Friday 7 October 2022

Terrie Rolph - Affordable Housing

 A Candidate's Perspective 

As a candidate for North Saanich Council, it’s been impossible not to notice how the housing affordability topic dominates public and private discussions. I would like to offer some thoughts about how we got here.  

The Global economic collapse of 2006-10 was triggered by intense housing speculation and debt over-reach.  Many Americans lost their homes and the money they’d invested in them. Canadians largely escaped that pain, but we didn’t take the lesson seriously.  

Prolonged, extremely low interest rates in Canada, coupled with our human fear of missing out have pushed housing prices higher and higher. People have been encouraged to go into greater debt than ever before, outbidding ourselves to buy it, confident that real estate always goes up.  

That’s not always true.  

Since the beginning of the year, the Bank of Canada rate has risen from 0.25% to 3.25 and housing prices are falling accordingly.  Those who bought at the height of the market in the middle of the pandemic are the most hurt. However, anyone who needs to renew their mortgages at higher rates, will also suffer.  

Many Canadians have been pleased to watch their houses gain in value and have felt enriched because of it.  

However, everything has consequences. Seniors and others on low or fixed incomes, as well as young people without the benefit of wealthy parents to draw on, have been the most impacted. What does it say about our values, when we celebrate an economic gain that damages our seniors and youth?  

Municipal governments cannot affect national economic policy, but they are affected by its consequences and they do what they can to mitigate them. North Saanich mayors have served on the Greater Victoria Homeless Coalition, established in 2008.  Since 2005 North Saanich District has contributed annually to the Capital Region Housing Trust Fund.  When this fund was established, the region’s mayors and councils recognized that a joint effort among municipal, provincial and federal governments was needed to address the growing problems with housing. That continues to be true and led to the Regional Housing First Program that led to contributions by all CRD municipalities.  

Currently, there are 109 subsidized affordable housing units in North Saanich. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of visiting the 40 seniors units at Winward Kiwanis and talking to the residents there. North Saanich also has 24 BC Housing low income family rentals at Heron Cove, 5 rental assistance families in private market housing, 7 rental assistance seniors in private market housing and 23 units for special needs supported by BC Housing.  The 10 Habitat for Humanity units bring the total to 109.  

For a municipality the size of North Saanich, this is a respectable level of affordable housing.  

Adding more market housing and densifying existing lots does not make housing more affordable. Instead, it encourages further speculation from investors, both individual and corporate. It also destroys more natural habitat and worsens the effects of climate change.  

For these reasons, I do not support it, nor see it, as a way of making housing affordable.  

References

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/housing-bubble-real-causes/

https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/interest-rate

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bank-of-canada-rate-hike-1.6574457 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-area-home-sales-october-2022-1.6605510

Wednesday 5 October 2022

Housing vs Development?

 LETTER: 

Council candidates must understand Regional Growth Strategy

  • Oct. 2, 2022 6:30 p.m.  
  •  
  • OPINION, Goldstream News Gazette

In North Saanich, we are faced with the usual, but inappropriate, dilemma: housing and development vs. rural values. Why is it inappropriate?

The CRD has created the Regional Growth Strategy in which the Urban Containment Boundary has emerged as a key feature. Evidently, urbanization requires containment – the RGS policy states that a maximum of five per cent of regional growth will accrue to areas like North Saanich that are outside the UCB. There is no dilemma, our direction is clear. What does that mean for North Saanich and our candidates?

It means that they should support the RGS, and not apologize for doing so. In fact, they really don’t have a choice. It is a wisely crafted document because it recognizes that there is no natural harmony between rural/agricultural landscapes and those that are urbanized. Rural values exist mostly for what they are but also for what they are not – dense, busy, noisy, crowded and stressful but necessary for efficient housing, transport and commerce. The RGS recognizes that they cannot coexist – hence the 5/95 per cent growth prioritization. Why is this planning guidance problematic?

It isn’t but can be if misrepresented. In our area, and indeed much of the developed world, housing availability is difficult and glib, knee-jerk solutions (build more) are abundant. There are many examples of why that approach simply does not work – including Canora Mews and Eaglehurst. So, what is North Saanich’s role in the housing crisis?

At best, it is very limited, guided by the five per cent growth ceiling clearly defined in the RGS. Today, existing zoning provides for considerable population growth without densification or altering the UCB. So, why are we being asked to provide housing solutions that contradict the RGS, when other jurisdictions, who officially have that obligation, have apparently failed?

