Keeping Rural Rural: Why North Cowichan’s Urban Containment Boundary Matters
Updated: 14 hours ago
When urban development spreads into rural land, the change is permanent.
The Urban Containment Boundary—or UCB—is the line that separates where urban growth should happen from the rural, agricultural and natural lands that should remain rural. Inside the boundary, North Cowichan plans for more homes, businesses, roads, sewer and water services. Outside it, development is supposed to remain limited.
We need this boundary because without it, subdivisions can keep spreading outward—one road, one sewer extension and one development at a time—until farms, forests and rural neighbourhoods become continuous suburbia.
The UCB is one of our most important protections against the Cowichan Valley becoming the next Langford: endless sprawl, heavy traffic and expensive infrastructure replacing the rural landscape people came here to enjoy.
A boundary on a planning map may not sound especially powerful. But North Cowichan’s UCB helps decide where subdivisions are built, how far municipal services must extend, how much infrastructure taxpayers inherit and whether rural land actually remains rural.
The principle is simple: build where the roads, pipes and services already exist before pushing urban development farther into the countryside.
Why build inside the UCB?
Building inside the UCB allows more homes to share infrastructure and services that already exist: roads, sewer and water pipes, pump stations, sidewalks, fire protection, waste collection and nearby community facilities.
Development outside the boundary may require:
Longer water and sewer mains
Additional sewage pump stations
New roads, intersections or road widening
More stormwater infrastructure
Earlier upgrades to existing water systems
Longer routes for municipal vehicles and services
More driving because homes are farther from shops, schools and workplaces
Decades of maintenance and the eventual replacement of all that new infrastructure
So, who pays for these upgrades?
Who do you think?! Taxpayers do! A developer may contribute some funds toward initial construction through development cost charges, servicing requirements or community amenity contributions. But once roads, pipes and pump stations become public infrastructure, residents inherit much of the cost of maintaining and eventually replacing them. North Cowichan’s development cost charges have not been updated since 2011, while residents’ taxes have continued to rise. How is this fair?
North Cowichan’s own engineering staff have been unusually direct about this.
In a 2025 servicing analysis, the municipality’s Director of Engineering reported that, at current tax rates, no new development fully pays for itself.
Read that again: NO NEW DEVELOPMENT FULLY PAYS FOR ITSELF!! WE DO!
North Cowichan has identified at least $177.3 million in water and sewer infrastructure pressures. That consists of a $27.3-million backlog in existing water and sewer mains and approximately $150 million in additional water and sewer upgrades needed to support growth, including close to $100 million for shared sewage-treatment upgrades.
North Cowichan also has an estimated $23.5-million share of the Joint Utilities Board’s future sewage-lagoon site-remediation liability and approximately $12.8 million in remaining lagoon-property lease payments through 2060. Together, these figures bring the broader disclosed total to approximately $213.6 million in identified infrastructure pressures and related obligations.
That is still not North Cowichan’s complete infrastructure deficit. The municipality’s draft asset-management figures indicate that another $23.24 million must be invested annually over the lifecycle of its bridges, facilities, sidewalks, drainage systems, playgrounds and non-main water and sewer infrastructure. A complete accumulated backlog for roads and all other municipal assets has not yet been published.
North Cowichan has said that the growth-related water and sewer costs are beyond what the municipality, developers or existing taxpayers can fund without major contributions from senior governments.
Denser development inside the UCB performs better financially, but growth occurring outside of the UCB is substantially more expensive.
For the expansion north of Herd Road, staff identified the need for another sanitary pump station, an extended sewer trunk main and potentially earlier upgrades to several water mains. These would be additional projects—not infrastructure required to serve development that had already been planned south of Herd Road for years.
Those applicants followed the adopted plan and invested substantial time and money. Staff warned that pushing growth north out of sequence could force servicing plans to be redone, consume scarce capacity and delay compliant projects south of Herd Road by an estimated nine months to two years.
