Official Community Plan & Zoning Bylaw Updates
Through 2024-2025, the Town of Gibsons updated its Official Community Plan (OCP) and Zoning Bylaw to ensure our long-term vision reflects the community’s current values, needs, and priorities, all while continuing to honour and enhance our unique small-town charm and character.
View the updated bylaws by clicking on the buttons below:
What you will find in OCP Bylaw 1339
1. It’s Reorganized.
- Concise and user-friendly.
- Policies of the three existing neighbourhood area plans have been integrated throughout the draft OCP’s chapters, policies, and development permit area guidelines.
2. It aligns with the Local Government Act.
- Includes housing policies in response to the latest Housing Needs Report.
- Includes updated greenhouse gas reduction targets.
3. The 15 principles of the new OCP reflect the dedication and deliberations of the Residents Assembly.
4. It reduces redundancies.
- Reduction from 18 to 12 land use designations, including 2 Special Study Areas.
- Reduction from 7 to 4 form and character development permit areas.
5. All maps have been updated to a clear and consistent style for clarity.
6. It integrates content from numerous strategic plans and reports:
- Council’s Strategic Plan
- Town of Gibsons Community Profile
- Housing Needs Report
- Complete Communities Assessment
- Financial and Market Analysis
- Residents’ Assembly Report
- Active Transportation Network Plan
- Urban Forest Plan
- Integrated Stormwater Management Plan
- Parking Strategy
- Sanitary Strategic Plan
- Water Strategic Plan
- Corporate Climate Action Plan
- Low Carbon Resilience Climate Action Plan
- Market and Financial Analysis May 2024 with 2025 DCC rates (MPLE)
7. It is focused on tangible outcomes.
- Enhanced focus on residential development.
- Enhanced focus on climate mitigation and adaptation.
- Updated development permit areas based on recent studies.
- Updated Environmentally Sensitive Areas DPA
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- Updated Geohazard DPA
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- Updated Aquifer Protection DPA
What you will find in Zoning Bylaw 1342
1.The new Zoning Bylaw implements and aligns with the new OCP.
2. Reduces zone redundancies and clarifies uses.
- Reduction from 36 standard zones and 5 Comprehensive Development Area (CDA) zones to 17 standard zones and 1 CDA
- From 106 defined and undefined uses to 33 defined uses.
3. Allows housing diversity and enables affordability.
- Aligns with Bill 44 and the Complete Community Assessment, enabling Small Scale Multi-Unit Housing.
- Introduces realistic housing densities in the residential zones, while maintaining small-town character.
4. Adopts contemporary standards.
- Parking regulations that reflect realistic, efficient, and inclusive supply and demand scenarios.
- Expands mixed-use commercial zones to enable market-friendly solutions for entrepreneurs and businesses within walkable neighbourhood centres while preserving intensive uses for the industrial commercial zones.
5. Improves users’ experience.
- Regulations are written in plain language to increase understanding for all users of the Zoning Bylaw.
- The draft Zoning Bylaw features clickable links in the table of contents, and all defined terms feature clickable links to help with navigation.
- The zoning map is easier to find, located on the 5th page of the bylaw
- Navigation is simplified by putting zones closer to the front of the bylaw so readers can find their zone faster.
- Development regulations are either contained directly in each zone or by referencing where in the bylaw to find other applicable regulations so readers can find information faster.
