The Trust's own housing study · AIT-AGE-001

Where does an older islander move to?

The Islands Trust paid for a housing study in 2025. It says senior citizens are 35 to 50 percent of the people here. It says many own homes they find hard and costly to keep up. Then each island's bylaw decides whether a smaller home can be built where they live. We measured that, on every island. The 65-and-over share of every island has about doubled since 2006, in the Province's own census tabulation.

What we found

We are not telling the Trust this. The Trust's own study told the Trust this. And our own parcel fabric shows what the bylaws do next, island by island.

  1. The study is theirs. They paid Urbanics to write it. It says: “Many seniors are owners of homes that they find increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain… and dedicated seniors housing is difficult to find.”
  2. Each island's bylaw draws its own size line for a second home. On Gambier and Galiano the line is 0.4 hectares. On Hornby's big-lot zones it is 4. On the seven islands where the zones settle it, we measured every lot: 3,909 of 5,762 — 68 percent — fall short. Denman's screen: 604 of 858, 70 percent. On Gabriola and Salt Spring's rural zone there is no line at all: one home per lot, whatever the size.
  3. And the record has bigger blanks. On half of Salt Spring and nearly half of North Pender the zone codes do not settle which rule a lot lives under, so even we cannot say where the line falls. And no public record says how long islanders live: the province does not measure death by island. The owner asks the office, one lot at a time.

The demand

Let a smaller home be built where a person already lives. Say how long a permit will take. Then count what got built.

Read and sign the exact petition.

Sources you can check

  1. Islands Trust Housing Needs Assessment 2025 (Urbanics Consultants Ltd) — “Seniors Housing”, page 138; verified 2026-09-08.
  2. Parcel fabric second-home screen, all islands (in-house measurement) — scripts/study/second-home-screen.mjs → data/second-home-screen.json · landParcel() filter · thresholds from shared/zoningDensity.ts · Denman 604/858 reproduced; verified 2026-09-14.
  3. Custom Census Profile 2021 to 2006 (BC Data Catalogue) — median age and 65+ share, four censuses, both sides of the Trust boundary · scripts/study/median-age-trend.mjs → data/median-age-trend.json; verified 2026-09-14.
  4. BC Vital Statistics — deaths statistics — death counts by community health service area only, no age detail; no island-level mortality series exists; verified 2026-09-14.
  5. Island Health — Local Health Area profile: Southern Gulf Islands (Ministry of Health data, 2021-2022) — life expectancy 83.6 vs BC 82.0; age-standardized mortality 56.7 per 10,000 — lowest of 14 Island Health areas; verified 2026-09-14.
  6. Denman Island Land Use Bylaw No. 186, consolidated 24 July 2024 — s. 2.1(4) secondary dwelling units; s. 3.3 Table 3 density; verified 2026-09-08.
  7. Galiano Island LTC Land Use Bylaw No. 127, 1999 — s.5.3.4, s.5.4.3, s.5.5.3, s.5.6.3, s.5.1.3, s.5.2.3 (cottage); s.6.1.2 (AG additional dwelling); verified 2026-09-14.
  8. Gambier Island Land Use Bylaw No. 86, 2004 (Gambier proper) — s.5.1(2)-(3), s.5.2(2)-(3) (associated secondary dwelling; associated-islands zones not modelled); verified 2026-09-14.
  9. Mayne Island Land Use Bylaw No. 146, 2008 — s.5.1(3) (cottage); SR zone only; verified 2026-09-14.
  10. South Pender Island Land Use Bylaw No. 114, 2016 — s.5.1(2)-(4) (one cottage from 0.8 ha; two dwellings + two cottages from 4.0 ha); verified 2026-09-14.
  11. Saturna Island Land Use Bylaw No. 119 — s.4.1.3-4.1.5, s.4.2.3-4.2.6 (one residence and one cottage on lots greater than 1.21 ha); verified 2026-09-14.
  12. North Pender Island Land Use Bylaw No. 224, 2022 — s.5.1(3) (cottage); RR1 zone only; verified 2026-09-14.
  13. Hornby Island Land Use Bylaw No. 150, 2014 — s.8.2(2), s.8.4(2), s.8.5(2) (R2/R4/A1); R1/R3 flat one dwelling; verified 2026-09-14.
  14. Gabriola Island Land Use Bylaw No. 177, 1999 — s.D.2.4.2, s.D.2.6.2, s.D.2.6(A).2 (one single family dwelling per lot; secondary suites as listed); verified 2026-09-14.
  15. Salt Spring Island Land Use Bylaw No. 355 — s.9.10.1-9.9.10.2 (R column: no area-based entitlement); numbered R1–R12 zones unmodelled; verified 2026-09-14.
  16. Local Government Act, RSBC 2015 c. 1 — temporary use permits — s. 497 term of permit: 3 years, renewable once; verified 2026-09-08.

Who may live in an affordable home · The paperwork people cannot read