They may have won a victory in court, but the elation was quickly replaced by disappointment, for a variety of reasons, especially at the waste of time and money that went into fighting what some called "punitive" bylaws.

On August 13, the B.C. Court of Appeal quashed the Capital Regional District's appeal of the December 2008 ruling by BC Supreme Court Justice Metzger on the illegality of the CRD's planning bylaws in the Juan de Fuca Electoral Area and the voting arrangement.

In the judgment passed down by Justices Newbury, Bauman and D. Smith, the court ruled a number of land use bylaws invalid as well as the prior voting arrangement.

The contentious issues were the bylaws, which some called downzoning, and the vote-buying scheme where three CRD directors from Central Saanich and Metchosin, along with the JDF Electoral Area director, voted on land use issues in the JDFEA.

The whole appeal process began, in September 2008, when Justice Metzger quashed the CRD's hastily enacted amendments to various bylaws with the intention of placing the lands in what was effectively a holding zone. Metzger's decision also ruled the voting agreement unlawful. Western Forest Products Inc., the Association of British Columbia Landowners and Lester Roy Monnington brought the bylaw amendments and the voting arrangement before Justice Metzger for review. Subsequently the CRD was granted a stay of proceedings while the appeal went before the court, in a February 2009 ruling by Justice Frankel.

The new contentious amendments to land use bylaws in the Juan de Fuca Electoral Area, adopted in April 2008, limited forestry lots to 120 hectares with one residential dwelling per lot. Rural lots under eight hectares would remain the same and rural lots over eight hectares would be limited to 120 hectares.

This was all in response to the Ministry of Forests allowing Western Forest Products to take 28,000 hectares of land out of Tree Farm Licences 6, 19 and 25. Approximately 9,000 hectares are in the JDF Electoral Area. The land was put up for sale and tentatively sold to developer Ender Ilkay.

Ilkay said of the August 13 decision, "My only comment on it is that it's too bad we had to go through this process at all just to end up where we started."

"I'm just relieved this whole court process is finished," said JDF Electoral Area Director Mike Hicks. "It put everything on hold with this harsh zoning and it ravaged landowners, including the little guys."

He said he is looking forward to a peaceful JDFEA for awhile and he and the planning staff getting back to business.

"The courts have now repeatedly agreed with our initial assessment that the $100 buy-a-vote scheme was unlawful," said developer Michael Thornton.

"In paragraphs 57 through 60 of the judgment all three Justices unanimously agree that vote-buying "is an apt description," that the scheme was undertaken by the CRD specifically "to alter the applicable voting regime" and that "this case bears some resemblance to the 'gerrymandering' criticized by the courts.

As a result, all of the 2008 bylaws are struck out. This of course raises the spectre that all the other JDF bylaws adopted by the three person committee may also be invalid," said Thornton. "I have mixed feelings: I'm glad the unfair downzoning bylaws are quashed because they adversely impacted so many innocent families. Yet I'm disappointed that so much money was wasted, and so much goodwill was squandered."

As a result of the court decision, the CRD will now revert to the pre-existing bylaws for the JDFEA which included a 120 hectare minimum parcel size for the resource areas, but do not include land use regulations that would otherwise regulate development on the lands. In addition, within the local community planning areas, zoning will revert to permit minimum parcel sizes of 10 acres for rural and forestry lands. The potential for strata subdivision will also exist.

Director Hicks said they have been working on a new Rural Resource Lands Official Community Plan and it is, "ready to go."The plan, which is currently at second reading, will establish new community planning and zoning regulations for the rural resource lands in JDF. It is due to go to public hearing in the fall of 2009. This plan will replace some of the interim provisions established by the amendment bylaws put in place by the CRD in December 2008.

Geoff Young, CRD Board chair said, "I am disappointed that the verdict did not uphold the CRD's interpretation of the Local Government Act."

Al Jones, president of the Association of B.C. Landowners, said of the court decision, "we're overwhelmed it has finally come to an end. Four judges basically agreed with us. They tried to push through zoning without the authority to do so."

He said the uncontrollable bureaucracy at the CRD was an issue and that he was pushing for a West Shore regional district."

Jones was also concerned about the lack of input from JDFEA residents on the proposed Rural Resource Lands OCP.

John Horgan MLA for Juan de Fuca wonders where the provincial government has been in all of this. He said on the surface they expected the appeal would be turned down but the question remains, "where do we go from here?"

Horgan said he had contacted Bill Bennett, the Minister of Community and Rural Development and has yet to have him even acknowledge Horgan's letter in regard to the big problems faced in land use planning in the JDFEA.

"It's caused a big division in the community and not even a reply," said Horgan.

He ended by asking, "province where are you? Come and talk to my neighbours."