On the agenda for the May 5th council meeting is a report from the Director of Planning: the Annual Housing Progress Report that reviews this topic looking at 2024 figures. Attend the meeting virtually or in person for a full explanation, or enjoy perusing the report below.
The Friends of Bowker Creek are hosting a Jane’s Walk that will take you along a stretch of Bowker Creek, starting at Oak Bay High School and ending at the Lansdowne South School field.
Jane’s Walk is an annual festival of free, citizen-led walking conversations inspired by Jane Jacobs.
What
When
Where
Jane’s Walk along Bowker Creek, led by a Friends of Bowker Creek director
Sunday, May 4, 2025 at 10:30 am to noon
Start at the Oak Bay High School outdooor classroom; stops of interest below.
START – Bowker Creek at Oak Bay High School’s Glen Atkinson outdoor classroom
Bowker at Bee Street – Oak Bay Rec parking lot
Metal tree sculpture – Bowker Creek fountain feature
Trent Street rain gardens and riparian restoration at St. Patrick’s School
Riparian restoration at Kings Community Green Space
North Jubilee Spirit Garden – Bowker Creek Blueprint daylighting potential at Reach 8
END – Lansdowne South School field – Bring a picnic lunch, stay and chat.
Further Details
Accessibility: Curbs and steps, Sidewalks, Busy or noisy vehicle traffic, Dirt paths
Seniors welcome, children welcome, people with bicycles welcome, people with wheelchairs or walking aids welcome.
SEBA Construction has issued an invitation to community members to attend an open house and information meeting for the 8-unit townhouse proposed development at 1899 Cochrane Street.
What
Where
When
SEBA Construction hosted Open House & Information Meeting re: 1899 Cochrane St. development proposal
You may review the development permit details on Saanich’s application tracker site. For convenience, the application latest set of SEBA provided documents are also available below.
The CRD is hosting a series of free webinars to help you “Live Green”.
This spring, learn how to support a healthy and natural yard and garden through these online educational opportunities! Sign up on crd.ca/events or through the links below.
Sign up for this free webinar to get up to date information on the available incentives and retrofit support programs available for condos, rental apartments and commercial buildings in the District of Saanich, including Saanich’s new and innovative tax holiday to support electrification retrofits in commercial and multi-family buildings.
With presentations from BC Hydro, the Building Owners and Managers Association of BC, the Zero Emissions Innovation Centre, and more, this session will help you understand why building owners are looking to electrify their buildings, highlight available funding, and help you get started.
email from Cassidy Daskalchuk, Sustainability Planner, Sustainability, Corporate Services, District of Saanich
On January 23, a small group of volunteers was assisted by two groups of grade six students from the Eco Education class at Lansdowne South Middle school, their teacher Lorraine Powell and Saanich Parks staff working at Kings Park, aka King’s Rd Community Nature Green Space.
An area in the south west corner had been weeded and prepared earlier. The students learned the properties of the plants, how to prepare the planting hole and then proceeded to finish the planting with direction from Saanich staff.
Some students named their plants which consisted of
Sword Ferns,
Snow berry,
Oregon Grape,
Rose and
June Plum
and were encouraged to visit the site often in the future. These students already do regular invasive plant weeding at this natural outdoor classroom.
The site going forward will be added to the Saanich Parks watering program.
Special thank you to Deanna Pfeifer for her initial work in saving this land, establishing owl boxes and starting the volunteer restoration group.
Anyone can review information about the budget process and forecasted budget items. You can also use an online budget simulation tool and survey, available until February 16th.
A recent Times-Colonist article here describes how Colwood has hired a family physician for its first municipally run medical clinic.
The goal is for the clinic to be able to take on 10,000 patients from an estimated 14,000 people in Colwood who currently don’t have a family doctor.
After talking with physicians, the city concluded that if it could take over some of the paperwork and business aspects of a family practice and provide a pension and benefits, it might encourage physicians to stay, Kobayashi said.
If you’ve been keeping up on CCA board minutes and local news, you’ll be aware of the Shelbourne medical clinic that shut down not that long ago and the board’s conversations on this topic since then.
The big question for us in Saanich: is Colwood’s model one that Saanich is prepared to follow to attract more family physicians into our otherwise underserved municipality?
