Thrown under the Bus: how so-called rapid transit is being used to force high density on communities, while greenwashing the developers’ for-profit agenda.
By Sasha Izard,
Dec 7, 2024
BC Transit is a paying member of the Urban Development Institute (UDI). The UDI is registered on the BC Lobbyists Registry. The organization advances the interests of their hundreds of paying corporate members involved in development/real estate.
In a March 10, 2022, lobbying letter to David Eby, while he was the Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing (soon to be Premier by the end of the year), the UDI used BC Transit’s maps for proposed RapidBus lines (including the one proposed on McKenzie) in the Capital Region, and also for transit in the Okanagan (there are UDI Chapters in each region), without citing the source of the maps, and placing them under the UDI’s own logo.
Below the maps, the UDI railed about “NIMBY groups” and what they referred to as the coming “uphill battle” to be faced by such groups, against development around transit stations. In this context, the BC transit maps come off looking more like invasion maps.
In the letter the UDI used the term “transit-oriented areas”, a term the Province would adopt in Bill 47 for its Provincially prezoned TOAs, which were much as the UDI had proposed, to force high density development around transit exchanges.
While the Province has only one TOA in immediate effect in Saanich in the Uptown Core, it requires through Statutes two others: a Royal Oak Exchange TOA, and a UVic Exchange TOA. Saanich has on its own increased the number of TOAs with 2 additional TOAs through its newly adopted Official Community Plan bringing the total number of TOAs in the District from 3 to 5 in total. The two Saanich TOAs are Quadra/McKenzie, and Tillicum/Burnside Centre.
On March 10, 2022, the UDI’s Executive Committee met with Eby, and provided him a presentation on the same day of the letter. In order to force their agenda of high densification around rapid transit (which led to the Province adopting Bill 47), the UDI recommended that the Province mandate not only housing targets around rapid transit to municipalities, but that the Province adopt a wide ranging set of enforcement mechanisms along with them.
These included potentially hiking taxes on those living in such areas, taking government control over land use decisions/removing vast amounts of public hearings through pre-zoning (something the government effectively would do 2 and a half years later with bills 44 and 47), taking away regulatory powers away from local governments that are aren’t building fast enough for the UDI’s agenda, leveraging debt against municipalities to force them to build more, and even cutting infrastructure funding as well as community amenities funding to municipalities that don’t comply.
This shows why the RapidBus line on McKenzie and the single auto traffic lanes it would require, is so crucial to the UDI’s and Saanich’s plans to heavily densify areas to be served by RapidBus lines e.g. Quadra/McKenzie. If they were to fail, it would jeopardize the entire raison dêtre for the plans, hence why the District and its politicians, as well as lobbyists have much to fear if a critical mass of public opposition materializes in opposition to the plan.
The following with map showing TOAs overlapping with centres is from p.78 of the pdf of Saanich’s new OCP (Accessed Dec 6, 2024):
Saanich has included in its OCP 2 TOAs of its own (see above map ) that are not required by the Province. These are the Quadra/McKenzie TOA and the Tillicum/Burnside Centre TOA. Thus the total number of TOAs for Saanich is 5, instead of the three required by the Province.
The Uptown Core TOA (In a separate page of the OCP) was the only one mandated for Saanich immediately by the Province.
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An in-depth look at this can be found in the following article:
How the proposed “RapidBus” lanes in the Capital Region, including on McKenzie, were used as part of the UDI development lobby’s push for enforced densification/upzoning along rapid transit corridors, during their lobbying to David Eby in 2022 – CRD Watch Homepage
More information can also be found in the following articles:
Freedom of Information reveals that the Province of B.C. was working to implement what the registered lobbying organization, the Urban Development Institute, had been pushing for. This culminated in the recent Housing Bills that override local government authority on zoning. – CRD Watch Homepage
After a Comedic Exchange of Emails, BC Transit Admits that it has a Membership with the Urban Development Institute. The Implications of that for BC, may be more Tragic than Comic. – CRD Watch Homepage
A brief look at UDI member TransLink and BC Bill 47 (2023)
How the Development and Real Estate Lobby Pressed Mandatory Housing Targets, Mass Upzoning, Captured Official Community Plans, and Made the Shutting Down of Public Hearings the Norm in British Columbia Under the NDP Government – CRD Watch Homepage
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Resources regarding Provincially mandated TODs/TOAs:
Transit oriented development areas – Province of British Columbia
tod_areas_june_30_2024.pdf
CRD Watch Homepage 
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