North Cowichan staff advised Council not to support applications that extend infrastructure outside the 2022 UCB until existing servicing problems have been addressed.
The accompanying report warned that expanding the boundary could be costly to taxpayers and could make coordinated infrastructure planning more difficult. This is a very important point to note. The 4 Council members who push development have not heeded this advice at all. In fact, quite the opposite.
In his 2022 campaign housing platform, Councillor Bruce Findlay wrote:
“The solution is easy - open the floodgates! Let the developers loose and let's build, build, build!”
The UCB protects more than municipal finances
Rural and natural lands include increasingly rare ecosystems such as Garry oak woodlands.
Containing development also helps protect our wildlife, farmland, forests, watersheds, ecological corridors and rural communities.
Urban sprawl consumes more land per household. It fragments rural properties, increases traffic and gradually introduces urban expectations and infrastructure into places never intended to become suburbs.
Once a road is widened, a sewer main extended or a pump station constructed, the pressure for further development rarely disappears. The first expansion can—and often will—become the justification for the next one.
North Cowichan recognized these risks when it reviewed and modified the UCB in 2022 following three years of public consultation.
The plan says the municipality should:
Direct growth inside the UCB and resist growth elsewhere
Avoid extending municipal services beyond the UCB for new residential or commercial development
Avoid projects that facilitate significant densification beyond the boundary
Consider significant UCB changes through a comprehensive OCP review or a proper neighbourhood-planning process
North Cowichan’s designated growth centres have an adequate supply of serviceable residential land to meet projected housing and community needs.
Protecting the UCB does not mean opposing housing. It means placing housing where more homes can be served efficiently and where people can live closer to shops, schools, employment and transit. It’s common sense.
A boundary that keeps moving
Despite the commitments made in 2022, Council has since changed the UCB through three development decisions.
1771 Robert Street
What changed: In July 2024, Council adopted OCP Amendment Bylaw 3914, redesignating rural-residential land for neighbourhood development and bringing it inside the UCB. Beyond this parcel, the vote created another precedent for changing the boundary through an individual application rather than a comprehensive OCP review.
How Council voted:
Councillors Mike Caljouw, Bruce Findlay, Chris Istace and Tek Manhas voted for the amendment.
Mayor Rob Douglas and Councillor Christopher Justice voted against it. Councillor Debra Toporowski was absent.
Final adoption: July 17, 2024. Read the official Council minutes
1673 Grant Road
What changed: In November 2025, Council adopted Bylaw 4033, returning land to the UCB that had deliberately been removed during the 2022 OCP process. The decision signalled that a community-wide boundary decision could be reversed through a later parcel-specific application.
How Council voted:
Councillors Mike Caljouw, Bruce Findlay, Becky Hogg and Tek Manhas voted for the amendment.
Mayor Rob Douglas and Councillors Chris Istace and Christopher Justice voted against it.
Final adoption: November 5, 2025. Read the official Council minutes
Bell McKinnon and West Vista
What changed: More than 100 acres north of Herd Road were brought inside the UCB through coordinated OCP Amendment Bylaws 4028 and 4029. Engineering staff warned that this out-of-sequence growth could consume scarce servicing capacity, require major additional infrastructure—including a new sanitary pump station—and delay projects already planned south of Herd Road.
Council had rejected the West Vista expansion in March 2024. The proposal returned later that year, proceeded through the amendment process and was ultimately approved in November 2025. Council moved it forward without supporting a staff recommendation for a financial-impact assessment of the projected development charges, amenity contributions, tax revenue and municipal costs.
How Council voted:
Councillors Mike Caljouw, Bruce Findlay, Becky Hogg and Tek Manhas voted for the amendments.
Mayor Rob Douglas and Councillors Chris Istace and Christopher Justice voted against them.
Final adoption: November 19, 2025. Read the official Council minutes
The last two 2025 UCB expansions produced the same 4–3 split: Caljouw, Findlay, Hogg and Manhas voted for both.
