Lack of Consistency at Saanich on housing supply. Councillor Harper: “There is no excess of housing”, just a “lull”.

Lack of Consistency at Saanich on housing supply. Councillor Harper: “There is no excess of housing”, just a “lull”.

By Sasha Izard
March 11, 2026

Last fall I wrote the following article:

Abstract’s hypocrisy on parade: “Out of prudence, we are carefully phasing our projects, to avoid over-supplying the market.” – CRD Watch Homepage

It was about a development permit extension for a development where the company Abstract Developments had not put a shovel in the ground for over 2 and a half years, despite having the permit to do so, having been approved. As the Abstract executive told council at the Oct 6, 2025 Saanich Council Meeting, while seeking a development permit extension: “Out of prudence, we are carefully phasing in our projects, to avoid over-supplying the market.”

Yet, it was a desperate need for housing that was used as justification for the politicians to the give the project for a couple dozen townhomes the greenlight initially. What had changed?

Only over a month later on Nov 17, 2025 – Abstract was before council again seeking permission to build an 8-storey building with 125 units, just up the street. They received it. Some of those pushing the proposal to the council again made note of a desperate need for housing, so what was it – a desperate need of housing, or an oversupply of housing?

At the Dec 8, 2025 Committee of the Whole less than a month later, some of these issues were brought up during public input at council. The issue on the agenda was the Saanich Housing Strategy: Priorities Plan 2026 – 2028.

I brought up the Housing Target Order that night during public input?

“Finally, the attached Staff report to this agenda item, speaks much of the Housing Target Order from the Province. The UDI lobbied housing targets to the Province, they advised the Province on them, and their top lobbyists signed non-disclosure agreements when they advised them on it.

It appears to me that housing policy in this Province is coming from the UDI lobby, and tonight’s agenda item regarding Saanich’s Housing Strategy, illustrates that perfectly.”

See: Index of articles revealing major lobbying influence on B.C. Provincial Housing Bills and Housing Targets. – CRD Watch Homepage

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

Mehdi Najari, a Saanich resident stated during public input that evening:

“I want to talk about the housing strategy. The Housing Need Reports were done by a company that is a member of UDI. And all of the Housing Need Reports in the CRD region, 13 municipalities, is done by the same company. And they were telling us that we have a housing crisis. We need more housing. Then last, in October of this year, we had the developers coming to the council and saying that we want more time to start the project that have been approved a year ago. And the reason he wants more time to start the project is because there is a possibility of housing oversupply. So should we change anything? If we had a housing crisis in the last three years? and now suddenly they don’t want to build. They want to decide.”

Later during the presentation at the 1:23:03-1:23:40 time point, Councillor Harper seemed to respond to Najari’s earlier points. Harper said:

“And I would also just like and I think the mayor alluded to this as well, but as did staff, but the reality is we do not have an excess of housing and the reason that housing isn’t happening right now is because of economics not because we have enough housing in fact and so there’s this is actually an ideal time for us to get to fight to continue to practice and look at what we’ve achieved and where we’re going because when you have a lull, that’s a great time to look at things, fix them up, and so when the lull is over then the next step can happen smoothly and without without any difficulty.”

The audio of Harper’s statement can be listened by clicking the play button below. The video was not broadcasted, due to technical difficulties.

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So what was it? A lack of housing supply, housing oversupply, a lull, a glut? The economy is simply not doing well? The elected officials seemed confused.

On Feb 24, 2026 I brought up many of these issues back up to council during discussions of the Shelbourne Valley Plan update (See the appendix at the end of the article for the full presentation).

I asked:

“So, why don’t you follow your own logic? If the market is becoming oversupplied, particularly in regard to condos, the prices of which have plummeted; then why rezone the Shelbourne Valley Centres to a potential 12 storeys, in effect doubling or even tripling in some instances, the heights allowed in those areas under the previous 2017 plan for the Shelbourne Valley? Do you want to block the view of Mt. Tolmie? What is the point? What happened in less than a decade that necessitates this? Is it a flood of permanent residents? The federal government has pulled back on those quotas significantly. Did Saanich not get the memo? Are you stuck in a time warp?”

Saanich Council backed down that evening from 12 storeys (the District had previously proposed 18), and the council reduced the storeys that night in the centre to 6, not too different from the 2017 Shelbourne Valley Action Plan.

Then, less than 4 days later, 2 Saanich Councillors seemed to finally get the memo, and attempted to remove the confusion that had been looming since Abstract was given the development permit extension in the fall. As the Times Colonist reported in a Feb 28, 2026 article by Andrew Duffy:

Saanich councillors want province to scrap housing targets – Victoria Times Colonist

“Councillors Judy Brownoff and Susan Brice say the government’s policies are disconnected from what is happening in the economy.”

“Brownoff said council has been doing what it can to meet the targets, but even when Saanich approves projects, their viability ultimately depends on broader economic conditions and the ability of developers to secure financing.

She said when the housing targets were established in 2023, market conditions were more favourable. Now developers are delaying projects or seeking changes to make them more financially feasible.

Last month, Saanich agreed to allow an extra storey and eight extra housing units in a housing development near the Gorge Waterway, rather than lose the project because of difficult economic circumstances.

