Buying acreage in and around Greater Victoria

A rural parcel is not a suburban lot with more grass. Almost everything that a municipality would otherwise supply, guarantee or record is either absent, privately owned, or recorded somewhere you have to go and look.

None of that makes acreage a bad purchase. It makes it a purchase where the subject removal period is doing real work, and where the questions are different from the ones a house inspection answers.

This page sets out the checks that have a primary source behind them. The sections that depend on knowing this particular region are left open, because they require first-hand experience of working these transactions and there is no honest way to write them from documents.

Start with whether the parcel is in the ALR

The Agricultural Land Reserve is a provincial land use designation administered by the Agricultural Land Commission, and it sits on top of — not instead of — local zoning.

Non-farm use of agricultural land is prohibited unless permitted under the Act or the regulations, and the same is true of subdivision (Agricultural Land Commission Act, ss. 20, 21). Those prohibitions have teeth at the registry: an approving officer may not approve a subdivision of agricultural land unless it is permitted (s. 18(5)), and the Registrar of Titles must not accept a plan deposit or permit a metes-and-bounds parcel that would cause a subdivision of agricultural land (s. 19).

How to check: the ALC’s ALR Property and Map Finder, searchable by nine-digit PID or civic address, reached from the ALC’s ALR Maps page, which also carries the official 1:20,000 mapsheets. Two caveats the ALC itself publishes and which are worth repeating: the maps are updated four times a year, at the end of January, April, July and October; and the tools “are for general reference only” — for official confirmation the ALC directs you to its Mapping and GIS team.

Residences on ALR land — the rule changed, and the old version is still everywhere

The 2019 rule was: one residence per parcel, with a principal residence of 500 m² or less (ALCA s. 20.1), with grandfathering for pre-existing residential structures (s. 20.2).

That is out of date. Since 31 December 2021, the ALR Use Regulation s. 34.3 permits one additional detached residence without an application to the Commission, if all of the following hold:

• when construction begins, the parcel has only one residence on it (a secondary suite inside the principal residence under s. 31 does not count against this);
• neither residence will be attached to, or part of, the other; and
• as constructed: on a parcel of 40 hectares or less, one residence of 500 m² or less and one of 90 m² or less; on a parcel of more than 40 hectares, one residence of any size permitted under the Act and one of 186 m² or less.

The ALC states plainly that the additional residence does not need to be intended for farm help — it may be occupied by family members or others, provided the use complies with local government bylaws or First Nation laws.

Three qualifications that matter in practice:

Local government can be stricter. The ALC notes that local governments and First Nation governments may further regulate or restrict residences in the ALR through zoning or laws, including number, size and siting. The ALR permission is a ceiling, not a floor. Check the zoning bylaw as well.

Floor area is not measured the way a listing measures it. Per the ALC, a principal residence is measured to the outer surface of exterior walls, and an additional residence to the inner surface, with specific attic-truss and garage exclusions. Comparing the square footage on a listing sheet to the 90 / 186 / 500 m² caps will mislead you.

Fill is capped too. The ALC states that no more than 1,000 m² of fill — including structural aggregate for foundations and driveways — may be placed for construction of the principal residence.

Related permissions worth knowing: one secondary suite, located in the principal residence (s. 31); agri-tourism accommodation, which requires the parcel to be farm class under the Assessment Act, a developed area under 5% of the parcel, a maximum of 10 sleeping units, and seasonal or short-term use only (ss. 33–34); and tourist accommodation of a maximum of four bedrooms in the principal residence, short-term only.

If a listing shows a second dwelling, a cabin, a converted barn or a coach house on ALR land, the question is which of these it is, when it was built, and whether it complies — not whether it looks fine.

Farm class does not come with the property

This one catches buyers in the first assessment cycle after purchase.

Farm classification is applied for, not inherited. The owner must apply to the assessor (Assessment Act s. 23(1)), and the Classification of Land as a Farm Regulation requires the application to be delivered on or before 31 October (s. 3(1)) — and, decisively, provides that when ownership changes the assessor may require the new owner to submit an application (s. 3(2)).

There are gross annual value thresholds to meet: $2,500 where the farm operation is 0.8 to 4 hectares; $2,500 plus 5% of the actual value of the farm operation for farm purposes in excess of 4 hectares where it is larger; and $10,000 where it is under 0.8 hectares (s. 5(4)).

Also worth knowing: farm class attaches to the land only. Under the Prescribed Classes of Property Regulation, Class 9 includes only land classified as farm land; improvements on farm-classified land used in connection with the farm operation — including the farm residence and outbuildings — fall in Class 1, residential.

