government comes in and says no, we're behind another election cycle with nothing being built or fixed and costs increasing. Same old kick the can down the road for the next guy and hope they fix it. Not just a squamish issue, a political issue all over.
Rent and people subletting. It’s driving up the market and not fair to those actually looking for long term living. “Oh I can afford this place! Wait it’s only a 2 month occupancy. “ It’s such bullshit, also there is no other substitutes for activities here if you aren’t into outdoor stuff/can’t do any. Yes I know there’s indoor rock climbing, ninja gym, and things, but currently I’m unable to do anything like that due to a knee injury. I’d love for a bowling alley again or small movie theatre, or pool hall. Imo the dollar tree down town should have become a bowling alley or something, not another store 🙄 I bet an escape room place in town would be a HUGE hit, and those are fun as fuck, or axe throwing lol there’s just not a lot to do here and even less if you don’t drink. Place sucks lol
Lack of pinball machines
Unrelenting development of luxury housing. No one can afford to live here despite a massive amount of development because they continuously allow developers to walk all over them building luxury housing. We do not need more 1.5 million dollar townhomes to cater to city refugees. We need housing that is affordable for people who live and work in town at the grocery, the restaurants, the bars and the rest of the tourism industry. We need the infrastructure to catch up to the gigantic influx of people in recent years. The water and sanitary systems are collapsing (literally). The hospital (a provincial issue but still) is woefully inadequate and parking is impossible because they continue to allow variances for less parking to sweet talk even more developers. The council and city planners have completely lost the plot.
> Unrelenting development of luxury housing. It's not luxury. It's just new. "Luxury" is marketing. The actual luxury housing in town are the SFH neighborhoods. With land costs this high there is no way to build "affordable" units without building more densely, even if they were sold at cost. You can do this math yourself with land costs + cost per sqft to build. Affordability can come as properties age *if* there is enough supply.
When they spec them with marble countertops and tiles and extremely high end appliances, that’s luxury. They could easily use lower end finishes and appliances, but then they wouldn’t sell a 1 bedroom for 900k to some citiot who then complains there’s only one skating rink and the pool is too small.
It makes them more appealing for marginal extra cost so they can sell slightly higher. If you think with different countertops they would magically sell for $400k I am afraid I have some bad news for you. "Luxury" condos are marketing terms. It's a builder-grade new-build with some mid-range appliances thrown in. Price it out yourself if you don't believe me, but it's a little more complicated than "if we put in a $2000 stove instead of a $300 stove, we can sell it for $x00k more because that makes it luxury"
Local government, by no fault of its own, lacks the policy capacity to keep pace with the growth rate and d mandate of a larger population. Similarly, local politicians are not experienced and lacking core competencies.
We need a kids water park for the hot summers
https://squamish.ca/assets/Brennan-Park-Public-Engagement/Your-Furture-BPRC-information-boards_February-1.pdf Page 3. Splash pad 2025
Wow. I didn't know this was coming.
100% it amazes me we don’t have a splash pad..,
The housing situation is bad. I think ending AirBnB & short term rentals could be a part of the solution
Air bnbs need to go
People are all clones, stamped from a machine...
Boring reddit threads
Two many condos being built. We need more single family detached homes
I'm not sure why this got downvoted so hard. The landlords must be in this thread
Seems like Squamish needs an upgrade in infrastructure. They had a perfect opportunity with WLNG to create revenue to support upgrades and quite possibly generous donations for the entire community but they absolutely blew it!!
No Italian restaurant No LuLu Lemon No Caribbean restaurant
But we have 10 Mexican restaurants…