Which developments are selling lots on Bowen Island?
Four, as of September 4, 2026: Arbutus Ridge (four lots, $545,000 to $999,000 plus GST), The Lakelands (two left, $675,000 and $1.2 million), Seymour Bay Drive (four of ten, $850,000 to $2,560,000 plus GST) and 831 Windjammer Road (one lot, $879,000). A further 39 vacant-land listings compete on the resale market.
The comparison, line by line
Every figure below is an asking price on September 4, 2026, taken from the seller's own page or from the MLS record named in the last column. Where a competitor does not publish something, the cell says so rather than guessing. Prices exclude GST unless the row says otherwise. Scroll the table sideways on a narrow screen.
| Development | Where | Lots remaining | Sizes | Price range | Servicing: water, power, road | Septic | Design guidelines | On MLS? | Source and as-of |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arbutus Ridge Phase 3 | Hayes Road, west side, above King Edward Bay | 4 of nine | 0.49–1.01 ac | $545,000 to $999,000 plus GST | Municipal water at the lot line from the King Edward Bay system, fire hydrants installed; BC Hydro and telecom ducted underground to the lot line; Hayes Road is a dedicated public municipal road | Engineered shared field on Lot 10 for Lots 2, 3 and 5; a covenanted on-lot field area of about 550 sq m on the others | Yes — Statutory Building Scheme CB466252 registered on every lot, with Design Guidelines; $3,500 review fee | Lot 8 only, MLS R3149995 | lots.json and the Disclosure Statement, as of September 4, 2026 |
| 786 Hayes Road | Lot 2 of Arbutus Ridge Phase 3; a private resale by its owner, not sold by the developer | One | 1.10 ac (47,916 sq ft on the registered plan; the MLS record shows 43,389 sq ft, so ask for the survey) | $625,000 | Same subdivision servicing as the row above: municipal water, hydro and telecom at the lot line, frontage on Hayes Road | Shares the engineered field on Lot 10 with Lots 3 and 5; cost, operation and insurance shared under registered covenant CB466271 | Yes — the same Building Scheme CB466252 runs with title | Yes, MLS R3074402 | MLS R3074402 via our competitor review, as of September 4, 2026 |
| The Lakelands | Near Grafton Lake, beside a nature reserve, centre of the island | Two of eleven (Lot 5 and Lot 11) | Lot 5: 28,253 sq ft (0.65 ac). Lot 11: 149,719 sq ft (3.44 ac) | Lot 5 $675,000; Lot 11 $1.2 million | One sentence on the seller's page: cleared and serviced with utilities, road access and connections to the municipal water system. No hydro capacity or road status published | Not stated | None published | 857 Forster Lane in the same subdivision is listed at $565,000, MLS R3127214, which does not agree with the $675,000 on the seller's page — ask which is current | thelakelandsbowen.com, as of September 4, 2026 |
| Seymour Bay Drive | Cowan Point, south-east end of the island | Four of ten properties | Not published | $850,000 to $2,560,000 plus GST; most of the upper range is finished houses rather than bare land, and the two bare lots on MLS are $800,000 and $840,000 | Not stated on the pages published | Not stated | None published | Yes for the two bare lots, MLS R3149204 and R3149201 | bowenislandproperties.ca (Cole Westersund, LandQuest), as of September 4, 2026 |
| 831 Windjammer Road | Windjammer Road, west side, near the Arbutus Ridge entrance | One (the neighbouring lot has sold) | 1.51 ac (65,912 sq ft) | $879,000 | The most specific servicing copy on the island: municipal water with multiple high-pressure connections at the build site, 400-amp dual permanent meter bases underground, Telus and Shaw live at the build site, and a 400-foot driveway already built | Not addressed | None published | Yes, MLS R3144888 (One Percent Realty) | bowenlots.com and MLS R3144888, as of September 4, 2026 |
| The MLS resale market | Island-wide, single lots from private owners | 39 vacant-land listings | 2,300 sq ft to about five acres | $299,000 to $2,299,000 | Varies, and often none: on an unserviced parcel the well, the hydro extension and the driveway are the buyer's cost and are not priced until each is designed | The buyer's responsibility unless the listing says otherwise | None, unless the parcel sits in a subdivision with a registered building scheme | Yes, by definition | REW and the MLS records catalogued in our competitor review, as of September 4, 2026 |
Two things the table will not tell you. Asking prices are not sold prices, and no public source of sold bare-land prices exists on Bowen — ask a REALTOR for a sold-comparables run before you rely on any number here. And a development with two lots left is a different negotiation from one with ten.
What "serviced" means and why it matters
Serviced is not a marketing word; it is a list of work that is either finished or still ahead of you. At Arbutus Ridge the list reads as follows.
- Water. Municipal. The Development is inside the King Edward Bay Water System / Local Service Area, owned and operated by Bowen Island Municipality. The Developer provides water access and hookups to each lot line; the purchaser obtains permits and installs the system from the hookup onto the lot. There are no wells and no private community utility.
- Power. BC Hydro. There is a main distribution line along Windjammer Road and Joan Audrey Lane. The Developer provided electrical service ducting from that line to each lot line, underground along the new roads. Permits and on-lot installation costs are the purchaser's; BC Hydro may charge hookup fees.
- Telecom. Telecommunications and internet are brought to the lot line. Statutory Right of Way BB394451 in favour of Telus Communications Inc. is registered against the lands. A hook-up fee may be charged by the service provider.
