Sooke
Where the Rainforest Meets the Sea.
Driving from Victoria to the small community of Sooke, at the southwestern tip of Vancouver Island, takes about 45 minutes, and offers a visual feast of West Coast natural splendors.
This town of about 10,000 grew up around a sheltered harbour, and developed primarily as a timber and fishery based community. While both of those industries continue to play an important role to this temperate rain forest community, there is much more to Sooke today than its richness in natural resources. It is diverse and rich in many other aspects, including music and the arts, crafts, and a plethora of recreational and adventure tourism opportunities. And it has embarked on an aggressive vision of strong economic development to promote commercial and industrial growth to strengthen its tax base.
The 2001 Official Community Plan (OCP) for Sooke came face to face with a facet of development common to many communities. They tend to develop along their major transportation corridors, in a vehicle-centric manner, and Sooke was no different. Since then, Sooke has been busy, defining and pursuing a vision.
Its vision embraces principles of sustainable development including ’smart growth’ principles. It envisages developments which include a mix of land uses, affordable housing and green spaces, all interconnected by pedestrian paths and bicycle lanes. Development which will be energy efficient, and innovative in both design and use of green technology.
Just some of the notable initiatives recently undertaken or completed by community-minded Sooke include:
- established an operational wastewater collection and treatment plant for sanitary sewers
- a stormwater management plan is underway
- established an Economic Development Commission in partnership with the Sooke Chamber of Commerce to encourage tourism related industries, high tech industries, secondary education facilities, light industrial & marine related manufacturing, and increased retail activity
- passed extensive zoning bylaw amendments, guided by smart growth principles
- continues work on a Downtown Revitalization Plan
- established a ‘Measuring Up Advisory Committee’ in support of Sooke’s vision of becoming a model community for accessibility and inclusiveness, a community that is not only free of physical barriers for access for all to resources and opportunities, but which welcomes the participation of all
- completed and opened the Sooke Marine Boardwalk along a portion of Sooke’s waterfront. This is truly a community projects, funded in part by a grant from British Columbia, in part by District funds, and in part by generous community donations. And by midsummer, 2008, this boardwalk will be wheelchair, walker and stroller accessible
According the Canada Census, Sooke grew by about 11 percent between 2001 and 2006. With all it offers, its visionary future, the spectacular scenery, its relatively modest cost of housing, and its reasonable proximity to Victoria, Sooke’s continued growth is a certainty.
There are several excellent web sites providing in depth information about Sooke. Some of them are listed in the ‘Further Information’ area, on the right hand side of this page.
You should check them out.
