Stewardship Bylaws

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A Guide for Local Government

The Stewardship Bylaws adds to the Stewardship Series a practical guide for design of fair, effective and enforceable local government bylaws with a stewardship component. These bylaws will be one tool along with planning, public awareness, voluntary actions and public and private investment, that will implement a stewardship ethic in British Columbia.

In an ideal world, stewardship approaches could be customized for every environmentally sensitive area, landowner, and every parcel. In reality, only very large parcels of land or major developments can warrant the time that this customization would demand. Stewardship needs to be accomplished on small parcels throughout municipalities and regional districts where stewardship opportunities are being needlessly and incrementally lost for want of effective protection of environmentally sensitive areas. Stewardship Bylaws provides a simple, administratively efficient direction for small parcels, while allowing more innovative, customized approaches for major developments or special sites.

Within the Municipal Act there are both broad tools (e.g. official community plans) and specific tools (e.g. tree bylaws) that could be used to address local environmental issues. In most cases, implementing stewardship at the local government level will involve stewardship clauses in several revised or new bylaws. The challenge is to create a set of coordinated local bylaws, to ensure that they integrate with provincial or federal regulations, and which together create a simple, effective and reinforcing environmental protection program. Stewardship Bylaws provides a framework and foundation for developing an appropriate set of bylaws for your situation or community.

This guide also recognizes an opportunity for all local governments to play a part in environmental stewardship, through their traditional role in managing land development. Although local governments do not manage fish and wildlife per se, the design of local government bylaws can have an impact – good or bad – on land use development practices and their effect on riparian vegetation, watercourses, wetlands and other environmentally sensitive areas.

Please note that this publication was last updated in 1999. The Municipal Act that is referred to in the document has now been changed to the Local Government Act.