Established in October 2022, in accordance with the Accessible British Columbia Act, Sun Peaks Mountain Resort Municipality’s (SPMRM) Accessibility Advisory Committee is soon to bring its plan to council.
The committee is mandated to identify barriers to accessibility for everyone, including those with disabilities and the aging population.
Currently in the works, the plan includes recommendations for the municipality’s online services and properties, including the tennis courts, Sun Peaks Centre and the arena.
Based on discussions and public consultation, committee members Jim Alix, Lisa Bentz and Julie Kimmel told SPIN the group identified parking, sidewalks and website accessibility as three main points of concern.
While the committee can draft a plan outlining priorities, it cannot undergo direct action. Instead it will present recommendations to council, which will implement changes. Next, the Accessibility Advisory Committee hopes to engage Sun Peaks Resort LLP (SPR) to align them with the same initiatives.
Identifying areas of improvement in accessibility with public consultation
Part of the public process included a survey that went out in August asking residents to identify gaps in the accessibility of municipal facilities and services.
Many survey respondents were unaware of the municipality’s jurisdiction, citing areas of improvement in places outside of the committee’s control, such as the Sun Peaks Grand parking lot. However, the public consultation gave folks the opportunity to look at accessibility needs in Sun Peaks.
“The beauty of this committee is that now we’re forcing people to look through that lens, whereas maybe it wouldn’t have been on anyone’s radar before,” Bentz said
In addition to the survey, the public was invited to provide more in-depth insights at an open house on Feb. 23.
“It wasn’t a huge turnout, but the reality is, we got the people who wanted to be there,” Kimmel said.
A man from Disability Alliance B.C. also provided insight on the plan, Bentz said.
“We’ve done lots of work to get to this point, and now we’re kind of putting it all together,” she added.
Priorities for Accessibility Advisory Committee
Accessible parking was an area of concern identified through public input, with a focus on the slanted dirt parking lot off the Sun Peaks Plaza.
Committee members specified their recommendation, stating that gravel lots should have at least one walkable and wheelchair accessible parking lot, if not paved than rubberized or something similar.
Concerns surrounding sidewalk maintenance are outlined as well in the draft.
Only a portion of the Valley Trail and other sidewalks are owned by SPMRM, though ensuring safe strolls along these are a pinpointed value of the committee.
With many potholes and other hazards present Bentz, who is blind, said her service dog has to navigate around these to avoid injury.
Only able to recommend maintenance on municipal properties, the accessible path would still be a short one, halted when the walkway meets a piece of path owned by SPR. Sidewalk ownership isn’t the only complication of Sun Peaks’ split jurisdictions.
Many intertwined pieces of land and infrastructure are owned by either SPR or SPMRM, and increasing accessibility would mean ensuring both are on the same page as to identifying and removing barriers.
“It’s definitely a shared responsibility,” Bentz said. “Because we are such a small geographic place, people come to Sun Peaks, and they don’t know that 10 feet of this is [SPR] and 20 feet of this is municipality.”
In addition to property improvements, the committee determined website issues as an area in need of change.
Alix has expertise in technological accessibility, having learned a lot to help Bentz and others with online tax forms and more. Any document that should be available for the public or employees of SPMRM should be accessible for the visually impaired, using W3C web accessibility guidelines.
“The committee’s ability is to make a recommendation,” Alix explained. “In the draft plan right now, all of those guides for how to construct the document are footnoted.”
Presenting the accessibility plan and next steps
The Accessibility Advisory Committee is first focused on what it can accomplish with the municipality.
Immediate steps include presenting the completed plan to council by the end of the ski season for approval.
Budgeting for the plan will take place after it’s been presented, Kimmel explained, as it currently consists of recommendations with no cost estimate.
Once council has laid out how to best proceed with the plan and what to focus on first, she said the discussion will shift to initiating conversations with SPR in hopes of the resort using some suggestions.
Kimmel also hopes a member of SPR administration will come to the committee as a guest and perhaps later as a member.
Private businesses and public access buildings are covered by different building codes, Bentz said, and Kimmel added these cannot be retrofitted in the same way a municipal building can.
Conversations with the business community would be an asset as well and Alix thinks both local businesses and SPR would be receptive.
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