With an increase in visitors during the summer months, wild camping and van dwelling in Squamish has become a increasing issue for the city. On April 9th, Squamish City Council took action to address the camping situation and voted to draft a bylaw to regulate camping in public places including crown land within the municipal boundary with the exception of two areas (shown on the map below).
The drafted bylaw (draft bylaw 2679) prohibits all camping, defined as ‘to stay overnight in a tent, vehicle or other form of shelter whether or not on a temporary or permanent basis‘, in any public place with the municipal boundary, with the exception of two areas (shown on the map above). The drafted bylaw indicated that the new bylaw would be enforced by both bylaw enforcement officer and/or police officers. According to sources, the bylaw will be set in the range of $100-200 dollars.
The Squamish access Society has released their position on the bylaw, indicating that they were ‘cautiously supportive of the bylaw’ with the understanding that ‘the district’s intent will be to focus bylaw enforcement on managing summer visitors at peak periods and not residents living in vans at other times of year’.
It seems as though the bylaw has gotten the attention of other user groups. Here is an interesting synopsis by Steve Jones.If you have an opinion on this topic, please send us your thoughts to info@squamishclimbingmagazine.ca
Correction: We published that the bylaw ‘comes with a ‘penalty of not less than five thousand dollars ($5000.00) and not more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000.00) for each offence’‘ as stipulated in section 5.5 of the drafted bylaw but we were incorrect, in which the fines for this bylaw are set by section 5.6 which does not currently specify a specific amount.
