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. The draft OCP is 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. The draft OCP is aligned 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 draft OCP reflect the dedication and deliberations of the Residents Assembly.
4. The draft OCP 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. The draft OCP 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. The draft OCP 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
-
- Updated Geohazard DPA
-
- Updated Aquifer Protection DPA
What you will find in Zoning Bylaw 1342
1.The draft Zoning Bylaw implements and aligns with the draft OCP.
2. The draft Zoning Bylaw 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. The draft Zoning Bylaw 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. The draft Zoning Bylaw 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. The draft Zoning Bylaw 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.