So a parcel that has carried farm class for years under a working owner can lose it under a buyer who does not farm it and does not apply. What follows from that is reclassification and assessment on a different basis. Nothing in the regulation or in s. 23 provides for a clawback, rollback or retroactive tax, and this page does not claim one; what the change costs in dollars depends on mill rates and is a question for the assessor and the tax authority.

Legal access is not the same as a road

The “sufficient access” test in BC is applied once, at subdivision, by the approving officer. Land Title Act s. 75(1)(a) requires that, to the extent of the owner’s control, there be “a sufficient highway to provide necessary and reasonable access” to all new parcels and through the subdivided land to land beyond it.

Two things follow, and together they are the most under-appreciated rural risk.

Nothing re-tests that on a later transfer. And nothing requires the dedicated highway to have been physically built. A parcel can hold a perfectly good legal road allowance that has never been cleared, let alone surfaced, and that nobody maintains.

So the access questions are:

1. Is access over a dedicated highway, a registered easement or statutory right of way, or neither?
2. If it is a dedicated highway, is it constructed, and who maintains it in winter?
3. If it is an easement or right of way, read the instrument, not the charge summary. A statutory right of way under s. 218 confers the right to use the land charged in accordance with the instrument, and its terms bind successors in title unless a contrary intention appears (s. 218(3)). The summary on the title tells you it exists; the instrument tells you what it permits.

A distinction routinely blurred: a s. 218 statutory right of way is an easement without a benefited neighbouring parcel, but it can only run in favour of a listed class of grantee — the Crown and Crown corporations, a municipality, regional district, TransLink, an Islands Trust local trust committee, a local improvement district, a water users’ community, a public utility, certain resource and railway corporations, a pipeline permit holder, or a person designated by the minister. A private neighbour-to-neighbour access easement is an ordinary easement requiring a dominant tenement. They are not the same instrument and they are constantly conflated.

Also on title, and easily missed on a rural parcel: s. 219 covenants. These can be positive as well as negative, need no benefited land, and bind successors — commonly used for a no-build area over unstable ground, a condition that land not be subdivided except in accordance with the covenant, a requirement that designated parcels not be sold or transferred separately, and conservation or amenity protection. Registration is expressly not a determination by the registrar that the covenant is enforceable (s. 219(10)), which is no comfort at all: it is still on your title.

And where the parcel is in the ALR, notice must be given to the Commission before applying to register a charge creating a statutory right of way over it, and the registrar must not register without proof of that notice (ALCA s. 18.1).

If no registered legal access appears on title, that is a lawyer’s question and a real one. What a court would do about a landlocked parcel is not something this page will state.

Water and septic

These are the two systems you are buying, and they are covered in detail in the well and septic due diligence guide. The headline points for an acreage purchase:

• No BC law requires a septic inspection on sale, and the health authority never inspected or approved the system. The Sewerage System Regulation is a filing and certification scheme in which the authorized person, not a health officer, certifies the work.
• Island Health holds the filings and letters of certification, obtainable through its records request process. A record proves a filing was made. It proves nothing about condition, capacity or maintenance.
• Domestic groundwater use needs no licence, but “domestic purpose” is a bounded definition — one or more private dwellings on a single parcel, animals kept for household use or as pets, and garden irrigation not exceeding 1,000 m². Irrigation, commercial and agricultural use require a licence regardless of volume, and the transition deadline for existing non-domestic users was 1 March 2022 and was not extended.
• The Drinking Water Protection Act generally does not reach a private single-family well — but a well serving two or more residences is a regulated water supply system, which is the trap on shared-well rural parcels.

On an acreage the additional question is capacity in late summer, and the only way to know is to test.

Riparian areas: the trigger is wider than building

The Riparian Areas Protection Regulation applies in the Capital Regional District, which is named expressly in s. 2(1), and in the Islands Trust area.

It bites where all three of the following are true (s. 3(1)): the development is residential, commercial or industrial; it is proposed in a riparian assessment area of a stream that provides fish habitat to protected fish; and the local government has power under Part 14 of the Local Government Act to regulate it.

Three details that catch rural owners:

“Development” includes the addition, removal or alteration of soil, vegetation, or a building or other structure (s. 1(1)), as well as works and services and subdivision. Clearing brush or trucking in fill is caught. You do not have to be building anything.

The assessment area is 30 metres from the stream boundary on each side (s. 8(1)). Where there is a ravine narrower than 60 metres, it runs to 30 metres beyond the top of the ravine bank; where the ravine is 60 metres or wider, to 10 metres beyond.