We are doing our share, or more, within the CRD, we just have to be clear about what it is. Specifically, our obligation in North Saanich is to provide many non-urban amenities and values that other municipalities cannot, for the whole CRD.

Make sure that you select candidates for mayor and council that truly understand the Regional Growth Strategy and our role within it.

Spring Harrison, North Saanich

Sunday 2 October 2022

Land and $s

As usual, housing issues are dragged into the election discussion.  For our municipality, other issues should have a higher priority.   Not to suggest that housing is a not a worthy topic, now more than ever, but as designated in the Regional Growth Strategy, North Saanich's priorities are aligned more with rural and agricultural attributes.

Notwithstanding this clear imperative, we are drawn into the "housing debate" through various arguments, many of them poorly grounded.  Although many residents, and some candidates, offer glib and knee-jerk "solutions" to the housing challenges, almost none offer practical solutions.  Although many claim to support "affordable housing", almost no one explains how it can be achieved.

There are many articles explaining why the "build more" approach will not make housing affordable.  This is especially true in North Saanich, where land prices are very high, probably among the highest in the CRD.  Affordable housing implies that all components of the dwelling be obtained at a lower cost, including the land.

One argument often advanced for reducing the land cost component is "densification."  Again, there is no explanation of how this really works.  If it did work as advertised, we could not draw the following graph.

It plots land prices for each of 20 representative lots in North Saanich against the lot sizes.  The lots range from .074 to 2.5 acres.  The smallest parcels are at Canora Mews, the others are nearby.  The land values are from the 2021 BC Assessment.


Also plotted is the land value per acre which allows us to compare "apples with apples" for properties of widely varying sizes.  The graph is quite revealing:

  • although property sizes vary considerably, the land cost for them does not.  That is shown by the almost flat blue line in the graph.  Rural acreages are not enormously more expensive than a cheek by jowl lot, land only.  
  • the orange line however, tells us the same thing but more graphically.  The tiny lots at Canora Mews are assessed at about $4.9 million per acre while 1/3 acre lots in Dean Park Estates come in at $1.5 million per acre.
So, it would seem that carving larger properties up into smaller ones does very little to reduce the land cost of the dwelling package.

With this in mind, make sure you ask those candidates who are flogging the "build more" and "build denser" solutions to the housing problem, how they really plan to achieve true affordability.

Friday 30 September 2022

Defining Rural

[this excellent letter by a North Saanich resident recently appeared in the Times Colonist]

In some communities when people are planning to move to a rural community, real estate agents will give them a scratch and sniff manure card.  Heads up!  Sometimes it stinks around here. The importance of rural is being hotly debated in the 2022 municipal election for North Saanich.  There are references to the pastoral vistas, the hedgerows, and not much traffic.  And it’s true, rural does mean those things.  But it also means less infrastructure, fewer staff at District Hall, and (consequently) lower taxes. We don’t need streetlights, sidewalks, or Starbucks.  Why?  Because our purpose, as defined by the Regional Growth Strategy, is to grow food and provide green space.  Think back to the height of the pandemic, and the experience of there being not much produce on the grocery shelves.  With the lack of water in California that will almost certainly be a repeat experience.  North Saanich is one of the last areas in the Capital Regional District whose purpose is food production.  Cast yur eye south down the Peninsula and what do you see?  Gordon Head used to be farm country, as did Cordova Bay, and parts of Saanich.  But this has been eroded by the slow march of densification.  Neighbourhood nooks, sensitive infills and village centres are all part of the game to connect the urban dots.  In North Saanich our preservation of rural is linked to food security, carbon sequestration, and green space – for the region.   

S. Chandler



Friday 23 September 2022

The Municipal Election

            As you likely know, there is a municipal election on 15 October.  There is an abundance of candidates, three for Mayor and 13 for the six positions of Councillor.  Three Councillors are running again as noted in the table below.  In addition, Former Councillor Weisenberger, now a resident of Sidney, is one of the Mayoral candidates. 

Candidates 

BORDEN

Nancy

Mayor

JONES

Peter

Mayor

WEISENBERGER

Murray

Mayor

 

 

 

DIBATTISTA

Phil

Councillor

GIESBRECHT

Erin

Councillor

KEEPING

Tara

Councillor

* MCCLINTOCK

Jack

Councillor

MCCONKEY

Irene

Councillor

MIKKELSEN

Morgan

Councillor

RENNISON

Jon

Councillor

ROLPH

Terrie

Councillor

Sanjiv

 

Councillor

* SMYTH

Brett

Councillor

* STOCK

Celia

Councillor

TSE-COTTON

Maya

Councillor

VARASTEH

Majid

Councillor

* = incumbent 

Key Voting Dates.  All voting is at the Municipal Hall on Mills Rd. 

