Victoria City Council Decisions
Community Voices Matter gives residents of Victoria, British Columbia, a way to share their views on decisions made by Victoria City Council and to see how other residents feel about those decisions.
Each survey takes only a few minutes. You’ll receive a short overview of one Council decision, answer a handful of questions, and then see how other residents responded and how councillors voted.
Registration is free. Your individual responses remain confidential: they are never published, shared with others, or attributed to you. Survey results are reported only as combined totals.
Does Victoria’s Official Community Plan (OCP) leave enough space for trees?
Estimated time: 5 minutes (5 questions)
Victoria’s urban forest is an important part of the city’s character. A fuller tree canopy also helps cool neighbourhoods during heat waves, manage rainwater, and clean the air.
Victoria’s tree canopy targets are set out in the City’s Official Community Plan (OCP), adopted by Council in October 2025. The OCP sets a city-wide target of 40% by 2050.
City staff have told Council that about three-quarters of Victoria’s urban forest stands on private land, where trees may be removed as lots are redeveloped. Therefore, growth of the existing tree canopy depends largely on the rules that govern development lots.
The OCP requires that a certain percentage of every development lot be kept as open, plantable ground, which the City refers to as the landscape area. The OCP adopted in October 2025 reduced that minimum landscape area percentage from 9% to 6%, a 33% reduction.
To be considered plantable ground, certain requirements must be met, such as minimum volumes of soil for each size of tree, and minimum distances from buildings, property lines, pavement and other trees. Together, these requirements determine whether a lot’s remaining ground can hold a large tree.
If a lot does not have adequate plantable ground, a builder may be unable to accommodate and replant all the trees required under the tree-replacement minimum. For each tree that cannot be accommodated and replanted on-site, the City requires a payment of $2,000 into the Tree Reserve Fund. The Fund is used to plant trees on public land.
At an OCP public hearing on September 11, 2025, a neighbourhood association submission asked Council to restore the minimum to 9% in the priority growth and residential infill zoning areas.
The new OCP and the bylaws that came with it, including the plantable ground reduction, were put to the vote as a single package. The new OCP passed with a vote of 5 to 3 on October 2, 2025. The landscape-area reduction was not a separate vote; a Councillor who objected to the reduction in plantable land space, but supported the rest of the OCP, had one vote to cast.
Primary sources: Official Community Plan (Victoria 2050), adopted October 2, 2025 • Tree Protection Bylaw No. 21-035 and its Implementation Manual (obtained via FOI VIC-2023-028) • Rockland Neighbourhood Association Land Use Committee submission to the public hearing, September 11, 2025 • Official meeting record and meeting video, October 2, 2025, Special Council
This survey is a summary only. We encourage you to follow the links provided in the survey for a more comprehensive understanding of the issue and any voting history.
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