Comox Valley 2026 Municipal Election series
Courtenay replaced its mayor on Saturday. Manno Theos took 3,870 votes, 44.5 per cent of the mayoral ballot, ahead of two-term mayor Bob Wells at 2,595 and Trish McPhail at 2,185. That result will get most of the attention this week. For housing, though, the bigger shift happened in Comox, where every incumbent councillor who voted for the town’s new Official Community Plan (OCP) in February lost their seat.
The results below are preliminary, from the Comox Valley Record’s election-night tallies and the municipalities’ own postings. The regional district releases official numbers on October 21. What each council actually does will show up over the next year in budgets, bylaws and rezoning votes. I’ve gone back to what the winners said about housing before the vote, using the public record I compiled for In Their Own Words, to see what it suggests for the next four years.
Comox: a new council around a 4-3 vote
The Comox OCP passed 4-3 on February 18, with its six-storey heights downtown. Mayor Nicole Minions and councillors Jenn Meilleur and Jonathan Kerr voted against it. Steve Blacklock, Ken Grant, Chris Haslett and Maureen Swift voted for it, and on Saturday all four lost their seats. Kerr topped the poll with 3,749 votes. Meilleur returned with 3,053. The four newcomers, Jessica Wegg, Lisa Bourgeois, Neil Ladell and Vivian Chislett, campaigned largely on how housing decisions get made: earlier neighbourhood input, 3D models of proposed heights, protections for tenants.
Every member of the incoming council either voted against the current OCP or ran on how it was handled. One Comox resident summed up the mood on Facebook the night of the vote: “This isn’t an antidevelopment vote, it’s a vote for careful and inclusive consultation.”
Rejoining the regional housing service. Comox’s outgoing majority voted this term to pull the town out of the regional affordable housing service that funds the new Comox Valley Housing Authority. Kerr, who sits on the Authority’s inaugural board, named re-entry as his first goal for the term at the September 27 forum, and Meilleur wants the same. Rejoining runs through the Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD) board and would put Comox taxpayers back into the service’s requisition.
Tenant protection and relocation. Kerr, Meilleur, Chislett and Bourgeois all called for a tenant protection bylaw. The pressure point is the Mariner apartment building, where council refused a 10-storey redevelopment this term. Chislett said at least 30 tenants there could end up unhoused, and she expects the Mariner and the nearby “cabins” property to come back after the election. Grant said during the campaign that town staff were already drafting a relocation policy, so the new council inherits work in progress.
Affordable units as a condition of rezoning. Ladell wants 10 to 20 per cent of units set aside as affordable in rezonings, and Kerr wants affordable units required in large projects.
Downtown heights. Changing the six storeys downtown would mean amending the OCP. Under provincial rules introduced with Bill 44, the plan and zoning still have to make room for 20 years of projected housing need, which Comox’s own Housing Needs Report puts at roughly 3,358 units between 2021 and 2041. If the new council lowers the planned density downtown, it would have to show where else the plan makes room for those homes, in a town Grant described as “at our boundaries today.” I haven’t seen any of the winners propose a specific amendment.
One idea that could move quickly is Wegg’s: town-approved plans and prefab designs for backyard suites, so homeowners don’t have to pay for a custom design.
Courtenay: a new mayor
Theos won the most votes but not a majority: Wells and McPhail together took more than 55 per cent of the mayoral vote. On Facebook, defeated council candidate John Dacombe blamed the result on “progressive” vote splitting. Two incumbents led the council race by a wide margin: Wendy Morin with 4,253 votes and Evan Jolicoeur with 4,057. Kelly Matthews, Dick Clancy, Thomas McDevitt and Rosanna Chamberlin join them. Incumbent David Frisch finished near the bottom of a 19-person field.
On the speed of approvals, Courtenay’s new council agrees more than its campaign did. Theos made a 90-day development permit process one of his seven platform pillars. Clancy wants a 90-day turnaround mandated. McDevitt wants unnecessary building-permit delays cut. Matthews proposes a simple online process so a homeowner can get a permit for a suite or second home on their own lot. Morin describes streamlining as work already under way. That’s the mayor and four of six councillors on the record for the same thing. Speeding up approvals changes how city hall handles applications without adding a line to the budget, so I’d expect it early.