Advance voting day #1

8:00 am to 8:00 pm

Wednesday

October 5

Advance voting day #2

8:00 am to 8:00 pm

Wednesday

October 12

General voting day

8:00 am to 8:00 pm

Saturday

October 15

 All Candidates Meetings 

Date

Location

Time

Sponsor

26 Sept 2022

Mary Winspear Centre

6:30 pm

Black Press and Mary Winspear Centre

28 Sept 2022

Presbyterian Church

7:00 pm

North Saanich Residents Association

 A Pandora’s Box of Change 

Issues 

In this election a major issue, perhaps the main one, will be the Official Community Plan

review. That process has been grinding along for over two years, has consumed over $400,000 and is not yet done. A draft OCP will be in the hands of the next Council early in their term. The review process and many of the recommendations have often been contentious, leading to a serious rift between the Mayor and some of the Councillors and many of the residents. Councillors Stock and McClintock have been much more inclined to listen to the feedback from residents, and often question the Staff recommendations regarding the draft OCP. Councillors Weisenberger and Smyth have consistently voted to move the process and its controversial proposals forward. 

The disagreements primarily stem from a decidedly urbanization focus for a community that is both officially and philosophically rural. The Regional Growth Strategy of the Capital Regional District, of which North Saanich is a signatory, designates North Saanich as a rural/rural-residential municipality. The RGS directs growth within the CRD to the already urban areas, outside of North Saanich.  This sound planning policy makes efficient use of public transport while helping to mitigate climate change pressures.  This plan was agreed to by all 13-member municipalities. Extensive survey results (and logic) indicate that the majority of residents support our rural designation too. 

(For a better understanding of this critically important land-use plan and other important issues for this election, see the OCP and related pages and postings on this website.) 

The previous Mayor and Council ran out of time to finish the OCP review process, yet, against the advice of many, they elected to leave a finished draft OCP for the next governing group. It will be challenging for the new council to assess the merits of something they had no hand in designing or funding. 

Tied into the OCP review, but given scant attention for the most part, are issues concerning support for agriculture, food security, the marine environment and climate change mitigation. 

In this election there is an unprecedented amount at stake concerning the future of our Municipality. The proposals that will be put forward in the new draft OCP, if they go ahead, will open a Pandora’s Box of big changes for most neighbourhoods in North Saanich. Some will happen pretty quickly. Others will be the natural consequence of introducing urban densities to a rural/rural-residential area – they inevitably creep and sprawl, as we have seen again and again and again. 

Voters should give careful consideration to the implications of candidates’ positions. What will their priorities mean for the future of this unique place? For residents’ quality of life? For why you chose this place to call home? 

North Saanich Community Voices will be following the campaign.  Please forward this message to those who may be interested, and, if you haven’t already, sign up on our website (nscv.ca) for updates. 

Recent world events have shone a brighter light on food security, climate change and land use planning. Residents are urged to carefully consider these issues and the positions of the candidates when deciding how to vote on October 15.

Sunday 14 August 2022

Another Difficult Choice for Council

The OCP Phase 3 Engagement Summary 

Another Difficult Choice for Council 

Mayor & Council, 

   The Project Team is to be commended for a very comprehensive round up of the Phase 3 Engagement findings.  At 510 pages, over five times larger than the OCP itself, it is a daunting read.  Perhaps a longer time should have been provided for all to go through it thoroughly.  A sunny summer weekend does little to focus the mind. 

   Nevertheless, I have been able to go through the Executive Summary, RGS Alignment, Key Takeaways, Shared Values, Recommendations, and Council Correspondence but very little of the extensive underlying detail, valuable as it may be.  Nevertheless, one can still bring the important problems into focus. 

   For me, these difficulties distil down to: 

1.      A spontaneous rewrite of the Municipal Vision Statement without a mandate to do so.  Subsequent surveys indicated that the existing Vision Statement is mostly satisfactory but the Project Team did not confirm this prior to issuing a new, significantly altered version

2.      An almost obsessive focus upon urbanization.  This, in spite of:

a.       the formative Staff Report of March 2020 providing a broad and balanced range of topics to be addressed.  This helpful work plan was mysteriously replaced by some "Emerging Themes", a notion spawned by the Project Team, not the residents

b.      Phase 1 public surveys giving this urbanization imperative a very low rating (8%)

c.       North Saanich being entirely outside the Urban Containment Policy Area

3.      A consequent lack of attention to the agricultural and rural values identified by the RGS as an imperative for areas outside UCPA

4.      an unfortunate "hands off" policy by Council that saw the OCP Review trundle along with only "citizen oversight" for seven months prior to the July 12, 2021 Council meeting.  By then a myriad of problems with the process had become entrenched and attempts to remedy them were not particularly successful.

