Permits, locates and setbacks before the dig
Parksville Excavating starts every dig we book with a BC 1 Call locate, and members respond within 3 working days at no charge. The Regional District of Nanaimo states that no stage of a project may start, including excavation, until the building permit has been obtained, and Qualicum Beach names excavation directly in Building Bylaw No. 903, 2024.
On a normal residential job, we deal with four separate authorities — the utility locate service, the building authority, whichever land use bylaw applies to the parcel, and WorkSafeBC once the machine is working. Each one runs on its own timeline, and the locate takes the longest to come back.
The locate comes first
BC 1 Call is free. Members respond within three working days of the request, excluding weekends and holidays, and five business days for large projects. Excavation has to begin within 14 calendar days of the request, and where it does, the ticket stays valid for 30 calendar days from the date it was requested. The call centre is on 1-800-474-6886, Monday to Friday, 7:00am to 5:00pm.
Private services on the lot are a separate exercise. The locate covers member utilities up to the property, and anything the owner has run since — a line to a shop, an old septic field, an irrigation main — is traced on site before the machine starts.
Which authority issues the building permit
Which authority you deal with depends on where the lot line falls. Inside Parksville the City administers Building Bylaw No. 1387. Inside Qualicum Beach it is Building Bylaw No. 903, 2024, which names construction, alteration, excavation, reconstruction, demolition, removal and relocation as work a permit covers, and which requires that fill placed on a parcel not exceed a surface slope of one vertical to two horizontal unless a professional engineer certifies it.
Outside both municipalities the Regional District of Nanaimo administers Building Regulations Bylaw No. 1250, 2010. Its position is stated plainly: no stage of a project may start, including demolition or excavation, until the building permit has been obtained. A retaining structure under 1.0 metre high retaining under 1.0 metre of earth does not need one.
| Construction value | Processing fee | Permit fee |
|---|---|---|
| Up to $20,000 | $150 | $150 |
| $20,001 – $50,000 | $450 | $250 + 1% of value above $20,000 |
| $50,001 – $100,000 | $500 | $250 + 1% of value above $20,000 |
| Over $100,000 | $1,000 | $250 + 1% of value above $20,000 |
Regional District of Nanaimo Building Fees and Charges Bylaw No. 1595.01, 2025, effective 15 May 2025. Applies in the electoral areas, not inside Parksville or Qualicum Beach.
Development permit areas
A development permit is a separate approval from a building permit and it attaches to the land rather than to the building. The Regional District's development permit areas cover freshwater and fish habitat, sensitive ecosystems, eagle and heron nesting trees, marine coast, hazard lands and farmland protection. The trigger wording reaches the disturbance of soils, including grubbing, scraping and the removal of top soils, so clearing can need one on its own.
Farmland protection applies in Electoral Areas A, E and G on lots over 5,000 square metres. Electoral Area F, covering Coombs, Errington and Hilliers, carries a Freshwater and Fish Habitat development permit area added to its Official Community Plan by Bylaw No. 1152.05, adopted 4 December 2018, and it reaches unmapped watercourses as well as mapped ones.
In Parksville the Official Community Plan, Bylaw 2013, No. 1492, carries 17 development permit areas including environmentally sensitive lands and hazard lands.
Trees
Thresholds change at the municipal boundary. In Parksville a protected tree is 50 centimetres in diameter or greater under Tree Management Bylaw, 2012, No. 1484, and cutting one needs a permit. In Qualicum Beach the Town has its own tree bylaw with a fee and replacement rules, and we check it before we clear.
Fill, soil and the Agricultural Land Reserve
Placing fill or removing soil inside the Agricultural Land Reserve needs a Notice of Intent filed with the Agricultural Land Commission at least 60 days before the work, with a $150 fee. Where a Notice of Intent is not sufficient, a full soil or fill use application is $1,500, less the $150 already paid. Around a fifth of Electoral Area F sits inside the ALR.
Neither the City of Parksville, the Town of Qualicum Beach nor the Regional District of Nanaimo operates a separate soil removal or soil deposit bylaw.
Access onto a provincial highway
Creating or changing an access off a provincial highway needs a highway use permit from the Ministry of Transportation and Transit, applied for through the PASport portal, with Form H0020 as the paper alternative. Highway 19A and Highway 4 both run through this service area.
There is an exemption. A property off a provincially maintained side road outside municipal boundaries, where the access is not onto a controlled access highway or a numbered route, does not need one.
Once the machine is working
WorkSafeBC's Occupational Health and Safety Regulation, Part 20, governs the dig itself. Section 20.79 requires the location of all underground utility services to be accurately determined before excavating or drilling with powered tools. Section 20.81 requires any excavation over 1.2 metres that a worker enters to be sloped, benched, engineered, supported to the regulation's minimums, or protected by a manufactured trench box or shoring cage. Section 20.90 keeps excavated material at least 60 centimetres back from the edge of a trench and 1.2 metres from any other excavation.
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