Douglas, Istace and Justice voted against both.
More applications are waiting
Many additional UCB and OCP amendments are being considered - here is an example of 3.
Kingsview, Kaspa Road, Nevilane Drive and Sansum Drive
An active application seeks to expand the UCB and redesignate Rural Residential land for neighbourhood development on steep slopes in a high-wildfire-risk area. Depending on the development scenario, the lands outside the current boundary could accommodate approximately 622 to 809 housing units. Construction would unfold over many years, while a concurrent request would extend the phased development agreement by another 10 years, to 2038.
This is not a minor boundary adjustment. It would add a large, long-term urban footprint in terrain that is harder to service and evacuate. Traffic on Maple Bay Road is already backed up and congested, and only getting worse.
2083 Indian Crescent
An active application proposes bringing land back inside the UCB for a proposed 56-unit development beside Quamichan Creek, within a designated riparian area. Quamichan Creek is the only outlet for Quamichan Lake and connects to a salmon-bearing watercourse.
The 3.5-acre property currently contains one home and is zoned R1. The proposal would rezone it to R8 apartment zoning to permit a three-storey townhouse development and 12 detached homes in an ecologically sensitive creek area.
Hidden Hills Road
Council granted early consideration in January 2026 to an OCP amendment for a remote 21-lot subdivision bordering the Municipal Forest Reserve and outside the UCB. It did so despite serious community concerns and warnings from the fire chief, deputy fire chief, CAO and Halalt First Nation Chief James Thomas about water scarcity, runoff, stream protection and firefighting challenges.
The proposal is for 21 rural lots on approximately 118 forested acres at the end of Hidden Hills Road. That location raises reasonable questions about wildfire exposure, emergency access, evacuation and whether enough reliable water would be available for firefighting. Council reconsidered its decision in March and upheld its original approval to allow the application to proceed.
These applications have not all been approved. But their number—and their scale—should concern anyone who believed the 2022 boundary represented a durable plan for North Cowichan’s growth. Each request tests whether rural land, ecological safeguards and orderly infrastructure planning will hold when development pressure arrives.
Council decisions send a message
Application numbers alone cannot prove that every new request was caused by an earlier Council approval. But the incentive is obvious.
When Council treats the UCB as a firm limit, developers plan within it. When Council repeatedly demonstrates that the boundary can be moved through individual applications, more landowners have reason to submit their own requests.
In his 2022 campaign housing platform, Councillor Bruce Findlay wrote:
“The solution is easy - open the floodgates! Let the developers loose and let's build, build, build!”
Source: Bruce Findlay, Housing Platform (archived October 5, 2022): https://web.archive.org/web/20221005212033/https://www.brucefindlay.com/housing.html
A containment boundary cannot perform its function if it is repeatedly redrawn, parcel by parcel.
What was established through a comprehensive, community-wide planning process is increasingly being dismantled through individual development decisions—one parcel, one costly service extension and one precedent at a time.
Keep rural, rural
North Cowichan needs housing. But it also needs infrastructure it can afford, farmland capable of producing food, functioning watersheds and rural communities that remain genuinely rural.
The UCB exists to balance those needs.
Residents show up. They write letters, sign petitions, attend meetings and raise legitimate concerns about traffic, infrastructure, wildfires, environmental impacts, neighbourhood character and whether development proposals conform with the community plans residents were promised would guide growth.
Development itself is not the problem. Communities need housing and responsible growth. The question is who gets heard when development conflicts with the public interest.
Before Council amends the UCB again, residents deserve complete, independent financial information—including initial construction costs, long-term maintenance, infrastructure replacement and the effect on existing taxpayers.
A boundary that moves whenever development pressure arrives is not really a boundary.
If North Cowichan wants to keep rural land rural, we must start treating the Urban Containment Boundary as a commitment—not a suggestion.
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