SPRAWL AND THE OFFICIAL COMMUNITY PLAN

Ask North Cowichan residents what they appreciate most about living here, and their response is two words: Rural Character. They mention the abundant farmlands that surround us, the towering, verdant mountains that envelop us, the fish and wildlife that inhabit our fields, forests, rivers, lakes and shorelines, and the clear skies and clean air that refresh us.

This natural abundance of ecological health, beauty and sustainability is not a mere happenstance. It is the product of careful planning by past and current generations of residents who understand the value of maintaining our environment and the relaxed pace of living and healthy lifestyles it engenders.

If you ask residents instead what poses the greatest threat to their quality of life, the response is usually a single word: SPRAWL. Sprawl epitomizes and defines much of what is wrong with modern North American urban growth. Sprawl is endless low-density residential development interspersed with strip commercial uses along the major thoroughfares, often concentrated in shopping malls.

The malls propagate vast parking lots crowded with cars and trucks, a veritable asphalt jungle. Freeways typically crisscross an undifferentiated hodgepodge of cookie-cutter lots and buildings, in a misguided attempt to connect the far-flung dots of this clutter. Sprawl is akin to a virulent topographic cancer, steamrolling across former farmlands, meadows, native forests, and even rivers, lakes and wetlands, removing all vestiges of native habitat and scenery.

So, how does one get the upper hand over this scourge? The answer can likewise be found in one word: Planning. In August 2022, the Councillors of North Cowichan seized the initiative and, following three years of extensive community outreach, feedback and hard work, adopted by a 5-1 vote a comprehensive Official Community Plan, or OCP, that prevents sprawl.

How does it do this? By establishing an Urban Containment Boundary, or UCB, that directs residential development to urban core areas that already have the five “S”s that enable urban density: Streets, Sewers, Schools, Supplies of utilities such as water and power, and Services of necessary urban providers such as emergency responders like police and fire departments, essential services such as shopping, financial, medical and business uses, government and institutional uses such as post offices and libraries, and leisure, cultural and recreational facilities.

The recognition of these five essential urban services as “urban infrastructure,” and requiring the co-location of urban-scale development in areas they already serve, assures rational patterns of development that keep property taxes low while preserving surrounding tracts of farmlands, forests, and natural areas for public recreation, watershed protection and parkland.

North Cowichan’s OCP maintains existing patterns of urban services such as schools, roads, sewer and water, and dependent urban uses such as housing and commercial development, while preserving the Cowichan Valley’s rural character. It concentrates urban development within five defined Growth Centres: Chemainus, Crofton, University Village, Berkey’s Corner and the Bell McKinnon neighborhood that features the new Quw’utsun Valley Hospital. Low density development is permitted elsewhere if compatible with surrounding land uses and the Agricultural, Forestry and Conservation (Rural) Designations and associated zoning bylaws that protect existing rural uses.

The centerpiece of the OCP is recognition and protection of long-established and thriving rural uses including farmlands and forests, and vulnerable water bodies and their watersheds. The OCP identifies and protects North Cowichan’s 88 km of ocean shoreline, and 635 km of natural watercourses including the Chemainus and Cowichan Rivers and their principal tributaries, and Quamichan and Somenos lakes.

It recognizes that more than half (52%) of North Cowichan’s land base is forested, and 17% is used for agriculture. One-third of the municipality is located within the Province’s Agricultural Land Reserve, or ALR, in which farmland uses are protected from development pressures that might otherwise drive these productive lands into premature and haphazard patterns of urban sprawl. Another one-fourth is designated for special management within our six Municipal Forest Reserves on Mt. Prevost, Big and Little Sicker Mountains, Mount Richards, Maple Mountain, Mount Tzouhalem and Stoney Hill. These forests are afforded special protection through detailed management planning.

Finally, development of ecologically sensitive lands, such as lands within protective riparian and lakeside lands is forbidden.

Importantly, the OCP recognizes and highlights the need to maintain and expand communication with and the participation of the five First Nations whose unceded territory includes all the lands and waters within North Cowichan. It requires that notice of all significant land use decisions be given to, and invites the collective land stewardship wisdom of, the Cowichan Tribes, Halalt, Lyackson, Penelakut and Stz’uminus Nations who have managed these lands with deep intelligence and culturally integrated respect for millennia.

Finally, the OCP provides for and encourages affordable housing through a number of programs and planning controls designed to assure a diverse housing mix. Currently, more than 7,000 housing units compliant with the OCP are being processed for approval, including a variety of sizes and prices for both renters and buyers. As discussed separately on this website, more work needs to be done to assure that affordable housing is made available to all who need it.

The North Cowichan Coalition strongly supports those efforts at both the local and provincial levels.