5.      an overly strenuous effort to expand the UCPA to include Areas 1 and 2, possibly even expanding Area 1

a.       in a rural municipality, this attempt to influence the residents and Council to undermine the RGS is unseemly.

b.      The Urban Containment Boundary (UCPA) is being inaccurately portrayed as an “existing land use area perimeter” rather than a planning boundary.  The rationale for the positioning of the UCPA planning boundary is as valid today as when it originated.  As development pressure increases, the respect for that boundary should be ever stronger.

c.       Earlier inappropriate land-use decisions (Canora Mews and Eaglehurst) should not be considered precedent-setting but as nonconforming anomalies within the still valid plan.  A planning boundary is positioned according to long-term planning principles, not as a transitory response to past regulatory failures.
In fact, those earlier failures only reinforce the importance of maintaining that boundary.

6.      Examination of the Key Takeaways and Council Correspondence reveals more than a little dissatisfaction by residents with the urbanization theme and the review process itself:

a.       It is clear there is little resident support for the proposed densities, which originated with the Project Team.  For policies that could substantially change the nature of the community, one would expect approval levels in excess of 85%.  In Phase 1, where residents were given an open-ended selection process, housing concerns garnered only 8% support, with environmental, climate, agricultural and marine values attracting the most support.  
It is difficult to support advancing the proposed density initiatives when they are opposed by a large percentage of the residents.

b.      The report gives some attention to Climate change considerations, but fails to acknowledge that none of the proposed densities will pass a Climate lens test.

c.       The Council Correspondence summary is worth reading.  The lack of support is substantial and the specific complaints point to major fundamental flaws.  It is difficult to reconcile some of the recommendations with the findings in this section.

7.      The Regional Growth Strategy.  In this project, the minimal RGS treatment is now recognized as a significant failure of process.  Although fundamental to every municipality within the CRD, it has received little attention until recently.  Its policies and principles define our community:

a.       North Saanich is a rural community, not sometimes, not partially and not changeable upon a whim.  We are entirely outside of the Urban Containment Policy Area

b.      as a rural community, our role in the CRD is to emphasize and safeguard rural and agricultural values, both for District residents and those throughout the CRD

c.       our role is not primarily to provide residential and commercial services

d.      in this regard, the RGS is very clear, a maximum of 5% of CRD growth is to accrue to areas such as ours that are outside the UCPA.  This is an agreed-upon policy, not something to be adopted or changed arbitrarily

e.       notwithstanding that and the fact that North Saanich contains 13.6% of the rural lands within the CRD, we have recently received 61% of the non-urban growth within the region.  It would appear that North Saanich is already doing more than its share to provide housing (some municipalities are absorbing less than the 5% "quota").  Why the push to do more?
More importantly, the CRD has given no indication or direction to North Saanich to accommodate more growth than our share of the 5%.

f.       The nature of North Saanich as a slow growth area (5%) with a non-urban focus is not an arbitrary stance by a few grumpy property owners - it is an official planning policy enshrined in a CRD bylaw.

g.      Rather than employing contradictory contortions of logic (“how [Areas 1 and 2] may play a role in meeting our housing needs while respecting the vision and land-use objectives for the region”), the Project Team should simply make every effort to ensure that North Saanich upholds its obligations within the CRD. 
The fundamental basis for the RGS policy is that rural and urban values are mostly mutually exclusive, hence the 5%/95% growth distinction.  “Changing X while respecting X,” is a nonsense statement.

h.      Other municipalities are designated primarily for urban and commercial activities.  Should North Saanich put its rural and agricultural values at risk because those municipalities that are charged with housing responsibilities are underperforming?

8.      Trust remains tenuous and elusive.  Why?  Because of all of the above, plus:

a.       a persistent top-down approach to the review process - the Project Team imperatives have prevailed almost (but not quite) from the beginning

b.      recognition of, but little response to, substantial negative public sentiment

c.       until recently, almost no attempt to explain or connect the Regional Growth Strategy to the OCP.  And that recent attempt has only been to obscure the real meaning of the UCPA, the 5% growth maximum and the 61% actual growth statistic.

