Housing Review

A written submission to the Executive Committee.

The Denman committee has done its part: Bylaws 260 and 264 passed third reading on 15 September 2026 and were forwarded for Executive Committee approval. Copy this, change the parts you disagree with, put your own name on it, and email it. Include only statements that are true for you.

Why speed matters. Under section 22 of the Islands Trust Act, the Executive Committee must give notice of its decision within one month of the Secretary receiving the bylaws — and if it gives none in that month, the bylaws are deemed approved. There is no public hearing at this stage and no published comment period. Delay is not a safe outcome: a postponement that runs past the month is an approval. The committee has to actively approve, return with directions, or refuse. Letters that arrive before its meeting are the input it has.

Before you copy it: make it yours

The most useful thing you can add is the part only you know: what you own or rent, what these rules would do to it, and what you want changed. Three sentences in your own words are worth more than every point below. You are also free to disagree with us — if you think the bylaws are right, tell the committee that; the record is better for it.

The letter

To the Executive Committee of the Islands Trust,

I am writing about proposed Denman Island Local Trust Committee Bylaw No. 260, cited as “Denman Island Official Community Plan, 2008, Amendment No. 1, 2026,” and proposed Bylaw No. 264, cited as “Denman Island Land Use Bylaw No. 264, 2026.” The Denman committee read both bylaws a third time on 15 September 2026 and forwarded them to the Secretary for your approval under section 27 of the Islands Trust Act. [Say here whether you own, rent or live on Denman Island, and where.]

I ask you to return both bylaws to the Denman committee under section 22(1)(b)(ii) of the Act, with reasons and with directions on the five points below. I am aware that under section 22(2) a bylaw on which no decision is notified within the month is deemed approved, so I am asking for an affirmative decision to return, not for delay. A return would also let the incoming Denman committee, elected on 17 October, confirm or revise the bylaws before they take effect.

1. Known gaps in the enacted text: the missing number, and cross-references that point nowhere.

Bylaw 264, s. 5.2(2)(c) makes secondary dwelling units a permitted accessory use in the Rural Residential zone. Section 5.2(4) fixes their number on lots under 4.0 hectares, and s. 5.2(5) fixes the number of secondary suites. No provision fixes the detached-secondary-dwelling count on lots of 4.0 hectares or more. The bylaw you are asked to approve therefore does not answer its own most basic counting question in a zone that covers most of Denman’s rural land. This is a drafting defect that third reading has now baked in. Direction: add the missing number before approval.

The miscites do not stop there. Every water-and-sewage condition of use on a secondary dwelling cites a section that does not contain the rule it invokes. Bylaw 264, ss. 5.1(13), 5.2(14), 5.3(12) and 5.6(17) each apply “the rules for proving water for a subdivision in Section 8.7(1)” — but s. 8.7 is “Lot Configuration Regulations,” the width-and-depth rule, and the proof-of-water provisions live in ss. 8.8 to 8.11. Section 5.5(18) applies “Section 2.19,” and Part 2 of the bylaw ends at s. 2.10. Section 8.5(1)–(2) carve out exceptions found in “Section 8.12(3)” and “regulations 8.12(2) and 8.12(3),” and s. 8.12 (Waste Disposal) has only one subsection. Section 8.8(1) cites “regulations 8.7(2) to 8.7(4)” and s. 8.9(4)(b) “regulations 8.7(2) through 8.7(4)” for water-supply standards, and s. 8.7 has only two subsections, the second about road frontage. Section 3.5(1) sends proof of water for a second principal dwelling to “Section 8.7” as well, and the site-specific Agriculture rules A(5)(d) and A(6)(a) make subdivision “subject to the regulations in Section 2.8,” which in this bylaw is “Enforcement of Siting Regulations.” A permit officer cannot resolve these from the text, and conditions of use that point at nonexistent sections are the kind of defect that invites an uncertainty challenge the incoming committee would have to defend. Direction: correct the cross-references — or return the bylaw for that purpose — before approval.

