Victoria council lacks transparency about zoning

Victoria city council members seemed quite surprised on Oct. 16, 2025, to discover that the new Official Community Plan (OCP), which they had approved 14 days earlier, contained multiple and significant changes in zoning boundaries that they hadn’t noticed.

This revelation came through a letter from the James Bay Neighbourhood Association regarding a development proposal that was on council’s agenda that morning. The proposal site had been quietly transferred from the general residential zone (DPA-1) to the newly expanded downtown zone (DPA-2) merely seven weeks before the deciding vote.

Previous staff reports stated that this highly controversial 14-storey proposal was “inappropriate for the current and future site context,” “not integrated with the surrounding context,” “not sensitive to the physical setting,” and so forth.

After OCP ratification, however, this 14-storey proposal, which had not changed, was suddenly deemed consistent with the OCP, even though the new OCP only “envisions … up to 12 storeys” for the site. Moreover, being OCP-consistent, “a public hearing would now be prohibited” under nascent provincial legislation.

More than a dozen residential blocks in Burnside-Gorge, Fernwood, North Park, Fairfield and James Bay were similarly transferred from their existing residential zones into the expanded downtown zone.

Previously zoned for four- or six-storey developments, these blocks now support 12-storey towers — by entitlement — with public consultation prohibited. This amounts to a major win for landowners and developers, and major risks to tenants, nearby neighbours and the broader community.

How could council miss such colossal changes in zoning boundaries after three years of “robust” public consultation and dozens of hours of repetitive staff reports?

After all, council had directed staff to prepare zoning boundaries “generally in accordance” with maps presented to them that showed these blocks to be within traditional residential zones.

In short, easily.

The new boundaries were first disclosed in a cluttered greyscale map on page 194 in Appendix C of the OCP, buried amidst nearly a thousand pages spanning 22 documents that council was given seven weeks to review.

The supplementary 159-page “Rezoning and Development Policy (2025)” was released only days before the scheduled OCP vote.

Zoning changes have profound implications for affected residents. I know — I am one of them. My below-market tenants are too.

Our home was shifted into a Community Village zone, without notice to me, my tenants or my local neighbourhood association (of which I am president).

Residents within 300 metres of a rezoning proposal were previously entitled to receive notification of a public hearing. Now, developers are entitled to build up to six storeys within 300 metres of a Community Village, and public hearings for conforming proposals are prohibited.

In effect, rights have been transferred from the community of residents to the community of for-profit developers.

Case in point: a contentious proposal was updated to provide “an additional [fifth] storey… to meet the objectives of the [new] OCP” following a map change that put it within 300 metres of a Community Village.

That proposal is situated next door to a 1.5-storey designated heritage property, and across the street from the largest residential Heritage Conservation Area in Victoria.

This commentary is not about any particular property, district, developer or even the new omnibus OCP. It is about the lack of — and need for — transparency, clarity, consistency, and accountability at Victoria City Hall.

What motivated such pivotal changes so late in the process, and what specific public notification was issued, as was standard practice at that time?

It is impossible to answer these questions by reviewing the OCP documents alone, and not only because the map quality within them ranges from fair to poor.

Victoria’s new OCP documents are neither version-controlled nor date-stamped, nor do they include a list of changes from previous versions.

The irony is that the city instructs developers to update their submissions to provide a list of revisions and the rationale for them, along with bubbled plans highlighting each change

Why is the city’s planning and zoning office seemingly exempt from its own processes?

Why hasn’t council noticed this and directed it to be fixed?

Councillors Jeremy Caradonna, Matt Dell, Susan Kim, Krista Loughton, Dave Thompson and Mayor Marianne Alto all voted to adopt the OCP on Oct. 2.

Councillors Stephen Hammond and Marg Gardiner asked staff repeatedly on Oct. 16 whether these zoning changes had been highlighted to council or the public.

Finally, staff replied: “No, I did not think to do that”; and “No, we held no extra meetings [with the community associations]”.

Despite all this, Caradonna, Dell and Thompson opposed referring this contentious proposal for a more considered review at a later date.