Thank you for persevering with my laundry list of OCP problems, I’m sure that we all wish it were smaller.  Yet again, Council is at a difficult juncture in this process. 

Staff suggest six possible options for Council.  Given the scope of the problems outlined above and generally echoed by many residents in their Phase 3 feedback and correspondence to Council, it would be unreasonable for Council to advance this project further when the next Council may well choose a different direction. 

To commit more time and money to pursue Option 1 as recommended, with no assurance that the result would endure, would not be a responsible choice. 

I urge Council to adopt Option 5, to pause the process until 2023. 

Thanks very much for your patience and deliberations . . . .  

               Spring Harrison, North Saanich                      250-655-0764

Saturday 13 August 2022

Four Urban Planners for a Rural Community?

 Posted to Next Door, 12 Aug 2022,  Rural scenes in North Saanich - Hay fields beside Willingdon Road near the airport and cows grazing in fields beside Tatlow Road. — Nextdoor 

 

Good observation. Which leads to the question, why do we have four urban planners working for a municipality that is, by definition, not urban? Perhaps a rural/agricultural community, as defined by the Regional Growth Strategy, needs an Agrologist, not urban planners. 

The RGS is clear, the Urban Containment Boundary is a line, not a zone. There is no such thing as a hybrid urban/rural entity. They are mutually exclusive as the RGS recognizes. Housing solutions are to go on the urban side, leaving the rural side intact to fill its legitimate functions.  It is disingenuous at best to state that spot increases in housing density throughout the District would not alter the rural character. The RGS says otherwise which is good enough for me. 

If there are housing problems in the area, and there certainly are, perhaps the question should be, are the urban areas within the CRD doing their best job at providing affordable housing? This is their mandate, not ours. 

Is it up to the rural communities to provide solutions where those who have that responsibility have failed? 

Our OCP Review has lost its way.  (edited)

OCP Discussion - 15 Aug 2022

 Email to NSCV Subscribers 

Re the OCP Discussion on 15 Aug 2022 

 [this is an email that was sent to NSCV subscribers on 13 Aug 2022]

Hello Folks,

With respect to the North Saanich OCP Review, there is an important Council meeting coming up on Monday, August 15, 2022.

Council will be discussing the latest OCP report, specifically the Phase 3 Engagement Summary and Recommendations Report.

The Municipality has issued a notice about this meeting; here is the link to the agenda and reports.

We urge readers to review the two reports.

The reports make 30 separate recommendations in relation to the vision, goals, six OCP themes, and the key features of the land use scenarios.

The Regional Growth Strategy, a foundational document for all municipalities in the CRD, receives a meagre single page discussion on page 153 within the 510 page Engagement Summary.  Considering that the RGS defines North Saanich as rural/rural-residential and outside the Urban Containment Boundary (where urban densities are meant to be), the strong emphasis by the Project Team on urban densification is directly contradictory to that identity.   And given the input from residents outlined in the summary, this urbanization push goes against the prevailing attitudes of the North Saanich community.

The two-page summary of Council Correspondence on page 455 (Appendix 6, page 165) of the Engagement Summary also makes for interesting reading.  Although it demonstrates a generally low level of support for both the review process itself and the push towards urbanization, the urbanization tone still prevails and residents need to let Council know their opinion regarding that sentiment.

For further background on the OCP Review, have a look at the North Saanich Community Voices website, specifically North Saanich Community Voices: NSCV on the OCP Review and North Saanich Community Voices: A Planner Speaks (nscv.ca).

The various ways to participate at this meeting are described at northsaanich.ca/council-meetings


Thanks for your support, your NSCV Team

Friday 15 July 2022

RGS Purpose

 To North Saanich Mayor and Council, 

I listened with great interest to the council meeting held on July 11th, 2022, because the Staff report - Regional Growth Background Report was being discussed. 

I noted that during the discussion, Mayor Geoff Orr explained that the  RGS and the OCP interact "back and forth" between each other.  I have several years of experience in land-use planning, and the RGS would be classified in the B.C. land use planning framework as a "Higher Level Plan", because it is a "Regional" plan.  All subsequent plans at a lower level or more area specific area like the North Saanich OCP should follow and be in "compliance" with the higher level plan. 

