The City of Victoria is a paying member of the Urban Development Institute’s Capital Region branch; a key lobby for development in the CRD. 

That a level of government is a paying member of the development lobby, among whose functions it is to lobby the government, is a clear full-circle conflict of interest. 

Municipal governments have crucial power over zoning policy. Favourable zoning policy can be very profitable to those involved with the development lobby.  The potential power of leverage involved by having The City of Victoria, a member of the development lobby, is a threat to the democratic process, which according to the word represents the power of the constituents, whose lives are directly impacted; not that of industry, whose interests first and foremost are those of profit.

That your tax dollars are going to the development lobby through The City of Victoria and through federal funding, is a clear affront to yourselves and to democracy. 

To rectify the situation and to restore the power of constituents to the forefront of local democracy, we the signed call upon the City of Victoria to immediately withdraw its membership from the Urban Development Institute and to make it official policy to cease paying public money to not only the UDI, but to any lobby.

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Notes: Signatures for this petition are to be solely by residents and property owners of The City of Victoria.

The photo at top is of Royal Bay, which although it is not in the City of Victoria, illustrates a potential for similar developments in the City of Victoria.

Sources:

Public Release of the Urban Development Institute (UDI)’s hidden members directory dated to the beginning of 2024. The directory contains dozens of government branches that are hiding their memberships in the registered lobbying organization for development and real estate interests from the public. – CRD Watch Homepage
(See: entry for City of Victoria)

https://www.lobbyistsregistrar.bc.ca/app/secure/orl/lrs/do/clntSmmry?clientOrgCorpNumber=3004&sMdKy=1655787429132#clientOrgCorpAddress 

Note: Although there is a lobbyist registry for lobbying of the Provincial Government, no such lobby registry exists for the City of Victoria at the Municipal level, making lobby activities far less transparent than they should be in an open democracy on the local level.

Update (Aug 30, 2025): City Councillors Hammond and Gardiner put forward Motion to “Terminate Victoria’s membership in the Urban Development Institute” “effective immediately”. – CRD Watch Homepage

Thank you to all who have signed the petition!

For more information please contact: freeusall1@gmail.com