Langford was supposed to be BC’s housing success story: build fast, build big, solve the crisis. Instead, it’s becoming a warning.
In just five years, Langford’s property taxes have exploded: 2.95% in 2021, 2.95% in 2022, 12.41% in 2023, then a record-breaking 15.63% hike in 2024, followed by 9.77% in 2025 and 10.22% again in 2026. Three double-digit tax hikes in four years. That’s not bad luck. That’s the bill for growth that outran the infrastructure meant to support it.
Take Westhills, once open land, now home to thousands, which passed 1,000 homes almost overnight. Roads like Alouette Drive turned into commuter chokepoints so bad the city had to install speed bumps just to keep residents safe. Locals are now living through what officials openly call “construction fatigue”: noise, dust, traffic, and neighbourhoods that stopped feeling like home.
Even Langford’s own council admitted the pace had gotten away from them, which is why it adopted a new Official Community Plan in 2025 to try to bring order to growth that had already spiralled.
Now the same playbook is coming for North Saanich. A provincially appointed advisor, paid by a global real estate firm, is pushing six-storey buildings, an expanded Urban Containment Boundary, and less local oversight, in a district that just spent years building an Official Community Plan (OCP) to protect its rural character.
If Langford is any indication, this isn’t just about buildings. It’s about your tax bill. It’s about your roads. It’s about abandoning climate resilience just as the crisis accelerates. It’s about whether North Saanich still feels like North Saanich five years from now.
SOURCES
https://www.pressreader.com/canada/times-colonist/20240307/281479281376452
https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/langford-1022-property-tax-hike-an-investment-in-community-councillor-12135635
https://langford.ca/1000-homes-for-langfords-westhills-and-counting/
https://www.timescolonist.com/business/1000-homes-for-langfords-westhills-and-counting-8672683
https://islandsocialtrends.ca/local-more-traffic-calming-along-alouette-in-westhills/
https://goldstreamgazette.com/2026/04/23/langford-finds-cure-for-construction-fatigue-with-new-city-standards-bylaw/
https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/langford-adopts-new-official-community-plan-to-guide-growth-10902403
