In February 2023, MODUS Planning walked away from North Saanich’s Official Community Plan, citing “an apparent misalignment of values about how public engagement should be conducted.” The walkout happened after Modus had already cost the taxpayers of North Saanich $400,000.
So why, three years later, is MODUS writing to the Saanich News (26 July) to “offer some helpful context” on a process it abandoned? Call it a zombie comeback — or damage control.
What MODUS left behind, North Saanich finished itself. From 2023 to 2025, the District built its OCP in-house: eight open houses and workshops, more than 1,200 resident comments, and a Mayor’s Advisory Committee of resident volunteers and councillors. That is what democratic planning looks like; not a template, but a community speaking for itself.
Under BC’s Local Government Act, an OCP is adopted by an elected Council after public consultation. Consultants advise and facilitate. They do not set public policy.
That distinction is exactly what MODUS’s critics say it ignores. In the Cowichan Valley, residents allege that they weren’t being heard, that the framework didn’t fit their community, that the process had failed them. By its own website, MODUS has worked in Surrey, Chilliwack, Penticton, Gibsons, Kamloops, Fort St. John, Kitimat, Sidney, New Westminster, Delta, Victoria, Squamish, Langley, and Lantzville.
Cookie-cutter, much?
North Saanich already answered the question MODUS is trying to reopen. Our OCP — built by the community, for the community, to protect the district’s farmland, coastline, and rural way of life — was adopted in July 2025, with zoning bylaws passing first reading in April 2026.
And then the process that built it was dismantled. The planning director who led that open, resident-driven work disappeared. The committees helping finalize the zoning bylaws were abruptly disbanded by the council. An interim director was brought in — who has said the zoning changes should not be an election issue. In North Saanich, zoning changes absolutely are.
The OCP was built on extensive public engagement. The bylaws that give it force must be too. No changes to our zoning without the community that wrote the plan.
SOURCES:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/crdwatch/posts/1660474901718431
