Few planning questions are more consequential for North Saanich, or for Canada, than where the line between urban sprawl and rural ecosystems is drawn. The urban containment boundary (UCB) is not merely a zoning or administrative matter. It is about the kind of community North Saanich is and the environmental and human amenities it provides.
It is about the economic value North Saanich adds to the regional and national economy. It is about Canada losing farmland while North Saanich adds new farmers to the sector. It is about Canada’s climate obligations, and North Saanich doing its bit to meet them.
North Saanich Already Has a Housing Plan: The Official Community Plan
Moving the UCB overlooks the fact that North Saanich already has a plan. Not an idea, but a people-led, resident-owned Official Community Plan, adopted in 2025.
The OCP does not reject growth. Its housing strategy is evidence-based, directing density to locations that already have infrastructure, transport and social amenities, places where new housing entrants can build a good life with affordable housing. It fosters a resilient local food and agricultural system in a municipality where over 30% of land is set aside for this purpose. The OCP notes that many residents already use their residential property to produce food and the thriving North Saanich Farmers Market is evidence of this. Lastly, the North Saanich plan for housing maintains compact settlement, and makes the district’s rural qualities work with local natural ecosystems.
What CBRE Is Proposing, and Why Residents Rejected It
That approach is under attack at council, where development interests led by CBRE, the Dallas-based international property conglomerate, have lobbyists pushing for “a little bit” of change to the UCB. As one resident said at the last council meeting, you can’t make a small change to the UCB any more than you can be a little bit pregnant.
Residents have roundly rejected proposals to extend the boundary into North Saanich and introduce substantially greater density in an ad hoc fashion: apartment buildings of up to six storeys, sixplexes and fourplexes, more units on existing single-family lots, and smaller minimum lot sizes. They point to nearby Langford as an example of what moving the line does to costs and quality of life, and they reject the resulting pressure on rural and agricultural lands.
The concern is not housing itself. It is about where housing should go, and who decides, when a formally consulted and adopted OCP already provides a plan that must be given time to work.
The Lungs of the Peninsula: Farmland, Ecosystems and Long-Term Value
North Saanich occupies a unique position on the Saanich Peninsula. Its agricultural lands feed the regional food system and buffer against farmland loss to sprawl. The OCP links agricultural resilience, compact settlement and ecosystem protection because residents do not see these as competing priorities. They are interconnected parts of a thriving long-term vision.
The phrase “lungs of the peninsula” captures it: green space and farmland serving a purpose well beyond municipal boundaries. Changing the urban containment boundary is about more than a line on a map. It is about whether growth works with the qualities that make North Saanich a distinctive and valued part of the Island, the region and Canada itself.
SOURCES:
https://www.connectnorthsaanich.ca/zoning-bylaw-update
