As longtime residents know, these areas were barren before long-term resident Don Fraser came to the rescue with a vision and began beautifying the area. He has worked tirelessly to create the beautiful gardens we see today, with plants, flowers, trees and rock walls. The areas have been transformed as a central focal point in Madeira Park, a place to meet friends or simply taking a moment for yourself for quiet reflection. All this work was almost exclusively personally funded by Don, including labour and materials.

At the fall 2023 Town Hall, the audience was polled to see how many enjoyed the gardens and would like to see them maintained. There was almost unanimous showing of hands.

Unfortunately, Don is now retired and has moved back to the mainland. The reality now is there are no volunteers that want to or can take on the tremendous task to keep these gardens alive and healthy for years to come. Currently, there isn’t a long-term solution to fund the maintenance of the gardens. If no action is taken, the gardens will cease to exist and the area will return to the barren dirt there was before Don became involved.

So, how do we/can we fund this project going forward? Options considered include endowments or bequests but these are rare and may not happen for some time; government grants but they too have long lead times and usually provide only a one-time grant; and, seeking private funds which would require annual fundraising to keep the gardens maintained.

Another and more likely solution is a small increase in property tax. This would be done through the Alternate Approval Process (AAP) through the SCRD. PHARA estimates the maintenance of the gardens would run in the range of about $60,000 per year.

What does this mean for individual property owners? Using every dwelling in Area A—we’ve got about 2,500 residents that would be taxed—that $60,000 amounts to about $24 a year on your parcel tax. If not everyone in Area A wanted to contribute—because Area A is pretty big, an area-specific tax boundary could be used. Using postal codes for Madeira Park and Garden Bay would reduce the tax base to about 2,400 and the increase would be marginal.

The AAP is a long process and we are currently in the initial stages of polling the community to show the SCRD we have enough support. If at least 51 percent of the residents agree, then we move to the next stage. The SCRD would produce final operating budgets based on the proposed maintenance contracts we have in place and come back with a final proposal.