Tumultuous meeting passes housing bylaw following controversial Alternative Approval Process

March 3, 2025 ~ Heather Watson

On Tuesday February 25th a group of noisy residents packed the audience of a Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD) board meeting to show their opposition to a series of proposed bylaws, and a controversial method for receiving public approval. Despite the opposition, all four bylaws were passed and approved. 

Up for consideration were the construction of a second artificial turf field and a new fire hall in Union Bay, as well as the establishment of a Comox Valley Housing Service, and an increase to the funding limit for the Comox Valley Homelessness Supports Service. During the voting period citizen groups, some of them anonymous, had been campaigning against the housing bylaws. However, the speakers present claimed their objections were purely to the voting method.

Andrew Rice, a Real Estate Professional for Ocean Pacific Realty, took to the stand first.

“Hello, and thank you for having me this evening. Next to me is Rochelle, someone that I met throughout this process in the last few weeks, and I’ll let her introduce herself here shortly,” he started. “Last time I was here representing Build Comox Valley, and today I’m representing Comox Valley Action. We’re a nonpartisan group created to represent concerned taxpayers, showing opposition to the recent AAP process. And we stand behind the fact that we are not opposed to the items in the AAP, but more so this process.”

Alternative Approval Process, or AAP, is a democratic process used by local governments across British Columbia to gauge public support. Intended to be more cost effective than a referendum, AAPs allow electors who are opposed to an initiative a minimum of 30 days to submit an electoral response form. If a threshold of 10% of eligible electors submit votes against, the AAP does not pass. In the case of the January-February Unified AAP, all four initiatives passed, and the results were presented to the CVRD board at this meeting for the directors to decide whether to approve or reconsider, based on the results. 

Comox Valley Action delegate Andrew Rice was followed by Rochelle Gardiner Hines, who urged the board to reconsider this method of testing public input.

“ I want to leave you with one final thought to consider. Legality simply does not mean being democratic or just. Thank you for your time and your consideration with this very important matter for taxpayers,” she said.

A third speaker, Bob Long, was a late delegation who expressed the opinion that housing issues should not be added to property taxes, and should be left to the Provincial and Federal governments to handle.

“ I applaud that you have the heart to want to try and solve this, but I assure you, you can’t and you can’t do it by taxing the property taxes with these ideas that are clearly driven from an ideological position. A heartfelt desire to see our society prosper and not see that we’re leaving people behind. But this is not the place for that. The place for that is in the federal and provincial realm,” he said.

Following these presentations, and standing ovations from the audience, CVRD Director Ken Grant of the town of Comox made a motion to delay the passing of the housing bylaw until a referendum be held at the next board election, in October 2026. Some of his colleagues expressed their concerns at such a delay.

Director Jonathan Kerr, Vice-Chair and a representative of the Town of Comox, spoke to the purpose of the housing bylaw, and why he felt it must be approved now.

“[A] national poll we’ve recently done: housing is the number one issue for Canadians. A recent local survey, Comox Valley top three issues: homelessness, affordable housing, available housing. What the housing authority does, and I’m speaking specifically about bylaw 850, is the housing authority signals to the province and the feds, ‘we are ready. The flag is up. We are ready and serious for your federal and provincial money.’ It puts us on the map like it does Victoria, Whistler, [and] Tofino,” Kerr said.

“ I agree completely with Mr. Long, a hundred percent,” Director Kerr continued, “we need all aspects of government to solve this problem. But I do disagree, you say we can’t solve it; we must solve it. We have to solve it as a community, as a province, and as a country. It’s gonna take all levels of government. If we just say, oh, it’s just the ‘Fed’, it’s just the Province, then we are not doing our duty as elected officials or as citizens. We can’t delay this for a referendum for two years. We can’t delay for two months. We can’t delay for two weeks. We have to solve this for our seniors in this community, for our kids and grandkids. For our neighbours and friends. Thank you.”

Director Daniel Arbour, representing Electoral Area A, pointed out this issue has already been voted on by the public.

“There was already a referendum on this issue in 2015 to establish the homelessness service and it passed. We can go back to that,” he said.

Director Vickey Brown, representative and Mayor of the Village of Cumberland, urged that this is a longstanding issue in local communities.

“We are, each and every community in the CVRD is experiencing more and more people who are unhoused and we need to do something about that and putting that off for another year to wait for an election when we have been talking about it for so long in each of our municipalities and in the regional district,” she said.

Director Brown further stated, “ I also want to point out that regardless of what we set the rate or the maximum requisition is on this service, we have a proper budget process that the community is more than welcome to be involved in. That helps us set those rates each and every year and everyone has the opportunity to participate in those conversations. So I just don’t, I don’t want to lose this opportunity to provide a housing society and start moving forward on affordable housing. I think it’s important and we are, as a board, working very hard to keep the tax rate as low as possible and still provide the services that our community is demanding of us.”

Director Edwin Grieve of Area C was less concerned about the proposed delay.

“ If we’re going to do this, let’s take the time, set the debate so people can all have a year and a half to think about it, and then actually have a proper referendum on it which gives everybody a vote,” he said.

The motion was ultimately voted down 7-3, and with no referendum on its way, the crowd did not stick around to hear the bylaws be passed. After a brief recess, all four were approved by the board.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada. Reporting done in the Comox Valley is done in partnership with CVOX.