I was quite surprised when I started getting involved with the OCP engagement process, that Areas 1 and 2; and Deep Cove concepts were being proposed without being in compliance with the RGS.  In other B.C. land use planning scenarios, this would be totally unacceptable and would not be considered or approved because of unacceptable possible impacts to the land, water, natural resources and ecology.  Compliance with higher level plans has been a crucial cornerstone of land use planning in British Columbia for several decades, but this doesn't seem to be the case in urban planning. 

To bring the OCP into compliance, Areas 1 and 2 should return to "Rural Residential" status and not be included within the Urban Containment Boundary. 

I hope there is a clear understanding going forward, that the draft OCP must be in compliance with the RGS. 

Sincerely, 

Terry Chow

Coles Bay, North Saanich

Sunday 10 July 2022

Areas 1 & 2 - What To Do?

 Staff: the RGS and the OCP Review 

This Would Have Been Helpful in 2020 

 [This post refers to a Staff Report being presented at a Council meeting on July 11, 2022 and is a copy of a letter sent to Mayor and Council referring to that Staff Report.]

            Ms. Rimell is to be commended for a thorough report (Regional Growth Strategy Background Report in Relation to the OCP Review, being presented to Council on July 11, 2022), which adds much needed context to the OCP discussion.  It would have been very helpful to have had this report prior to Phase 1 as the provisions of the RGS are so fundamental to our OCP.  One wonders what has prompted this late day offering? 

            Although the RGS background material is thorough and clear, problems lurk.  As we have come to expect, this report has a strong housing and growth focus despite the fact that North Saanich is, by definition, a rural community.  There is little in this report about agricultural and rural values and support for them. 

            The impetus for this focus is the long festering case of Areas 1 and 2.  These areas were, like all of North Saanich, outside the urban containment boundary.  Since bylaw 1352 was adopted in 2014 they have floated as orphans without a land management designation, neither in nor out of the UCPA.  This OCP is intended to decide their fate and give them a home.  They can reside outside the UCPA, as they previously did, or that boundary can be redrawn to include them in that urban designation. 

            What guidance are we receiving from the Project Team?  Well, given their long-standing demonstrated proclivity towards growth and development, it is no surprise that they determine that, for Area 1, "there is currently stronger policy alignment with the Urban Containment Policy Area then the Rural/Rural Residential Policy Area."  

This position is based upon the “existing land uses, lot sizes, servicing and infrastructure and development and policy context in these areas”.  Of course, none of those qualities have existed in those areas forever.  They have gradually evolved through a mix of deliberate and inadvertent land-use decisions over many years.  In other words, the rationale being used today to bring Area 1 into the UCPA rests upon its non-conformance with the UCPA! 

Area 1 includes Canora Mews and Eaglehurst, both fine examples of urban sprawl inappropriately built on the wrong side of the UCPA boundary.  (Both are on former agricultural land.)  Area 1 is in RGS-limbo today because of that.  It is not the UCPA boundary that is in the wrong place, but the projects themselves.  

Those projects sprang from ideology rather than professional land-use planning and were strongly opposed by the residents at the time.  The Councillors who championed those developments were one-term opportunists.  Not being community minded, at least in terms of housing planning, they received record low vote counts at the next municipal election.  Although trumpeted as providing affordable, workforce housing, most of the financial benefits flowed to the sellers, not the buyers. 

      So, it requires enormous logical gymnastics to use an earlier poor land-use decision to justify an expansion of that process!  In essence, this would legitimize poor land-use decisions as a valid planning tool and replaces sound planning principles with "planning by precedent." 

            A parallel situation would be to eliminate lower speed limits near schools where they were regularly being ignored.  If the game moves off the playing field, do we move the goalposts or bring the game back onto the field?  

            Further undermining this obvious tilt towards expanding urbanization is the fact that North Saanich is already supporting a disproportionately large share of growth in the rural segment of the CRD.  The RGS mandates that no more than 5% of regional growth will occur outside the UCPA.  On the basis of rural land area, North Saanich could attract 13.6% of that 5% allotment.  In 2017 North Saanich absorbed 61% of that rural growth.  

It is nothing but disingenuous to suggest that the UCPA needs to be officially expanded into North Saanich.  That has already happened without redrawing the boundary. 

            If we can learn from the above analysis, the so-called “tough decision” about Area 1 is really quite easy: 

§         Recognize the growth in that area as anomalous, not based on sound planning and not precedent-setting

§         embrace the principles of wise land-use planning as expressed in the RGS

§         leave the UCPA boundary where it was intended to be, do not introduce “boundary creep”

§         return our focus to the rural and agricultural values as directed by the RGS