Capital Daily for Friday, June 19

Saanich Coun. Zac de Vries announced Wednesday that he'll run for mayor, the second sitting councillor to make a play for the seat Dean Murdock is leaving behind. He joins three-term Coun. Karen Harper, who declared back in April, and Rishi Sharma, who's running under the Save Our Saanich banner with a four-candidate slate. The fall election will reshape the council table no matter who wins.

De Vries, 31, was born in Saanich and works full-time as a sector specialist in the provincial agriculture ministry. He chaired the Capital Regional Housing Corporation for the last four years, and he doesn't think the divisive Quadra-McKenzie Plan, which council approved Tuesday night, will dog his campaign.

In Langford, the mood was louder. Stew Young launched his comeback bid Tuesday night at the Langford Legion in front of 300 supporters who chanted his name and ran a slide show of his 30 years in office. Young served seven terms before losing to political unknown Scott Goodmanson in 2022, who took 53% of the vote. This time Young is starting five months early, and he finally joined social media this week.

He's promising to claw back property taxes that climbed 48% over four years, and he's running a team that includes a recently retired West Shore RCMP superintendent and a former Langford fire chief.

North Saanich was supposed to deliver 60 new homes in its first year under provincial targets. It managed 12.

That 20-per-cent showing brought a provincially appointed adviser to town in January, and the CBRE report that landed on the district's desk June 16 reads like a list of locked doors: height limits, floor-area caps, parking minimums, an urban containment boundary that keeps multi-unit housing out of the places people actually want to grow, and a planning department that has cycled through staff since 2022.

Then there's the airport. When North Saanich passed its new official community plan last July, it marked Victoria International Airport land as a development permit area, suggesting homes could go there. Transport Canada pointed out it has jurisdiction over federal land and asked the district to fix it. Council instead voted to send a letter, wanting to clarify that the airport had land suitable for housing. Housing Minister Christine Boyle was unmoved, writing that designating capacity where no one can build will only undermine the district's targets.

The district has 30 days to respond before Boyle's four directives are finalized. Mayor Peter Jones did not respond to an interview request.