- Road. Hayes Road is a Dedicated public municipal road, not a private or strata road, connecting to Joan Audrey Lane (formerly King Edward Bay Road). Each lot takes access under a Driveway Access Permit.
- Fire. Fire hydrants installed to Municipality-approved drawings. The Fire Chief of Bowen Island recommended fire suppression sprinklers in all new homes; the Building Scheme makes them mandatory - the principal building may not be occupied unless equipped with an operable residential-standard sprinkler system.
What a buyer still pays on the servicing side is short and known: a $1,500 municipal water connection fee before the building permit is issued, the $3,500 design review fee, and the on-lot work from the connection point — service trench, septic installation where the lot has its own field, driveway.
Natural gas is not available anywhere in the development; the Disclosure Statement records it as not applicable. Plan for electric heat, a heat pump or propane.
On an unserviced parcel each of those items is a separate contract, a separate approval and a separate schedule. A drilled well can come in dry. A septic design depends on what the soil test finds. A hydro extension is quoted by BC Hydro after the design, not before. None of it can be priced from a listing photograph, which is the main reason the cheapest listings on the island are not the cheapest houses to finish.
How to compare a resale lot with a developer lot
The two are different products sold under different rules. Ask both sellers the same seven questions and write the answers down.
- Servicing, item by item. Is water at the lot line or at the property boundary of a system you must still join? What is the connection fee and who charges it? Is hydro ducted to the line, and at what capacity? Is telecom live?
- The septic arrangement, and what it obliges you to do. An on-lot field means a soil assessment, a design by an authorised person and a Vancouver Coastal Health filing. A shared field means a registered covenant: at Arbutus Ridge the owners of Lots 2, 3 and 5 share the cost of maintaining, operating and insuring the Lot 10 field and the sanitary line, and an engineer's report on the system must be obtained and given to the Municipality.
- What else is registered on title. A building scheme, easements, statutory rights of way and no-build covenants all survive the sale. Get a title search before you write an offer, not after.
- GST. Our lots are taxable and the price excludes GST at 5%, paid to the vendor on completion. A private resale of personal-use land by an individual is usually exempt, which is a real difference on a six-figure purchase. It is not automatic — ask the seller in writing and confirm the treatment with your own accountant.
- Road status. A dedicated public municipal road is maintained by the Municipality. A private or shared driveway is maintained by the owners, under an agreement you should read before you buy.
- The view work. Views on a treed lot are made, not found. Ask what tree removal is permitted and when: at Arbutus Ridge, felling and removal are restricted to the window of 16 August to 1 February to protect nesting birds, and the Building Scheme controls what may come down.
- Time on market. A lot listed for months at an unchanged price is telling you something. So is a developer's reduction. Neither is a verdict; both are information.
Where Arbutus Ridge is weaker
Three places, stated plainly.
Price per acre, against the resale inside our own community. Lot 5 is $999,000 for 1.01 acres, about $990,000 an acre. 786 Hayes Road is $625,000 for 1.10 acres on the registered plan, about $570,000 an acre. The gap is real. The differences behind it — a new lot sold under a disclosure statement with a seven-day rescission right, the shared-field covenant, the GST treatment, and the fact that the resale has been listed since December 2025 — are for a buyer to weigh, not for us to weigh on their behalf.
The half-acre lots are the smallest thing we sell, and the dearest per acre. Lot 7 at $699,000 and Lot 8 at $545,000 work out to about $1,430,000 and $1,110,000 an acre, the highest figures in this comparison. A buyer who wants land rather than a building lot can buy 1.51 acres at 831 Windjammer Road for $879,000, or 2.5 acres on Creek Road for $699,000. What the half-acre lots buy instead is a finished road, water at the line and a shorter run to a building permit.
There is no waterfront. The Disclosure Statement contains no reference to a beach, waterfront, foreshore or ocean access of any kind, and we will not imply one. The lots look west over King Edward Bay; the beaches at Bowen Bay, Tunstall Bay and King Edward Bay are municipal, reached by public road, and belong to nobody's lot. If the water's edge is the requirement, look at the waterfront listings instead.
What to do next
Compare on the ground rather than on paper. Walk our lots and the competing ones on the same afternoon, with the table above printed and the seven questions in your pocket. Tours take about two hours including the ferry, by appointment, and the Disclosure Statement and site plan follow by email the same day.
This is not an offer for sale. Any such offering may only be made with a disclosure statement. E.&O.E.
Sources and dates
- market.vacantLandListingsBowen — https://www.buyonbowen.com/building_lots (fetched 2026-09-04) (as of September 4, 2026)
- costs.designApprovalFee — the Disclosure Statement on file ENTITIES AUGUST 2026/RECONSTRUCTED KEB II/06 - Disclosure Statement and Amendments/06.1 - CURRENT (use this one)/2025-04-23 - Disclosure Statement CURRENT - Arbutus Ridge Phase 3 consolidated to Fourth Amendment (149pp, built canon).pdf (PDF p.12) and the Disclosure Statement on file ENTITIES AUGUST 2026/RECONSTRUCTED KEB II/06 - Disclosure Statement and Amendments/06.1 - CURRENT (use this one)/2025-04-23 - Disclosure Statement CURRENT - Arbutus Ridge Phase 3 consolidated to Fourth Amendment (149pp, built canon).pdf (PDF p.84) (as of May 26, 2021)