The Victoria Airport Authority (VAA) is seeking feedback from North Saanich council on a new land-use plan for Victoria International Airport. The plan proposes to rezone much of the airport's current lands, suggesting many of them be changed to groundside mixed-use. This would allow for the construction of retail stores, restaurants, offices, hotels, manufacturing, warehousing, and tech training and education facilities.
The plan also proposes to rezone an Environmental Protection Zone to airport reserve lands, which was met with concern by the council who requested that the area remain a protection zone. Additionally, they asked for other environmentally sensitive areas to be identified and protected.
The airport's request was met with trepidation by North Saanich council, with Mayor Peter Jones voicing his disapproval of the airport's actions. “The airport is looking to basically do anything it wants on the airport, regardless of how it affects North Saanich,” he said.
The staff report following the VAA’s request stated: “A general theme to the proposals outlined in the land-use plan update is a movement from defined permitted-use categories to broader-use categories.”
The report further states that many of the VAA’s proposed changes did not seem to align with the district's official community plan (OCP). Staff outlined in their report that they felt the VAA’s suggestion of changing Airport Reserve Lands to "lands protected for long-term airport use" was vague and would open the airport lands to any use.
“This looks like a request for us to give comments to show to the federal government that they have consulted, and my personal opinion is this is not consulting,” said Jones.
“If they wanted to consult with us in a true fashion, they would have done it when they were doing the strategic plan. My understanding is that they have not. So I don’t hold this in very high regard.”
Ultimately, council unanimously voted to direct staff to provide the airport with the feedback they had prepared in their report, which emphasized the need for clearer definitions, identification of sensitive environmental areas and alignment with the district's OCP.