An already-cleared bank does not escape it. Section 9(2) provides that an area of human disturbance must be considered capable of supporting streamside vegetation if it would be in a natural condition. A lawned or gravelled bank is still inside the streamside protection and enhancement area.

If a seller produces a qualified environmental professional’s assessment report, check the date: an assessment report expires five years after the date it was provided to the local government (s. 7).

There are exclusions (s. 3(2)–(3)), including repairs and non-structural alterations to a structure remaining on its existing foundation and within its existing footprint, and maintenance of an existing area of human disturbance that is not extended and whose disturbance type is not changed.

Buildings without permits

On a rural parcel this is common, and the exposure is larger than “paperwork”.

Under the Community Charter s. 57, a building inspector may recommend — and a council may resolve, after notice to the registered owner and an opportunity to be heard — that a notice be filed in the land title office where the inspector observes a condition resulting from or contravening a bylaw, a provincial building regulation or another enactment relating to construction or safety such that a building is unsafe or unlikely to be usable for its expected purpose during its normal lifetime, or discovers that “something was done that required a permit or an inspection and the permit was not obtained or the inspection not satisfactorily completed” (s. 57(1)(b)).

The registrar must note it against the title (s. 57(5)), and it is extinguished only when a new title issues on the deposit of a subdivision or strata plan (s. 57(6)). Cancellation is a separate process under s. 58. And s. 57 applies to regional districts too, via Local Government Act s. 302(c).

So there are two asks: the building permit and final or occupancy inspection records held by the local government for the parcel, and a title search specifically checked for a s. 57 notice.

Know who the permit authority is, because it is not always who people assume. The CRD’s building inspection service covers the electoral areas — Juan de Fuca, Salt Spring Island and the Southern Gulf Islands — with offices serving East Sooke, Otter Point, Shirley, Jordan River and Port Renfrew from Sooke, and further offices on Pender and Salt Spring. Incorporated municipalities — Sooke, Metchosin, Highlands, North Saanich, Central Saanich, Langford and the rest — run their own building departments. (Note also that the building regulation provisions apply to a regional district only if it provides a building inspection service: Local Government Act s. 297(1).)

What a specific structure needs, and whether it is exempt, sits in each local government’s building bylaw and varies. That is a question for the building department, parcel by parcel.

Wildfire

Provincially, FireSmart is a voluntary programme. The provincial FireSmart page describes it as living with and managing for wildfire, a “shared responsibility”, and provides assessment resources, the FireSmart Begins at Home manual and prevention funding. It contains no obligation on an individual property owner.

What can impose obligations is a local instrument — an official community plan policy, a zoning provision, or a wildfire hazard development permit area. Whether one applies to a particular parcel has to be checked in the applicable OCP and the DPA designations, and this page does not assert that any specific south Island local government has one.

On insurance, this page deliberately says nothing about availability, pricing or underwriting for rural property, because none of it is verifiable from a primary source and a licensed REALTOR®‘s site is not the place to guess. The one defensible statement is procedural, and it matters: get a written insurance quote and bind coverage before subject removal, because availability and terms are determined by individual insurers and are not a formality.

The subject conditions this adds up to

On a rural parcel, the standard inspection-and-financing pair is not enough. The list that follows from the above:

• Title search, including the charge instruments themselves — not the summaries — and specifically checked for a Community Charter s. 57 notice.
• ALR status confirmed on the ALC map finder, and confirmed with the ALC where it matters.
• Zoning and OCP confirmation from the local government, including any development permit area.
• Building permit and final inspection records from the local government.
• Septic: a performance inspection by an authorized person, plus the Island Health records search and the owner’s maintenance records.
• Well: the GWELLS record, water quality testing through an accredited laboratory, and a flow test if capacity matters.
• Water licence status and priority date, if any use beyond household use is contemplated.
• Survey, where boundaries, encroachments or the location of buildings relative to setbacks are unclear.
• Insurance quoted and bound.
• Financing confirmed against this specific property type, not in principle.

That is a longer list than a townhouse purchase and it takes longer to work through. The time it takes is the reason to set the subject removal period properly at the outset rather than asking for an extension later.

Where this page stops

Everything above is sourced, and all of it is general to British Columbia. What it does not tell you is which parts of this region rural buyers actually end up in and why, what the drive is really like, what goes wrong most often here, how long these checks take to arrange locally, or what has actually killed a rural deal late in the process.

Those sections are marked as outstanding and are being written from experience rather than assembled from documents. Nothing on this page invents them, and the page stays out of the search index until they exist.

Related

• Well and septic due diligence in BC
• Bare land strata — when the acreage is a strata lot
• Acreage for sale in Greater Victoria