Environment

Land Use Planning and Sustainable Development

January 18, 2023

Land Use Planning and Sustainable Development

Whether you’re an individual looking to build your dream home, or a larger-scale commercial developer, land use and planning applications have never been more relevant for those living, working, and playing on Vancouver Island. Firstly, land use planning is not just about regulating land use. Sustainable and efficient land use practices are about designing communities that maximize economic, social, and environmental benefits. The need to preserve Vancouver Island’s unique ecological systems and old-growth forests

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Brownfield-Redevelopment

August 5, 2022

Brownfield Redevelopment: Exploring the Risks and Opportunities

What exactly is a brownfield? The name really does say a lot… a brownfield is an unused (or under-utilized) commercial or industrial property that is contaminated from past uses.

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septic-tank

April 18, 2022

What triggers a septic system evaluation?

Did you know, when a property is not connected to a municipal sewer system, it must have an On-Site Sewerage System (private septic system)? According to Statistics Canada 2011, 14% of households had a private septic system in BC, and due to the massive increase in population density, this number is inferred to be much higher in the 2020s. Septic systems collect, treat, and disperse to the subsurface, household wastewater. Unfortunately, a number of these systems are failing or underperforming due

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Tank removal

March 17, 2022

Risks Associated with Residential Heating Oil Tanks

A bit of background on heating oil. It was the primary fuel source on Vancouver Island prior to natural gas becoming available in 1992. Homes were typically heated by forced air furnaces or boilers that burned heating oil. This oil needed to be stored on the property for consumption, and due to the negative aesthetic of a storage tank at the surface, they were mostly buried below ground. The tank had a vent pipe that was often attached to the

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site-decommissioning

July 14, 2017

Do I Need to Test Soils Before Relocating off of My Property?

We get this question quite often. Why is soil testing needed on some Sites and it doesn’t on other Sites? Here is a summary as to why this has become a much more rigorous process recently. The main driving force behind most of this is the recent approval (but not yet implementation) of the Stage 14 amendments to the Contaminated Sites Regulation (CSR) which will change how the soil relocation process will work in BC. The proposed changes have 3 overarching goals: Establish

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