Business View Magazine | March 2020

344 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE MARCH 2020 more towards eco-tourism. Whistler used to be the first stop in the B.C. bike race – an event that brings in cyclers from around the world and a vast number of vendors throughout the coastal regions of BC. Last year, North Cowichan replaced Whistler as the number one stop on the race, partly because of its excellent trails and ease of accessibility. While every community on Vancouver Island is experiencing housing pressure, North Cowichan is up to the challenge. In the last 14 months, 400 to 500 rentals units have come onstream, or were built and are ready to come in. Council changed the zoning bylaw to allow more basement suites – they were very tightly regulated in the residential zones and now that has opened up, subject to fire code restrictions, etc. There are also several condominiums under construction. And Council has approved 1,400 new doors in a development called Kingsview, which is probably a 30-year buildout. In conjunction, they’ve approved land use for a new shopping center in that area. Another new neighborhood in progress is called Berkey’s Corner – a 6.5-acre commercial parcel with a new 50,000-square-foot grocery-anchored retail development that’s set to open in 2020. And there are several hundred residential units planned for lands right next to that development. At the southern edge of the municipality, at the northern edge of the city of Duncan, North Cowichan has an ambitious plan for a complex called University Village. Siebring explains, “We have a satellite campus of the Nanaimo-based Vancouver Island University there now. And part of the vision for the new high school, which will be built right next to the university campus, is a trade center for training, so high school students can seamlessly transition to VIU to start vocational training. There is a big demand for that, particularly among the First Nations youth. We’re also very much encouraging mixed-use developments with ground-floor commercial, and second- and third-floor residential. One