And last fall, Abstract Developments was granted an extension of its development permit for a 25-unit townhouse project near Swan Lake. It had cited changing market conditions, extra work to redesign a project on a neighbouring site and a fire at one of its building sites on Quadra Street.

Brownoff said cancelling the housing targets is the most fair thing to do.

“It’s not like we’re saying: ‘Cancel your housing legislation. ’ We’re saying the targets that are in the ministerial order should stop,” she said. “Holding Saanich accountable for targets it cannot reasonably influence is neither practical nor equitable.”

The motion, which will come to council March 16 for debate, will ask Mayor Dean Murdock to write to the Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs requesting that the housing targets assigned to the District of Saanich be removed.”

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I wrote the following letter to the editor in response to the article. My letter was not published in the Times Colonist:

Re: the TC article:
Saanich councillors want province to scrap housing targets

While it is great that Saanich Councillors Brice and Brownoff are finally calling for the Provincial housing targets to be removed from Saanich, it is notable that this follows almost 3 years since the Province brought in the Housing Supply Act, and announced that there would be housing targets for the municipality of Saanich.

Why did it take the councillors the majority of their term, and almost half a year before the Local Government election of 2026, to finally turn around and stand up for their constituency? Wasn’t it obvious from the beginning that top-down housing targets were hardly democratic, bad for the municipality, a disaster for the environment and urban planning; not to mention an increased strain on resources and the public, due to added infrastructure requirements?

I hope that these arbitrary and draconian targets are withdrawn. It is better late than never.

This brings forward another pressing issue. Council terms should return to being 2 years, instead of 4. Councillors should be compelled to represent their constituency’s interests for at least the majority of their term, and not wait until an election cycle every 4 years to do so.

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Three Metro Vancouver municipalities have approved more than 85,000 units of new housing, contrary to complaints from developers and the B.C. NDP. But they aren’t being constructed, given the real-estate downturn.”

The Urban Development Institute lobbied the Province of BC to implement what they called “Global Housing Targets”. The Province would deliver new Housing Bills in response. – CRD Watch Homepage

Newspaper clippings from the Times Colonist in 1981 reveal that the Housing Crisis scheme has been recycled a generation later. – CRD Watch Homepage

Index of articles regarding questionable media coverage of local government and public participation. – CRD Watch Homepage

How a groundless narrative cooked up by elected officials and the press of “boisterous” and “raucous” meetings, was used to justify major claw backs in open public input to Saanich Council. – CRD Watch Homepage

List of campaign donations made by those involved in development and real estate to the campaigns of those who were elected to Saanich council in the 2022 election. – CRD Watch Homepage

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Appendix: Presentation by Sasha Izard to Saanich Council during public input at the Feb 24, 2026 Saanich Special Committee of the Whole Meeting: Proposed Shelbourne Valley Update Plan

The people of Saanich are tired of development mania.

I warned the people of Saanich about this, and that the Shelbourne Valley was a key target for overdevelopment, four years ago. Now we are seeing the product.

Now, even the market is tired of development mania. The company of Bob Rennie, the so-called condo king in Vancouver, laid off a quarter of their head office work force last year.

While the Eby government has been busy satisfying the Rennies of the world, and the UDI, with its Louis XIV-style housing targets, the condo market has become oversaturated, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Several months ago, Saanich Council gave a development company a development permit extension, after 2 and a half years of their not putting a shovel in the ground on their project – and after the applicant stated to council that they are cautiously phasing in housing supply, so as not to oversupply the market. This pattern has been repeating over and over again in British Columbia. Projects are approved and developers sit on the properties without putting holes in the ground, a waste of municipal paperwork, as some Mayors have put it.

So, why don’t you follow your own logic? If the market is becoming oversupplied, particularly in regard to condos, the prices of which have plummeted; then why rezone the Shelbourne Valley Centres to a potential 12 storeys, in effect doubling or even tripling in some instances, the heights allowed in those areas under the previous 2017 plan for the Shelbourne Valley? Do you want to block the view of Mt. Tolmie? What is the point? What happened in less than a decade that necessitates this? Is it a flood of permanent residents? The federal government has pulled back on those quotas significantly. Did Saanich not get the memo? Are you stuck in a time warp?

All that I see in this plan other than doubling or even tripling zoning heights in the centres, is a vast war on single-family homes. To me, this is nothing but a war on families to advance development industry profits.

Unlike condos, single-family homes are not significantly falling in value. Single-family homes are being wiped out by upzoning, which could well summarize the main thrust of this plan. They are also being held off the market by speculators who have bought them up and are sitting on them, in effect cartelizing the housing stock.

This plan will only increase the cost of single-family homes, ensuring that appropriate housing for families is decimated and the musical chairs for families continues. Are 21^st century Corporatized Canadians not supposed to have families? Is that what you want? Are they not supposed to live among the original ecology? Where are the ecological protections in this plan? What happens when a lot is upzoned and its ecology is lost? You aren’t going to replace that with mini parkettes that can hold a bench and a few shrubs.

3 to 6 storeys in formerly quiet single-family home neighbourhoods, or covering them in Bill-44 density type housing is outrageous!

The people of Saanich are tired of these trainwreck over-steroidal development plans. This is the Shelbourne Valley. It is not the West Edmonton Mall. Serve the people of Saanich and protect its ecology. Stop serving the development industry. They are not our masters! We need to liberate our communities from their capture.

Thank you.

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