Council met for about two hours during our Special Council meeting on March 11, 2025.
We started the meeting by recognizing the achievements of two community members who recently passed away, former North Cowichan mayor Tom Walker and former chief administrative officer John Berikoff and held a moment of silence to reflect on the important contributions they made the municipality.
Council heard presentations from two delegations. Individuals or groups can appear as a delegation before Council or the Committee of the Whole to make a presentation regarding a topic or concern that is important to them or their local community. Council typically does not make any decisions related to delegation requests, though may bring the topic up at a later meeting.
- Brenda Reid-Kuecks spoke on behalf of a group of concerned residents requesting that Council consider purchasing the land for sale by Providence Farm and designate it as parkland.
- Joanne Sales, Executive Director of Broombusters Invasive Plant Society requested that North Cowichan support volunteers that want to cut broom on public roads during broom cutting season. Broom is typically cut from mid-April to late-May, while it is in bloom.
Bylaw amendments related to the land servicing report received at the March 5, 2025 Council meeting received first three readings. The report outlined utility servicing constraints facing North Cowichan.
- The Subdivision Control Bylaw Amendment Bylaw proposes to update the Water and Sanitary Design Standards that were last updated in 1993. The key design considerations include a number of criteria including per capita water consumption and sewage rates, persons-per-unit for calculating non-residential water and sewage rates, and fire flow requirements.
- The Servicing Capacity Bylaw Amendments outlines changes to the Sewer Service Bylaw, the Waterworks Bylaw and the Building Bylaw. The amendments improve language regarding the denial of service connections or the issuance of building permits when insufficient capacity within the sewer or water systems exist.
The next council meeting is on Wednesday, March 19 at 5pm.
North Cowichan residents have the opportunity to elect one councillor in the by-election on Saturday, April 12. Advance voting takes place April 2 and 8. Voting is open 8am to 8pm on all voting days. Learn more at northcowichan.ca/election and make your vote count!
Thank you for reading and staying informed!
Rob Douglas, Mayor
Municipality of North Cowichan
T 250-746-3117
E rob.douglas@northcowichan.ca