The harder split is over who pays for growth. Morin wants to keep funding growth through development cost charges, the fees builders pay toward pipes, roads and parks. Jolicoeur has raised concerns that those same charges push up new home prices. McDevitt wants to halt property tax increases, and Theos campaigned on separating “Needs from Wants.” Courtenay’s 2026 municipal property-tax increase was set at 6 per cent. Once utilities and estimated charges from other taxing authorities were included, the total increase for the average home was about $371. A council that holds the line on taxes has to recover growth costs through development charges, defer the infrastructure, or find savings elsewhere. We’ll know which of those this council chooses when it passes its first budget.
Morin, Jolicoeur and Matthews all back the regional Housing Authority. Wells was its most prominent Courtenay champion in this campaign, and Theos’s platform, as far as I’ve read it, doesn’t mention it.
On Braidwood, Theos wrote on Facebook after the October 1 forum that he wants the Braidwood Road project changed from a wet, low-barrier shelter and supportive housing site to “a Dry holistic wellness, recovery facility.” The council candidates who put a dry or sober model in writing (Dave Mellin, Benny Benvenuti and Jessie Lightburn) all lost. McDevitt wants second-stage housing for people leaving treatment, which is a different ask. BC Housing bought the site and is funding the 70 supportive-housing studios and 73 shelter beds now under construction, so any change in operating model is a negotiation with the province that a mayor can press but not decide.
Cumberland and the rural areas
Cumberland mostly stayed the course. Mayor Vickey Brown was acclaimed, and incumbents Nick Ward, Troy Therrien and Sean Sullivan were re-elected, with newcomer Ellian Bell taking the fourth seat. Neil Borecky lost his. Turnout was 42.8 per cent, 1,492 ballots. All three returning councillors put affordable or attainable housing near the top of their priorities, and Therrien’s longer-term goal is a civic block with affordable housing, which he expects will take more than one term. Therrien also wrote in support of the Lot A rental and townhouse proposal on Ulverston Avenue. Kevin Snaden, who raised questions about how that project would sit next to existing industrial businesses, finished fifth.
Disclosure: I am the listing agent for Lot A on Ulverston Avenue.
In the regional district, Arzeena Hamir unseated Area B director Rich Hardy, 1,156 to 694. Hamir wants the Housing Authority buying land for non-market housing, and no new housing in flood plains or forested areas with a single road out. Area C was the closest race in the Valley: Norm McPhail beat Ariel Becherer by 86 votes, 1,020 to 934, with Gillian Anderson at 270. Becherer had called rural housing development “asset speculation.” McPhail wants a review of regional zoning to find where secondary suites and farm-worker housing could safely be allowed, and an end to complaint-driven bylaw enforcement setting neighbours against each other over alternative housing. In Area A, acclaimed director Daniel Arbour plans to help Denman Island’s housing project find funding.
What it could mean if you own, buy or rent here
Councils often govern differently than they campaign, so take this section as my own read.
If you own an older rental building or a redevelopment site in Comox, expect any rezoning to come with more conditions than it would have a year ago: tenant relocation, a share of affordable units, and earlier public engagement. Buyers of those properties will likely price that in. Projects already permitted by the OCP and existing zoning are on firmer ground because they don’t require a rezoning. For projects that do require rezoning but are consistent with the OCP, provincial rules now limit when a public hearing can be held.
In Courtenay, homeowners thinking about a suite or a second home on their lot have the most to gain if the permit promises hold. Builders should watch the first budget for where development charges land.
In Area C, McPhail’s zoning review could eventually open more room for suites on rural lots. A review takes time, and any change would go through the full regional board.
None of these councils can move market prices much by itself. Several candidates said as much during the campaign, pointing to interest rates, construction costs and provincial policy. A council controls how fast it says yes and what it asks for in return. Courtenay’s new council campaigned mostly on the first, and Comox’s on the second.
Note: I use AI to help structure and speed up drafting these posts, then edit them substantially against the sources listed below.
Sources
- Comox Valley Record, election results, October 17, 2026: City of Courtenay, Town of Comox, Village of Cumberland, CVRD area directors
- My Comox Valley Now, Manno Theos elected mayor of Courtenay
- Comox Valley Regional District, Unofficial Election and Referendum Results
- Town of Comox, preliminary election results
- Comox Valley Record, Comox OCP adopted by narrow margin, February 24, 2026
- Candidate statements: see the full source list in In Their Own Words: What Comox Valley Candidates Have Said About Housing
- Manno Theos, post following the October 1 all-candidates forum, Facebook, October 2026; John Dacombe for Courtenay Council, post-election statement, Facebook, October 17, 2026