The July 15 2026 – Electoral Area Services Committee (EASC) agenda and staff reports provide an important snapshot of where the Cowichan Valley stands on housing, planning, and development. More importantly, they give us an opportunity to ask a simple question: have the planning reforms of the past eight years delivered what residents were promised?
When the Cowichan Valley Regional District adopted the Harmonized Official Community Plan (HOCP) in 2022, followed by the Modernized Official Community Plan (MOCP) in 2025, residents were promised a planning system that would be simpler, more consistent, reduce red tape, streamline approvals, and help deliver the housing our communities need.
Looking at today’s reports, the results appear very different. The reports show a 73% decline in new home permits since 2022.
Rather than a simpler and more predictable planning system, we now have greater regulatory complexity, fewer homes being built, increasing administrative workload, and growing uncertainty for homeowners, builders, businesses, and investors.
Good public policy should be judged by its outcomes. The outcomes presented in today’s reports deserve serious discussion.
The Cost of Layering Regulation
The planning reforms were introduced with good intentions. Protecting farmland, preserving rural character, and safeguarding environmentally sensitive areas remain important community values.
But the Board is responsible for setting policy direction, controlling scope, and ensuring that new requirements remain practical and proportionate. Over the past eight years, instead of reining in complexity, the Board repeatedly allowed additional layers of regulation to be added to an already difficult planning system.
Official Community Plan changes, Development Permit Areas, Zero Carbon Step Code requirements, evolving climate policies, multiple development permit requirements, and the draft Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw have each added time, cost, and uncertainty. While every initiative may appear reasonable when considered on its own, the Board failed to adequately assess or control their cumulative impact.
The issue is no longer whether each policy had merit in isolation. It is whether the combined weight of the Board’s choices has made housing less attainable, discouraged investment, and slowed the delivery of the homes our community needs.
Today’s reports suggest that it has.
Local Policy Still Matters
Staff are correct that higher interest rates, mortgage qualification rules, and rising construction costs have affected housing across British Columbia. Those pressures are real, but they are not unique to the Cowichan Valley.
Local governments still have significant influence over housing outcomes through zoning, development permit requirements, approval timelines, fees, building standards, and the overall complexity of the planning system.
The 2026 LUS Staff Q2 report uses Victoria’s Residential Construction Price Index to provide construction-cost context. However, Greater Victoria is also widely recognized as one of Canada’s and BC’s most expensive and heavily regulated housing markets. Its restrictive land-use rules, limited zoning capacity, and lengthy development approval processes have contributed to higher housing costs and constrained growth. That makes Victoria a questionable benchmark for rural electoral areas in the Cowichan Valley.
The Board should also ask itself why it continues to align rural Cowichan with the CRD and Victoria as though that level of regulation should be treated as normal or desirable. Rural communities have different infrastructure, land-use patterns, housing needs, and economic realities. Using highly regulated urban markets as the standard risks importing the same costs, delays, and housing shortages into communities that require a more practical and proportionate approach.
Comparisons with neighbouring regional districts suggest that broader economic conditions do not fully explain the CVRD’s results. The Regional District of Nanaimo recorded 24 dwelling units created during the second quarter of 2026, while the Comox Valley Regional District issued permits representing approximately 21 new dwelling units. During the same period, the CVRD recorded just 12 new dwelling permits. Although reporting methods differ somewhat, the comparison reinforces a simple point: broader economic conditions affect every community, while local planning requirements and approval systems help determine how successfully each community responds.
Every community is different, but the comparison reinforces a simple point: broader economic conditions affect everyone, while local planning decisions help determine how well each community responds.
Even Staff Are Feeling the Weight of the System
One of the most useful observations in the staff report concerns workload. Even as fewer homes are being built, applications are taking more time to process because files increasingly involve multiple layers of review.
Private water and septic systems are primarily regulated by provincial authorities, yet the CVRD has inserted additional consideration of these matters into its own planning and approval processes. Applications may also involve development permits, suites, accessory buildings, retaining walls, zoning questions, and unresolved issues related to older construction.
As the report notes, a smaller number of new dwellings can still generate a significant workload when files involve rural servicing, overlapping jurisdictions, and multiple regulatory requirements. This helps explain why lower application volumes have not produced a simpler or more efficient system.
The result is that fewer applications now require more staff time. The resulting administrative costs are ultimately carried by taxpayers, applicants, and future homeowners.
Planning Uncertainty Has Destabilized the Region
Perhaps the most significant result has been uncertainty.
After adopting the Modernized OCP, the Board advanced a draft Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw that proposed new restrictions intended to align rural land use with the OCP. But many of those restrictions did not align with how people actually live in rural communities.
The draft proposal did not acknowledge the reality of RV occupancy, tiny homes, accessory buildings, fencing, chickens, and other long-standing property uses. Rather than simplifying, it added another layer of regulation to ordinary rural activities and raised understandable concern among homeowners, buyers, builders, and real estate professionals.
The Q2 report records 164 property and realtor inquiries during the quarter and 290 so far this year. These inquiries came from homeowners trying to understand the rules, buyers deciding whether to proceed, builders considering whether to delay projects, and real estate professionals attempting to advise their clients.
The uncertainty deepened in April 2026 when the Board paused work on the Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw. A few weeks later, it voted to repeal the Modernized OCP, reinstate the Harmonized OCP, and begin yet another planning process. After eight years of land-use reform, the region was once again left without a clear and stable long-term direction.
Predictable planning rules matter.
The Promise vs. the Reality
The promise was straightforward: simpler planning, less red tape, greater certainty, and more housing.
Today’s reports show a different outcome. Housing construction has fallen sharply, new dwelling permits are at historic lows, and administrative complexity has increased. Staff workloads remain high despite fewer applications, while repeated changes in land-use policy have created uncertainty for residents, businesses, builders, and investors. At the same time, the region continues to fall further behind its own identified housing needs.
These are not the results residents were promised.
Looking Forward
When I opposed the Modernized OCP in 2025, I warned that adding more regulation to an already complex planning system could increase costs, create uncertainty, and slow housing development. At the time, those concerns were dismissed by some as divisive. Looking at today’s EASC reports, I believe they deserve to be reconsidered.
This is not about saying, “I told you so.” Good governance requires us to examine the results of our decisions and adjust when policies are not producing the outcomes that were intended.
As a candidate for Area I Director, I believe local government should be practical, transparent, and accountable. It should ask difficult questions, measure success by results, and ensure that regulations solve problems rather than create new ones.
The Cowichan Valley can protect its natural environment, preserve its rural character, and support the housing our communities need. These goals are not mutually exclusive. The challenge is to restore balance, rebuild confidence, and create a planning system that is clear, predictable, efficient, and focused on results.
As we approach the October 17 election, residents have a responsibility to look at the record, weigh the evidence, and decide whether the current direction is delivering the results our communities need.
After eight years of planning reform, have we achieved the simpler, more affordable, and more predictable system that residents were promised?
