A draft plan

Three steps to homes Denman can afford.

More homes, of more kinds, where water and septic can serve them. This is the publisher’s working draft, not an Islands Trust proposal, and it will change. Tell us what you would change.

1

Allow multi-family housing and more homes on existing lots

Today a building with two or more homes is permitted in only one zone, Affordable Rental Housing. Everywhere else each home must be a single-family house or a suite.

  • Count homes, not house types. Outside the Agricultural Land Reserve, give each lot a number of homes and let the owner choose the form: a house and a suite, two cottages, a duplex, a triplex or a fourplex.
  • Start from what each lot has, then add. Turn every lot’s present houses, suites and cottages into one number so nobody loses anything; allow at least two homes on every residential lot (the Residential zone allows no suites today); allow one or two more where homes share a building or a clustered site with a shared septic field and driveway.
  • Let people own them. Allow homes in a small multi-unit building to be sold separately as strata units, with the proposed ban on whole-home short-term rentals applying to them. Proposed Bylaw 264 goes the other way: outside the ALR a suite would need a covenant stopping it from becoming a separate strata lot.
  • Farms need homes. On ALR land, allow at least what the Province allows: a house of up to 500 m², a suite inside it, and a detached home of up to 90 m² (186 m² on parcels over 40 hectares). Denman caps a farmhouse at 410 m² today, and Bylaw 264 would allow a suite or a detached secondary dwelling, not both. More homes for farm workers or family on ALR land need the Agricultural Land Commission’s permission; zone for them so that is the only extra step, and allow multi-family buildings on Agriculture-zoned land outside the ALR.
  • Regulate what actually limits housing. Proven water for each home, approved sewage disposal, total floor area and lot coverage, setbacks and fire access. Proposed Bylaw 264 already requires an 18,000-litre cistern for a new house.
2

Work with the CVRD on water and septic for the village

The Islands Trust writes Denman’s zoning, but water and sewer systems are regional district services. The Comox Valley Regional District already runs one water system on Denman: the Graham Lake Water Local Service Area serves 91 properties, about 200 residents.

  • Ask the CVRD, through Denman’s regional director, to study community water and a shared wastewater system for the village, where the shops, the Activity Centre and the Denman Green site already are.
  • If it is feasible, create a service area that the village’s property owners agree to fund, and seek provincial and federal infrastructure grants.
  • Meanwhile, allow shared on-site septic systems for clustered homes. Island Health already sets out how sewerage systems can serve several buildings on one parcel.
3

Rezone the village for mixed use and more homes

Our parcel map shows 11 small Commercial-zoned lots along Northwest Road and the western end of Denman Road. Each allows one dwelling. Nearby, 1151 Northwest Road is already zoned for 20 affordable rental homes.

  • Once it can be serviced, rezone the village for homes above shops, townhouses and small apartment buildings, at a height and footprint that fit the island.
  • Trustees listed “more density downtown” among the housing review’s aims in March 2022. This step asks them to finish that job.
  • Three of the village’s commercial lots are flagged in our data as touching the ALR; any change there also needs the Agricultural Land Commission.

Today the Denman Local Trust Committee decides. If Denman incorporates, an elected council would, with its community plan still approved by the Trust Executive Committee. How incorporation works.

Why more homes make each home cheaper, even as the lot is worth more

Two different prices get confused. Permission to add a second home raises what a lot is worth, because it can now house more people or earn rent. But two homes on one piece of land each carry half the land cost, so each home costs less than a house on its own lot. Both are true at once. When planners say extra dwellings make housing cheaper, they mean the price or rent of each home, not the value of the property.

  • Permission alone raises land prices. After Chicago upzoned parcels near transit, transaction prices on those parcels rose, and so did prices of existing condominiums. Over five years the reform produced no increase in newly permitted homes. The author concludes the short-term, local effect was “higher property prices but no additional new housing construction.”
  • That is not universal. A study of Houston’s smaller-lot reform found no evidence that it raised assessed land values.
  • Homes that actually get built do lower prices. New market-rate apartment buildings lowered nearby rents compared with similar areas.
  • Denman is not a city. Much of the island’s demand comes from off-island buyers, so new homes can go to newcomers and prices fall less than in a closed market. That is why this plan pairs more homes with year-round occupancy rules, and why Step 2 matters: Chicago’s lesson is that permission without buildable homes mostly raises land prices.

Smaller is cheaper. The cheapest home to buy is a small one: on a small lot, or a strata unit in a small building. The proposed bylaws block both, with a 64-hectare minimum lot size and a covenant stopping a suite from becoming a separate strata lot.

Rent here, never own here

The Housing Review’s new homes are designed as rentals. The consultants’ 2023 report recommended secondary dwellings “as a measure to increase rental housing on existing residential lots rather than subdividing new lots”. In January 2025 trustees “confirmed there will not be opportunity to subdivide a property with a second residence.” Bylaw 264 adds the no-strata covenant and the 64-hectare minimum. The result: homes to rent, and homes an owner’s family can live in, but no new home a newcomer can buy.

That matters because owning is how most Canadian families build wealth. In 2023 Statistics Canada found that younger families who owned their home had a median net worth of $457,100; younger families without one had $44,000. Among families aged 55 to 64, owners with a workplace pension had a median of $1.4 million, while renters without one had $11,900. Not all of that gap is caused by owning: owners also tend to have higher incomes and inheritances. But a plan that offers the next generation only rent closes the door earlier islanders walked through.

Rental homes are needed, especially non-market homes for people who cannot get a mortgage. Rental should not be the only way in. Add a ladder to ownership: strata units in small multi-unit buildings, small lots where water and septic allow, and resale-restricted ownership of the kind Whistler uses.

What this plan does not claim

More homes are necessary, not sufficient. Our affordability study found that additional dwellings can provide cheaper housing, and that the record does not show removing subdivision makes housing more affordable. Non-market homes such as Denman Green still need funding. Water limits are real: this plan asks for the evidence on each lot instead of a flat cap. For the bylaws now at public hearing, see the Housing Review and a submission you can send by 4:30 p.m., Monday 14 September.

Sources

Published 11 September 2026. If a fact here is wrong, tell us and we will correct it on this page and say so.