2. The 64-hectare figure has no published analysis.

Bylaw 264 sets a minimum lot area of 64.0 hectares in every zone — Residential, Rural Residential, Land-Share, Agriculture, Forestry, Commercial, Light Industrial, Institutional, Conservation and Park (ss. 5.1(12), 5.2(13), 5.3(11), 5.5(19), 5.6(18), 5.7(5), 5.8(6), 5.9(5), 5.10(3), 5.11(4)), restated at s. 8.1(4): “The minimum lot area for all zones is 64.0 hectares.” For an ordinary split to pass that general area test, the parent parcel must have 128 hectares. Staff’s second-reading report says the amendments “remove outright subdivision potential and reduce the number of units permitted outright on larger lots,” for a maximum build-out “approximately 100 fewer units than under the current regulations.”

The record before you contains no numerical analysis choosing 64 hectares: the April 2026 draft carried X placeholders and an editorial note that GIS data was awaited, and no comparison of alternative figures was published at any point in the review. Our model of the island’s 894 mapped parcels finds 2 that pass the proposed general area screen — both Agriculture-zoned and ALR-flagged, so the general rule binds almost every private lot on the island while exempting none of the public purposes. Approving a uniform threshold on an unpublished analysis, at the final regular meeting before an election, would set the standard of evidence for every other local trust committee. Direction: require the analysis to be published and referred before approval.

3. The housing-need figures were deleted from the plan after a ministry comment on wording.

The draft OCP stated the figures from Denman’s housing needs report: 109 additional units over five years, 359 over twenty. On 24 August 2026 the committee deleted them. The planner’s recorded explanation: “I guess it’ll be left to the ministry to decide how we’ve referred to it. So how about we just delete it and see what they say.” The Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs’ referral letter of 21 July 2026 had said it was “great to see that Denman Island has incorporated the 20-year HNR numbers,” and recommended only that the phrase “housing targets” on page 8 be changed. You are asked to approve the zoning half of a bylaw pair whose plan half is now with the Minister for approval, under s. 27(2)(b) of the Act, with its quantified twenty-year housing statement removed. Direction: return Bylaw 260 to the committee with directions to restore the figures as a statement of future housing capacity before ministerial approval is sought, and return Bylaw 264 with it so the pair stays together.

4. Farm and ALR housing narrows against the provincial baseline.

Outside the Agricultural Land Reserve, Land Use Bylaw 186 Table 3 permits a principal dwelling per 15.0 hectares with no maximum; Bylaw 264 s. 5.5(4) replaces that with “Only one (1) dwelling unit is permitted per lot, both inside and outside the Agricultural Land Reserve” at any acreage — a 100-acre farm goes from two permitted principal dwellings to one, and larger holdings lose more. On ALR lots, s. 5.5(7) cuts the present permission of a suite and a detached cottage to one or the other. The province’s ALR Use Regulation (ss. 31 and 34.3) already allows a principal residence, a secondary suite within it, and a detached additional residence of up to 90 m² (186 m² on parcels over 40 hectares) without a Commission application. A local regime narrower than the provincial baseline it sits under needs evidence, and none is in the record. Direction: align ss. 5.5(4) and 5.5(7) with the provincial baseline, or return them for that purpose.

5. The deferral option was on the table, and these bylaws outlast the committee that passed them.

The staff report of 3 September 2026 for the 15 September meeting set out Alternative 2: defer third reading to the incoming local trust committee, which is “not expected to begin considering applications and projects until early 2027.” The committee did not take it, at what the report calls “the final regular meeting of the current LTC before the local election.” Your approval can still precede any input from the trustees who will inherit these bylaws — their enforcement, their variance applications, and their consequences. The object of the trust under s. 3 of the Act is to preserve and protect the trust area and its unique amenities and environment “for the benefit of the residents of the trust area and of British Columbia generally.” A bylaw pair whose own staff estimate is about 100 fewer homes, approved on an unpublished threshold and a deleted housing statement, should be tested against that object by the committee that must live with it.

I ask for the useful housing reforms these bylaws carry to be retained — the removal of the temporary-use-permit requirement for secondary dwellings, dwellings permitted in Industrial zones, the expanded secondary-suite and detached-secondary-dwelling opportunities, and support for Agricultural Land Commission exclusion applications for affordable housing. My request is for process and correction, not obstruction: return the bylaws to the Denman committee with the directions above.

Yours respectfully,
[Your name]
[Your address on Denman Island, or your interest in the trust area]

Where this came from

Every quotation and section reference above is checked in the chronology, which names its document for each step. The companion letters are the submission to the Denman committee (the hearing record, closed 15 September) and the submission to the Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs, whose approval Bylaw 260 requires under s. 27(2)(b) of the Act.