The time has come to engage potential future residents to help shape the development of our land at 5040 Central Road. To that end, the board of directors have created a survey to assess the needs and resources of potential future residents. The survey is quite comprehensive and gathers information about your current living situation, what you’d like from your ISLA home, how to incorporate home occupation businesses, how to sustainably steward the land, and what you can afford. The survey is anonymous with the option of including your name and phone number and is available at the post office. We encourage all who are interested to fill one out and drop it in the ISLA slot at the free post.
On Sunday October 17th, we’ll be holding a workshop with potential residents and interested parties to help clarify the design of the housing and the neighbourhood. Since this workshop’s outcomes along with the survey results will determine how we proceed to create the first homes, your input is critical to our success in meeting the community’s needs. We’re holding the meeting on a Sunday to allow attendance by all who may be working on other days so please come and be heard.
As you’ve probably seen, the beautiful dollhouse is now on display downstairs at the Co-op. Thank-you to the hardware department for making room! Raffle tickets are on sale until the draw on November 20, 2010 at the gas bar and through the dedicated website www.hornbydollhouseraffle.net. You can help us sell these online tickets by forwarding this link to your email list or posting it on your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Besides selling tickets, the website details the construction and artists involved in its creation so check it out!
Before any development begins, we need to hear what the land has to say about where to build. With the help of Conservancy Hornby Island, we’ve hired Lynda Fyfe of Juniper Environmental to map the land and identify critical features. She began this assessment on September 8th so we’ll soon have the guidelines we need to allow the design process to unfold.
So far this year we’ve had two significant fundraisers, ‘A Roof Over Our Heads’ and ‘Home Sweet Home’ that have raised over $20,000 as well as significant contributions from the Comox Valley Regional District and the Hornby Island Community Fund. Big thanks to all who made this happen! Our current fundraising focus is on selling as many tickets for the dollhouse raffle as possible and it looks like a possible event is shaping up for December 11th.
We’d like to extend an invitation to all in the community who have a flair for fundraising and who’d like to see affordable housing on Hornby to contact us with your ideas and inspiration. Please call Janet LeBlancq at 335-2844 or housing@islacommunitylandtrust.org.
Check out the website for the latest ISLA info at www.islacommunitylandtrust.org
Kevin McMahon
ISLA Treasurer