What does the Islands Trust mean for buying on the Gulf Islands?

What the answer means

What the Trust is for

The Islands Trust Act gives the Trust one object: to preserve and protect the trust area and its unique amenities and environment, for the islands' residents and for British Columbia (s. 3). Every local plan and bylaw must agree with the Trust Council's policy statement (s. 15).

Who zones the land

In a local trust area the local trust committee, two trustees elected by the islands' voters and one member of the Trust's executive committee, adopts the official community plan and the land use bylaw (zoning), in place of the regional board, with the powers a regional board has elsewhere (ss. 23, 27, 29). On islands outside any local trust area, the Executive Islands among them, the Trust's executive committee acts as the local trust committee (s. 23 (5)).

How many homes

The Province's small-scale housing minimums, the suite or second home every house zone must allow included, don't apply in a local trust area: the land use bylaw alone decides how many homes a lot may have. Ask the Trust's office what the lot's zone allows before you count on a suite or a cottage.

Building permits and septic

The Trust doesn't issue building permits. The regional district does where its building bylaw reaches, and some islands have none; where there is none, a local trust committee can ask for a siting and use permit instead (s. 31). Septic systems are registered with the health authority, as anywhere in rural BC.

Subdividing

The land use or subdivision bylaw sets the smallest new lot, and outside a municipality the Province's approving officer decides each subdivision. Building on land no bylaw zones needs the local trust committee's approval (s. 32).

Bowen Island

Bowen Island Municipality is in the Islands Trust but isn't a local trust area: its council zones the island, and the Trust's policy statement still applies.

Our summary of the Islands Trust Act, read 2026-10-11. A report names the lot's zone from the Islands Trust's own zoning map (Open Government Licence – Islands Trust), but we haven't summarised the land use bylaws' rules: ask the Trust what the zone allows. Each area's own maps are linked below. Confirm with the Islands Trust's office for the island, and the regional district's building department before you buy or build.

Source: Local Trust Areas – Legally Defined Administrative Areas of BC, Province of BC (Open Government Licence – British Columbia); Islands Trust Act (ss. 1, 3, 15, 23, 27, 29, 31, 32) (summarised in our words, read 2026-10-11).

By local trust area

All 13 local trust areas, listed by name: the titled lots in each, the places on this site that hold them, and the regional district that issues building permits and runs services there, where it does.

From the Province's Local Trust Areas map, read 2026-10-11, and ParcelMap BC's parcels: a lot counts where a point on it lies inside the area, as a report reads it; lots in Bowen Island Municipality, rights of way and roads are left out, and strata units are counted apart. The areas reach over the sea, so their size isn't a measure of the land. Each name links the Islands Trust's own maps for that area.