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The Urban Development Institute (UDI) Caught Misleading the Public About Itself Again:

Claims made on the UDI’s new website UDI.org about their liaison committees are not adding up.

By Sasha Izard
March 27, 2024

The Urban Development Institute is a registered lobbyist organization that provides representation to their corporate members composing a vast array of companies involved in the real estate and development industry.

This is not something they make readily apparent, unless someone finds their registrations on the government’s lobbyists registry.

The general image they like to create about themselves is that they are a simple non-profit educational outfit that is just conveniently there to give politicians and others including municipal staffers, the education they so desperately need, with events including luncheons, preferably paid for with taxpayer dollars; as many local governments, many of which are paying members of the lobby make happen on a regular or semi-regular basis.

On the UDI’s new website UDI.org at the time of writing they make claims about their so-called “Liaison Committees”, which in the District of Saanich for example meet with development department staff without being recorded on camera, and members of the general public in Saanich are not allowed to attend these meetings.

The following is a snapshot at the time of writing of the UDI’s description of these committees:

It describes the Liaison Committees:

“These groups work in partnership with other associations to strengthen the industry’s relationships with local governments. These committees work collaboratively to develop balanced and effective policy, provide input on long range planning, development guidelines, green building policies and other local regulations.”

It states “In the Capital Region, UDI has 4 Liaison Committees, with 3 more coming soon, all within the Greater Victoria area.”

The total number of liaison committees projected to be in operation soon is 7.

However, there are only 6 municipalities that are still members of the UDI in Greater Victoria:

These are: Oak Bay, City of Victoria, Esquimalt, Colwood, Langford, Sooke

So how can the UDI be predicting 7 liaison committees in the near future?

Being something of a skeptic, especially when it comes to the UDI, I decided to do some digging to find out if their claim was true.

A detailed investigation showed the UDI’s claim to be false. I contacted all the municipalities in the Greater Victoria area to determine if they have, or plan to have meetings with UDI-Liaison Committees in the future. I also made FOI requests when necessary.

First however, on March 5, 2024 I emailed the UDI Capital Region itself at udivictoria@udi.org to find if what they were saying about these committees “coming soon” to the Capital Region was true.

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Hello UDI Capital Region,

On your website it says:

“In the Capital Region, UDI has 4 Liaison Committees, with 3 more coming soon, all within the Greater Victoria area.”

https://udi.org/knowledge/advocacy/committees

Which are the 3 municipalities which have UDI-liaison committees coming soon?

Thank you,
Sasha Izard

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The UDI did not respond.

That UDI did not respond was not a surprise to me. The UDI, which both lobbies and advises the Provincial Government extensively and has lobbied it for the reduction of public hearings, while having numerous branches of the government paying members of it, is not known to be responsive to public inquiries.

On Jan 5, 2024 I emailed the UDI with the following question:

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Hello UDI.org

I have a question:

Is Urban Development Institute a Lobby?

Thank you,
Sasha Izard

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The UDI did not respond.

Well, so much for transparency.

A Feb 6, 2024 Narwhal article by Sarah Cox was titled:

“New housing rules in B.C. trigger fears of ‘catastrophic’ loss of urban trees 

B.C.’s NDP government says new legislation aims to address the housing crisis. Critics say the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach removes local autonomy and threatens urban forests, including Greater Victoria’s endangered Garry oak ecosystem”

In the article, Cox noted that the a vast array of lobbying was registered from the UDI prior to the BC government’s release of Bill-44 and that the UDI would not respond to written questions from the Narwhal.

Does the UDI have something to hide? If not, why will it not respond to basic questions about itself?

On one occasion when the UDI did provide answers about itself on the public record however, the information was false.

I wrote about such an instance that took place when their spokesperson told the Township of View Royal on Sep 12, 2023, that “UDI is not a lobbying group”. Not only is the UDI a registered lobbying organization with the BC Lobbyists Registry, but the spokesperson/UDI Capital Region Executive Director that spoke those words, was registered at the time as the UDI’s in-house lobbyist.

LETTER: Local governments should distance themselves from lobbyists – Saanich News

The Township didn’t buy the spokesperson’s claims, and at their Committee of the Whole 2 months later on November 14, 2023, View Royal Council voted unanimously to withdraw the District’s UDI membership, making it the second district in the Capital Region to unanimously vote to do so that year.

The Executive Director said many things during their speech to View Royal on the evening of Sept 12. One of them was the following:

“Um, the municipalities, uh we have what is called a liaison committee. And, um, Victoria, Esquimalt Colwood. We’re working with, uh, Sooke to get it up running with them. And I’ve also talked to Leanne Taylor, uh, here at View Royal, and she’s interested. Um, and basically what it is, is it’s uh, UDI representatives get together with the directors of the develop or the departments that work directly with development, and we exchange information and we help the municipalities out by creating working groups that can inform and, and help make decisions, uh for your policies.“

OK, at least we have a place to start from. The City of Victoria, the Township of Esquimalt, and the City of Colwood all have meetings with UDI-Liaison Committees.

That is 3 of the 4, committees accounted for, in the UDI’s comment on their website: “In the Capital Region, UDI has 4 Liaison Committees”

Only the spokesperson neglected to mention the fourth. This is the District of Saanich, which continues to having unrecorded meetings with UDI-Liaison Committees, despite the Council having voted unanimously to discontinue the district’s paid membership with the lobby in 2023.

So four of these committees have been accounted for despite the fourth not being mentioned by name that night.

As the UDI’s other claim about “3 more coming soon, all within the Greater Victoria area“, this is not true.

In the Feb 12 speech the spokesperson said: “We’re working with, uh, Sooke to get it up running with them.“

When I contacted the District of Sooke on this issue, this was denied by the district.

As of two weeks ago, as a result of the March 11 Sooke Council meeting, the district is in a process that may lead to the district’s discontinuing its UDI membership altogether.

The UDI spokesperson on Sept 12, also said: “And I’ve also talked to Leanne Taylor, uh, here at View Royal, and she’s interested.“

Well, that may have been, but View Royal Council as already mentioned, unanimously voted to discontinue its UDI membership on November 14, 2023. This was a decision that was ratified on November 21, 2023, which was the same day incidentally that the UDI pulled all of its branch websites down and replaced them with a new single website: UDI.org, which would make the claim about the 3 liaison committees coming soon to the Greater Victoria area.

View Royal? Nope.

So with 4 Liaison Committees that do exist (meeting with Esquimalt, Colwood, Victoria, and Saanich), that leaves a number of other possibilities of Greater Victoria municipalities (8) that could be planning to set up meetings with UDI-liaison Committees.

Here they are, with their responses on this question:

1. The City of Langford:

Answer: No.

2. The Highlands:

Answer: No.

3. The District of Metchosin:

Answer: No.

4. The Town of Sidney:

Answer: No.

5. The District of North Saanich

Answer: No.

6. The District of Central Saanich

Answer: No.

7. The District of Oak Bay:

Answer: No.

8. View Royal:

Answer: No

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Conclusion:

So there it is, the UDI’s claim at Committees | UDI – Urban Development Institute
of 3 more liaison committees coming soon to the Greater Victoria area, has been fact-checked and debunked.

Yes, 4 liaison committees do exist in the Greater Victoria area, that part is true, but stating that 3 more are coming is not true.

Please UDI, if you are going to lobby and advise multiple levels of the Canadian Government on policy, while many branches of the government including local governments are paying members of your organization, please get your facts straight first.