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Bylaw Enforcement and Community Safety: Finding the Right Response

Sep 2, 2026 | Community Safety, FAQ, Fiscal Responsibility

Courtenay has expanded its bylaw enforcement capacity to respond to growing community concerns, using education, voluntary compliance and enforcement when necessary to help keep neighbourhoods, parks and public spaces safe and enjoyable.

When people think about community safety, policing is often the first service that comes to mind.

But many of the concerns residents encounter every day are not necessarily police matters.

Noise complaints, nuisance properties, parking issues, encampments, animal control, property maintenance and activities in parks and public spaces can all require a municipal response without necessarily requiring an RCMP officer.

That is where Bylaw Services plays an important role.

Over the past several years, Courtenay has significantly expanded its bylaw capacity. The objective has been to provide a more effective response to community concerns while ensuring that enforcement resources are appropriate to the problem being addressed.

Bylaw Services has grown with the community

Courtenay's bylaw capacity has changed considerably.

The City previously had a single bylaw enforcement officer. Today, Bylaw Services has expanded its staffing and provides coverage seven days a week, generally from 8 a.m. to 5:45 p.m.

The demand for those services is significant.

In 2025, Courtenay Bylaw Services received 1,911 calls for service, an increase of 46 per cent from 2024.

The most common calls involved:

    • parking;
    • encampments;
    • animal control;
    • noise complaints; and
    • other municipal bylaw matters.

Those numbers illustrate why dedicated municipal enforcement capacity matters. These are real community concerns, but many do not require the powers or cost of a police response.

Enforcement should be appropriate to the problem

Courtenay's approach to bylaw enforcement emphasizes education and voluntary compliance.

That is an important distinction.

The objective of a bylaw is not simply to issue as many tickets as possible. Bylaws establish standards that help people live together in a growing community, covering everything from noise and parking to property maintenance and the use of public spaces.

In many cases, a resident or business may not realize they are violating a bylaw. An explanation of the rules and an opportunity to correct the problem can resolve the issue without further enforcement.

When voluntary compliance does not work—or when the violation is more serious—the City has additional enforcement tools available, including municipal tickets and other measures permitted under its bylaws.

This creates a graduated approach: resolve problems through education where possible and escalate enforcement when circumstances require it.

Chronic nuisance properties require stronger tools

Some situations cannot be resolved through a warning or a conversation.

A chronic nuisance property can generate repeated complaints, consume significant City and emergency-service resources and negatively affect an entire neighbourhood.

Courtenay's bylaws allow the City to address properties where repeated activity causes harm, disruption or discomfort to others.

Examples can include:

    • persistent noise;
    • litter, graffiti or unsightly conditions;
    • fire hazards;
    • unsafe structures;
    • poor property maintenance; and
    • unlawful activity.

When ordinary enforcement efforts are unsuccessful, the City's Nuisance Abatement and Cost Recovery Bylaw provides additional tools.

The City can order an owner or occupant to address a nuisance. If the problem is not corrected, the City may undertake necessary work and recover eligible costs from the responsible property owner or occupier.

This is an important principle.

Residents should not have to live indefinitely beside a property that repeatedly creates serious safety or nuisance concerns, and taxpayers should not necessarily be expected to absorb the ongoing cost of responding to a chronic problem.

Bylaw and police services have different roles

Expanding Bylaw Services also helps clarify which municipal resource should respond to a particular issue.

An RCMP officer is required when circumstances involve criminal activity, immediate threats to public safety or situations requiring police authority.

A bylaw officer may be the more appropriate response for parking violations, property maintenance, municipal noise complaints and many other local regulatory matters.

There will inevitably be situations where those responsibilities overlap. Chronic nuisance properties, for example, can involve bylaw officers, police, fire services and other agencies.

But having dedicated bylaw capacity allows each service to focus more effectively on the work it is equipped and authorized to perform.

That matters for public safety, and it matters for taxpayers.

Enforcement alone does not solve every problem

There is another important distinction when discussing bylaw enforcement.

Not every difficult situation in a public space is fundamentally an enforcement problem.

Homelessness is the clearest example.

Municipalities have responsibilities for parks, streets, public spaces and community standards. Residents and businesses also have legitimate expectations regarding safety, access and the use of those spaces.

At the same time, issuing a ticket does not create a home.

This is why responses to homelessness and other complex social issues require coordination among multiple organizations.

Depending on the circumstances, that can include Bylaw Services, RCMP, health services, housing providers, outreach organizations and other community partners.

The goal should be to use enforcement when it is necessary while recognizing when another intervention is more likely to address the underlying problem.

Working together on complex situations

One example of this broader approach is the Comox Valley Situation Table.

The Situation Table uses a collaborative, rapid-triage model to bring together agencies when an individual or family is experiencing circumstances that create an acutely elevated level of risk.

Instead of organizations working independently, the model allows participating agencies to identify situations where coordinated intervention may reduce risk.

This kind of collaboration is particularly valuable because the challenges that affect community safety rarely fit neatly within the mandate of a single organization.

A person may simultaneously be dealing with housing instability, mental-health concerns, substance use, financial problems or interactions with the justice system.

No single municipal department can resolve all of those issues.

Coordination gives the community a better opportunity to connect people with the appropriate response.

Compassion and accountability are not opposites

Community discussions about enforcement can sometimes be framed as a choice between compassion and accountability.

I don't think that is particularly helpful.

Residents have a reasonable expectation that municipal bylaws will be enforced and that persistent problems affecting their homes, businesses and neighbourhoods will be addressed.

People experiencing homelessness, mental-health challenges or other difficult circumstances should also be treated with dignity and connected with appropriate services wherever possible.

Both principles can exist at the same time.

A balanced approach recognizes the circumstances of the people involved without ignoring the effect that unsafe or disruptive behaviour can have on other members of the community.

It also recognizes that enforcement is most effective when it is directed at the behaviour or condition that needs to change rather than simply at the circumstances of the individual involved.

Measuring whether the approach is working

As Courtenay's bylaw capacity has expanded, it is important to continue evaluating the results.

That means looking beyond the number of tickets issued.

Useful measures include service demand, response capacity, recurring complaint categories, voluntary compliance, chronic nuisance properties and whether particular problems continue to consume disproportionate municipal resources.

The substantial increase in calls to Bylaw Services during 2025 shows that residents are using the service.

The next question is how we continue improving the response while making sure resources are directed toward the issues having the greatest impact on the community.

The right service for the right problem

Community safety requires more than police.

It requires a combination of policing, fire protection, bylaw enforcement, housing and outreach services, health care, community organizations and residents themselves.

Each has a different role.

Courtenay's expansion of Bylaw Services has given the City greater capacity to respond directly to municipal issues, provide seven-day coverage and take stronger action when persistent problems cannot be resolved voluntarily.

The approach should continue to be practical: education and voluntary compliance where possible, enforcement where necessary, and collaboration when the problem extends beyond what enforcement alone can solve.

That gives residents a meaningful response to their concerns while allowing police and other emergency services to concentrate on situations that require their particular expertise.

Sources & Further Reading