In a tight 4-3 vote, North Cowichan council decided to begin the process to amend the municipality’s official community plan to allow a proposal for a subdivision at 1673 Grant Rd., near Quamichan Lake, to move forward at its meeting on Oct. 1.
The vote was controversial as staff recommended council deny the application, which could see as many as 28 housing units constructed on 1.24 hectares of land, as the property is located outside North Cowichan’s urban containment boundary, and council had received a petition with 68 signatures against the project.
As well, concerns were raised that three councillors, including Becky Hogg, Bruce Findlay and Mike Caljouw, received campaign contributions from the applicant during their election campaigns, and suggestions were made by some that they should recuse themselves from the vote due to a perceived conflict of interest.
The property was excluded from the previous UCB, along with other larger properties located around the perimeter of Quamichan Lake, when the OCP was adopted in 2022.
A staff report concluded that the whole purpose of defining a growth boundary is to encourage development and densification within it, and to prevent it outside of the growth boundary.
“The fact that the scale of development in this case is relatively small offers no justification to depart from the policy and expand the UCB,” the report said. “As with the recent OCP amendment application decision at Morgan Maples on Henry Road, the applicant already has development rights, and denial of this application will not take those away.”
Coun. Christopher Justice agreed with staff that the application should be denied as it doesn’t align with North Cowichan’s growth management policies as outlined in the OCP.
“These policies are not just random, they were fairly carefully thought out and subject to extensive community input, and the purpose of this growth boundary is to direct development intensification inside the UCB and to prevent development outside of it,” he said.
“There’s good reasons why the boundary is where it is.”
Coun. Tek Manhas pointed out that staff confirmed the infrastructure for the proposed development is already in place, so there’s capacity for the services that would be required.
“This was a growth area until a couple of years ago when it was, I believe, recklessly taken out of the UCB,” he said.
Coun. Chris Istace said the municipality is already facing severe limitations with its infrastructure.
"We're still at a deficit of $37 million a year on our infrastructure and we're not getting anywhere near that," he said.
"We need to focus on other areas and not jeopardize developments that are in our core areas, including Sherman Road, Beverly Corners, York Street and in Crofton and Chemainus."
Coun. Bruce Findlay said he doesn’t think the property should have been carved out of the UCB in the first place.
“The services are there and the plan is smart; it just makes sense to me,” he said.
Mayor Rob Douglas said the proposal runs directly counter to the type of growth North Cowichan residents have told council they want.
He said the recent update of the OCP was a long and costly process that involved multiple rounds of public engagement.
“Residents were clear they don’t want continued loss of rural land to sprawl development, which harms the environment, increases traffic congestion and inflates long-term infrastructure and servicing costs,” he said.
“Based on that feedback, we deliberately excluded undeveloped land in the Quamichan watershed from the UCB. We have ample land available within the UCB to meet our housing needs for decades.”
Council gave the first two readings to amend the OCP to allow the project to proceed to the next level in the application process, and a public hearing will be held before it comes back to council.
Becky Hogg was the only one of the three councillors to have received campaign contributions from the applicant who addressed the issue at the council meeting.
She said she knew nothing about it until a news article appeared online recently.
“I had a financial person who took care of the money for me [during my election campaign], so I didn’t know who donated money to me,” Hogg said.
When asked in question period at the end of the meeting whether the councillors were in a conflict of interest, Douglas said that under the current legislation in the Community Charter, every member of council is free to vote on an application after receiving a donation without being in a conflict of interest.
