to keep, and for that we need to oer them
opportunities to progress and move up."
City planning
In his oce at city hall, Scott Randolph,
director of economic development and
communications for the City of Powell
River, tells me that local real estate agents
have posted banner years for 2016 through
2018, with well over 50 percent of sales
to buyers from outside the city. The value
of building permits doubled from 2017 to
2018, and elementary school enrolment
(perhaps the true test of a community's sus-
tainability) increased from 2,054 in 2016 to
2,278 last year.
This growth didn't happen by accident,
but—like the city itself—was created by
design. Townsite, a planned community
that provided workers for Western Cana-
da's Šrst pulp and paper mill, founded in
1908, was the Šrst settler development in
Powell River (named in the 1880s for B.C.'s
then–superintendent of Indian Affairs,
Israel Wood Powell, after his travels up the
coast). For decades, the mill (in its heyday,
one in 25 of the world's newspapers was
printed on its paper) was a huge economic
driver for the city and its main source of
steady employment.
Townsite was classiŠed as a National
Historic District in 1995, but that same
decade saw the beginning of the mill's
decline, and in 2012, it was downsized to a
fraction of its former glory. With layos and
natural retirement, that cut Powell River's
tax revenue for the year in half. The indus-
try that once employed more than 3,000
now paid salaries to roughly 350. The city
was moribund; it desperately needed an
injection of new life.
In 2014, Powell River launched the
Resident Attraction Campaign, a pro-
active measure designed to draw young
families, telecommuters and others under
45 to relocate there for employment or to
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SUNSHINE COAST TOURISM. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: CHRIS THORN, ANDREW STRAIN, GEOFF TOMLIN-HOOD,
THE AGE BALANCE OF MIGRANTS SLOWLY STARTED TO
SHIFT, AND IN 2018, HALF OF ALL NEW RESIDENTS OF
POWELL RIVER FELL INTO THE MORE YOUTHFUL CATEGORY,
WITH THE OTHER HALF MADE UP OF TRADITIONAL RETIREES.
PEOPLE ARRIVE FROM ALL OVER, WITH MOST INCOMING
FROM THE SQUAMISH-TO-HOPE CORRIDOR
46 BCBUSINESS JULY/AUGUST 2019
