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Neighbours say new Saanich mega-home towers over bylaw limit — City cites unwritten rule.

Did someone at City Hall make a math mistake?

By Franke James Dec 20, 2025

Neighbours on Tudor Avenue are scratching their heads, wondering how Saanich City Hall approved what may be the tallest single-family home built in the municipality in the last five years.

The steel-framed monster mansion now peaks at 10.66 metres (34.97 ft.). That’s more than four metres over Saanich’s flat-roof limit and more than two metres over its sloped-roof limit.

Yet somehow, this mega-home sailed through the Planning Department without a single hiccup or height variance. (A height variance for this new home was publicly denied in February 2024.)

As a Saanich resident, I filed a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to understand how this was possible. I asked for a list of all new homes approved with a building height over 9.0 metres in the last five years.

City Hall’s response?

None. Zilch. Not one home exceeded 9.0 metres — at least, not on paper.

Planning staff went further: They said a residential building cannot exceed 9.0 metres without Board of Variance approval, and there had been no such approvals in the last five years.

There’s just one problem: Planning goofed and cited the wrong height limit.

For sloped roofs, Saanich Bylaw 8200 sets the cap at 7.5 metres, measured at the highest midpoint between the eaves and the roof peak. Using the bylaw’s defined formula, the Tudor Avenue house measures 9.83 metres — a full 2.33 metres over the legal limit.

If the FOI records are correct, this is the tallest single-family home constructed in Saanich in half a decade. And the only one to break the limit.

Yet City Hall insists the house is actually 6.99 metres tall — thanks to an unwritten “exception.”

The Senior Planning Technician who approved the permit said the height was reduced because the roof forms a “continuous slope.” That same explanation was repeated by the Manager of Current Planning, the Director of Planning, and CAO Brent Reems. However, when asked where this “continuous slope” exception appears in the bylaw, no one could answer. And they each shut down further conversations.

At a recent Town Hall meeting, Mayor Dean Murdock deflected the question entirely, saying he trusts his staff implicitly. Meanwhile, City Hall has stopped responding, and construction continues at full speed.

We’ve asked them repeatedly to show us the bylaw that supports their decision. But they can’t — because it doesn’t exist. Which means their math doesn’t add up.

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Franke James is an award-winning activist, artist, and author. She received the BCCLA Liberty Award and the PEN Canada Ken Filkow Prize for her work on free expression and government transparency. She lives in Saanich with her husband and her sister.

The petition: Stop the Rule-Bending: Demand Accountability in Saanich’s Planning Department

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Index of articles regarding Law and Bylaw – CRD Watch Homepage