The James Bay Neighbourhood Association has evolved over the past thirty-five years as James Bay and the City of Victoria have both grown and changed.

Beginnings
The 1950s & 1960s were periods of considerable change. There was a loss of heavy industries located in the western part of the community and a dwindling and eventual loss of cargo shipping at Ogden Point. Single family houses were demolished and replaced with both low and high rise apartment buildings.

Out of fear for the loss of family housing, residents created groups to speak out on land use issues. The former James Bay Community Association and the James Bay Residents’ League were successful in convincing the City to use zoning tools to contain the increasing density of the neighbourhood.

In the early 1970s the City of Victoria established a Planning Department and the first James Bay Plan was completed in 1973.

JBNEC to JBNA
With a resurgence of development pressure in the 1980s, the James Bay Health and Community Services Society formed a committee to focus on land use and environmental issues – the James Bay Neighbourhood Environment Committee. 

The committee registered as a non-profit society in 1993. A couple of name changes later, it is now known as the James Bay Neighbourhood Association, an independent society focussed on James Bay land use matters.

After the City’s adoption of the 1986 Official Community Plan, the JBNA led a process of community consultation and developed its own update of the 1973 neighbourhood plan. In 1990, the City endorsed its own (different) version of the James Bay plan. Through a mediated process the two plans were melded to create the 1993 James Bay Neighbourhood Plan.

In response to development proposals that were felt to be in contravention of the James Bay Neighbourhood Plan, the JBNA, through the James Bay Action Committee, held a series of forums which involved two hundred residents over several months in 2004-2005. The Committees which formed have become cornerstones for ongoing JBNA activities. The vision statement these residents developed for James Bay is: