Following one piece of advice

Take an ordinary question. When land is going to be developed, what happens to the trees? Somebody wants to build. Somebody else wants to keep the woodland. The municipality has to decide what can happen there, and what the owner must do before the work begins. Once you get into the details, “protect the environment” becomes a whole set of choices.

That was part of the work North Cowichan asked Diamond Head Consulting to examine. Its environmental review, dated February 2021, looked at the municipality’s policies and rules. One concern was how to protect natural areas and the connections between them. Imagine keeping all the rooms in a house but taking away the hallways. The rooms are still there, but something important about how the house works has been lost. In much the same way, the report said the municipality needed a clearer picture of important habitats and the routes connecting them. ^[1]

The report called this biodiversity: the variety of living things and the places that support them. It said work on a protection policy was already underway and recommended mapping the areas and connections that mattered. That distinction helps us follow the story accurately. This consultant was advising on work the municipality had already begun considering. ^[1]

Now open the OCP. It calls for a biodiversity protection policy, and a strategy for keeping a network of sensitive natural areas connected. Here is a piece of advice alongside a local planning commitment that deals with the same problem. The municipality’s 2021 progress report also says recommendations from the environmental review were being incorporated into the draft plan. We can see a reported route into the OCP, although we have not yet recovered the draft changes that would show exactly who wrote each line. ^{[2] [3]}

Putting that commitment into practice means more work. Somebody needs to gather the information, prepare the policy and speak with the people affected. Council then has to decide how to pay for it. A sentence in the plan can be quite short. The work behind it can be much larger.

We can put a number beside one part of that work. North Cowichan’s account of its June 1, 2022 council meeting says the budget for developing the Biodiversity Protection Policy was increased from $50,000 to $100,000. The account says the contract went to Diamond Head Consulting and included more engagement with First Nations. This happened while the OCP was still being considered, before its adoption that August. The policy project and the community plan were moving forward alongside one another. ^{[4] [5]}

That was an approved budget for developing the policy. To understand what carrying it out would cost, we would also need to follow the staff work, any new rules and the job of checking that those rules are followed. Think of hiring someone to draw plans for a renovation. You have paid for an important part of the job, but you still need to work out what happens when the building starts.

The original review raised that very practical concern. Stronger rules would need enough staff and resources to make them work. It also told the municipality to use the OCP feedback to check public support for new or updated policies, and to consider more engagement where a policy was new or contentious. The advice included both protecting the natural environment and checking whether the municipality and community were ready for the changes involved. ^[1]

A resident might support protecting natural areas and still want to know what a proposed rule means for their property, how decisions will be made and what the municipality will spend. To understand what residents supported, the next step is to look at what they were actually asked.