67 dated events between 1990 and 2026: adopted bylaws, map schedules, policies, reports and court decisions, each linked to its source in the archive. 61 of them fall at or after the first map schedule we hold for this area, so the boundary of that moment can be shown as well as cited; the rest we can only quote.
What the record actually covers
This table is published because the gaps are themselves a finding. Where a period is thin, that is what the Trust has made available, not an omission here.
Events per five-year period
Period
Events
With a map
1990–1994
2
0
1995–1999
1
0
2000–2004
1
0
2005–2009
7
5
2010–2014
11
11
2015–2019
10
10
2020–2024
32
32
2025–2026
3
3
What the record shows
Written commentary anchored to the dates below. Every note cites the documents it rests on, and states what it does not establish — this project has published three corrections on this subject and the limit line is how they were caught.
The seaward rule is written, and it is not a distance
· Denman LTA
Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 60 states that the Water designation covers the marine area “as far west as the 30 metre bathymetric contour off the shore of Vancouver Island”, and Policy 4 commits the Trust to “extend zoning out to the 30 metres bathymetric contour line off Vancouver Island or mid-channel, whichever is furthest west in Baynes Sound and elsewhere to the local trust area boundary”. Everything that later appears on the map as W1 starts here. The same plan says mooring buoys accessory to an upland use “will be considered in all water areas”, and that wharf facilities “will be limited to existing locations” — the scheme that Land Use Bylaw 186 still runs today.
What this does not establish. Bylaw 60 is a plan, not a zoning bylaw. It commits the Trust to extend zoning to that line; it does not itself zone anything. The zoning arrives in 2009.
The Local Trust Committee passed amending bylaws 110 to 114, including Bylaw 111 (the Komas Bluff development permit area) and Bylaw 113 (forest cover). Within months they were in court, and it took until 2007 to establish which of them were lawful.
What this does not establish. The bylaw numbers and the 13 May 1999 date come from the Court of Appeal's own recital, not from a copy of the bylaws as passed.
Bylaw 113 stays struck down; four others are revived
· Denman LTA
A chambers judge had declared all five bylaws invalid as forest management regulation beyond the Committee's power. The Court of Appeal dismissed the Trust's appeal as it concerned Bylaw 113 — which was never revived — and set aside the invalidation of 110, 111, 112 and 114, sending their validity back for fresh determination. Rowles J.A. dissented. Bylaw 111 survives here, and every later Denman case turns on it.
What this does not establish. This did not decide that 110, 111, 112 or 114 were valid. It decided only that the ground on which they had been struck down was wrong.
Bylaw 111 is finally proved lawful — eight years after it was passed
· Denman LTA
The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding the trial judge “made no error in … concluding that the bylaw was valid”, and that “development” in s. 919.1(1)(b) of the Local Government Act includes future development. Eight and a half years and four judgments passed between the day Bylaw 111 was adopted and the day anyone could say with authority that it stood. It was being enforced throughout.
What this does not establish. This construes a land-based development permit power. It says nothing about zoning water, and nothing about where the trust area ends.
The Executive Committee approves a bylaw it is told regulates the surface of water
· Denman LTA
Under s. 21 of the Islands Trust Act every local trust committee bylaw needs Executive Committee approval. The minutes record that Bylaw 186 “establishes regulations and requirements respecting the use of land, including the surface of water”, and that it was moved, seconded and carried. That is the entire record of the decision: no recorded discussion, no question from any member, no reference to how far the water zoning extends, and no mention of W1. The authority ground on the Committee's own policy checklist is answered with a single word.
What this does not establish. The silence is a fact and is not evidence of anything. The seaward extent had been settled policy since the 1991 plan, so it was not a change — and unchanged policy does not get debated. Anyone reading this as “the boundary was never decided” has it backwards.
Bylaws 185 and 186 are adopted. Bylaw 186 creates the water zones — W1 Marine Conservation, W2 Marine Service, W3 Aquaculture, W4 Marine Protection, W5 Lakes — and carries the 1991 seaward rule forward almost verbatim as Policy 3 of the new plan. Only W2 permits a wharf, dock, ramp, float or piling; a mooring buoy accessory to an upland residential use is permitted in W1, W2, W3 and W4.
What this does not establish. The zone boundaries are not in the bylaw text. Section 3.2 puts them on a GIS “Zoning Map” kept at the Islands Trust Victoria office, of which the published Schedule B is expressly “a generalised diagrammatic representation”.
The one time W1 was enforced at scale — and it was never tested
· Denman LTA
The Local Trust Committee resolved to seek voluntary compliance over a shellfish tenure operating in Marine Conservation waters at Henry Bay, which could mean “removing the rafts or making an application to rezone the area”. It ran through correspondence, a First Nations assertion of rights, and an in-camera session; in July 2014 the Committee rescinded its own resolution asking the Executive Committee to arrange a Ministry meeting, and by 2015 the file had become correspondence about aquaculture debris. Nobody lost, because it was never put to a judge.
What this does not establish. This was bylaw enforcement, not litigation. It is not a court finding about W1 and does not establish that the zone is or is not enforceable.
The feature carrying Denman's W1 zone — 13,385 hectares across five parts — has an add-date of 25 February 2014 in the Islands Trust's own zoning layer.
What this does not establish. ★ This is when the record was edited, NOT when the zone was created. Across the layer, 1,291 of the first 2,000 polygons carry an add-date in 2008 and 426 carry none — that is a digitisation date. The zone was created by Bylaw 186 in 2009 under a rule adopted in 1991. Reading this field as legal history is the single easiest mistake to make with this data.
The mapped line is measured against the rule that made it
· Denman LTA
180 transects around the island, comparing where the mapped W1 zone ends against where the 1991 policy says it should. In Baynes Sound it reaches at least mid-channel on 45 of 56 transects, typically 220 m beyond it, and stops roughly 900 m short of the trust area boundary — which is what the policy directs there. Everywhere else it sits on the trust area boundary, median gap one metre. The line was drawn to the rule.
What this does not establish. The 30 metre contour limb is untested: Baynes Sound is only about 30% surveyed in the Canadian Hydrographic Service grids, and only 8 west transects carry soundings across the channel. On 18 north-end transects the mapped zone extends past the mapped boundary by up to 731 m, most likely the gap between the provincial depiction and Schedule A to B.C. Reg. 119/90 plus digitising error in both polygons.