What is a structure?

The Islands Trust regulates buildings and structures across thirteen local trust areas. It does not have one definition of either word. The same object changes legal category when the ferry does.

Fourteen adopted land-use bylaws, measured 2026-09-13. Thirteen Islands Trust LUBs plus Bowen Island Municipality LUB No. 57.

One object. Four legal lives.

Each stamp is a quotation from the adopted bylaw. The island name and the quote open the passage in the readable copy.

A tent

Is it a building, a campsite use, or six of them to one house?

Denman 186 — Sleeping unit.
“a tent or recreational vehicle on a campsite used for agri-tourism accommodation”
Salt Spring 355 — Camping unit, transportable.
“tent, trailer, recreational vehicle or similar transportable forms of accommodation”
Lasqueti 78 — Six sites = one dwelling.
“six (6) tenting sites are considered equivalent to one dwelling density”
North Pender 224 — Campground, 21 days.
“commercial accommodation to campers in recreational vehicles and tents, for a maximum period of 21 consecutive days”
Hornby 150 — Camping space, tent.
“camping space means an area in a campground that is used for the siting of one vehicle, trailer or tent”
Bowen Island Municipality 57 — RV campgrounds prohibited.
“Campgrounds for recreational vehicles and trailer parks”

A mobile home

Is it a building, a manufactured home, a bus, or banned?

Denman 186 — It is a building.
“includes mobile homes, wood sheds, garden sheds, tool sheds and outhouses”
Gambier Associated Islands 120 — Residence prohibited.
“The use of a mobile home or recreational vehicle as a residence”
Salt Spring 355 — A manufactured home (A277).
“manufactured in accordance with CSA A277 Standards”
Lasqueti 78 — With the bus and the trailer.
“travel trailer, mobile home, bus, vessel or other recreation vehicle”
Hornby 150 — It is a building.
“includes manufactured homes, wood sheds, garages, carports, garden sheds, tool sheds and pit toilets”
Bowen Island Municipality 57 — Parks prohibited.
“Manufactured home parks”

A tiny home on wheels

Is it a dwelling, an RV, or neither?

Mayne 146 — An RV, not a mobile home.
“including a tiny home on wheels that meets the Canadian Standards Association Standard for Recreational Vehicles, but does not include a mobile home”
Mayne 146 — Not a dwelling there.
“recreational vehicles and tiny homes on wheels are not permitted dwellings or cottages”
Denman 186 — May be a secondary dwelling.
“secondary dwelling unit means a dwelling unit, which may be a moveable housing unit”

A shipping container

Is it a building you have to hide, or a counted accessory?

Gabriola 177 — Screen it as a building.
“the building cannot be viewed from neighbouring properties, roads or the sea”
North Pender 224 — One, if the lot is big enough.
“a maximum of one (1) accessory shipping container is permitted if the lot is greater than 0.4 hectares”
South Pender 114 — One, two or three by acreage.
“Shipping containers are a permitted accessory use on a lot”
Hornby 150 — Named in the dictionary.
“shipping container means a metal transport container designed for and customarily associated with road, rail or ocean transport”

Even the word “structure” is not the same word.

Lasqueti 78 — Platforms are structures. “including buildings, display signs, poles and towers, platforms, breakwaters, sheds, bins”

Denman 186 — Ground-level decks are not. “detached ground-level patios and decks”

Put a tent on a platform on Lasqueti and the platform is named as a structure. Put a tent on a detached ground-level deck on Denman and the deck is named as an exclusion. Same Trust. Same Act. Different dictionary.

What this page will not say

We will not say the Trust has no definition of structure. Several bylaws do. They do not match.
We will not say every island treats a mobile home as a building. Gambier prohibits using one as a residence. Lasqueti groups it with buses. Salt Spring nests it under CSA A277 manufactured homes. Hornby lists manufactured homes as buildings. Bowen prohibits manufactured home parks.
We will not invent a Thetis mobile-home rule. Thetis has no “mobile home” hit in this extract.
We will not call Bowen Island Municipality Land Use Bylaw No. 57 an Islands Trust local trust committee bylaw. Bowen has a municipal council. The Trust still has a say in its community plan.

Method

Read the OCR extracts of fourteen adopted land-use bylaws in this repository (2026-09-13). Thirteen are Islands Trust local trust committee bylaws; Bowen Island Municipality LUB No. 57 is a municipal bylaw. A published phrase has to reappear in the extract. Official PDF pages are linked from each island's bylaw URL. Twenty-three adopted land-use and zoning bylaws, text extracts in this repository: twenty-two Islands Trust instruments plus Bowen Island Municipality LUB No. 57. A phrase is published only if it reappears in the extract file. OCR can drop a hyphen; the test still has to find the words.

Denman Island Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 185 (No. 185)
Hornby Island Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 149 (No. 149)
Gabriola Island Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 166 (No. 166)
Lasqueti Island Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 77 (No. 77)
Thetis Island Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 88 (No. 88)
Mudge Island Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 227 (No. 227)
Galiano Island Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 108 (No. 108)
Mayne Island Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 144 (No. 144)
North Pender Island Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 171 (No. 171)
South Pender Island Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 107 (No. 107)
Saturna Island Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 70 (No. 70)
Gambier Island Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 73 (No. 73)
Denman Island Land Use Bylaw No. 186 (No. 186)
PROPOSED Denman Island Land Use Bylaw No. 264, 2026 (No. 264)
Gabriola Island Land Use Bylaw No. 177 (No. 177)
DeCourcy Island Zoning Bylaw No. 44 (No. 44)
Galiano Island Local Trust Committee Land Use Bylaw No. 127, 1999 (No. 127)
Gambier Associated Islands Land Use Bylaw No. 120 (No. 120)
Lasqueti Island Land Use Bylaw No. 78 (No. 78)
Mayne Island Land Use Bylaw No. 146 (No. 146)
North Pender Island Land Use Bylaw No. 224 (No. 224)
North Pender Associated Islands Land Use Bylaw No. 148 (No. 148)
South Pender Island Land Use Bylaw No. 114 (No. 114)
Salt Spring Island Land Use Bylaw No. 355 (No. 355)
Saturna Island Land Use Bylaw No. 119 (No. 119)
Thetis Island Land Use Bylaw No. 89 (No. 89)
Ballenas-Winchelsea Land Use Bylaw No. 28 (No. 28)
Hornby Island Land Use Bylaw No. 150 (No. 150)
Bowen Island Municipality Land Use Bylaw No. 57 (No. 57)
Mudge Island Land Use Bylaw No. 228 (No. 228)
Gambier Island Land Use Bylaw No. 86 (No. 86)
Keats Island Land Use Bylaw No. 78 (No. 78)
Bowyer and Passage Islands Land Use Bylaw No. 114 (No. 114)
Piers Island Land Use Bylaw No. 373 (No. 373)
Valdes Island Rural Land Use Bylaw No. 42 (No. 42)
Thetis Associated Islands Land Use Bylaw No. 94 (No. 94)

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