The aims of the Gabriola Island Land Stewards Society (GILSS) are to make housing more affordable and less precarious for people with low to modest incomes, to increase food security and avoid any further loss of Gabriola farmland, and to support small scale community economic development. To do this, the key activity of GILSS is to acquire and steward land.
In the past year, the GILSS board has been very focused on finding properties that fit our purpose. We pay close attention to land that comes up for sale, and we explore other options through word of mouth and connections within the community. In order to avoid heating up the market and negatively affecting relationships with landowners, we keep all discussions about specific properties confidential.
Nonetheless, we want to let our members and the community at large know more about what we have been doing.
Properties we have considered so far in 2024
- 31 discussed at board meetings
- 13 sites visited
- 5 sold or already had an offer between when we asked for a viewing and our scheduled site visit
- 3 informal relationship-building conversations with owners of properties not currently on the market
- 2 recently taken off the market
- 2 offers that were unsuccessful
- 2 currently being considered
Once we have found a property that we think fits our purpose, we use our land purchase policy to assess it. We also use tools developed to decide whether we can afford any required loans – after community donations, existing funds, and our ability to offer tax receipts in lieu of cash are factored in – to purchase the property.
Despite the fact that the real estate market on Gabriola has slowed down again, land is still very expensive and unaffordable to many. At the Gabriola Island Land Stewards Society, we are hoping to build on the funds we have accumulated and the social purpose financing offer we have received. We do need the community’s help to raise more money and receive gifts of property so that we can make our vision of land for the community’s benefit a reality.