BC announces first 10 cities that must meet new housing quotas

BC government announces first 10 cities that must meet new housing quotas

Construction progress of Oakridge Park, as of March 9, 2023. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Select municipalities in Metro Vancouver, Fraser Valley, Greater Victoria, and the interior are amongst the first 10 municipal jurisdictions that will be subject to the Government of British Columbia’s new Housing Supply Act.

BC Minister of Housing Ravi Kahlon made the announcement Wednesday morning, marking the first big step on the legislation since it was introduced in late 2022.

The Housing Supply Act will require municipal governments to meet new housing supply quotas established by the provincial government, with the targets to be determined in consultation with the municipal governments.

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“We selected these municipalities from an objective, thorough, and measured process that factored in housing availability, affordability, and unrealized potential in delivering more homes for people,” said Kahlon during the press conference.

“Today, we’re taking another important step on the path to achieving our goal for achieving more housing where it’s needed most, and providing a diversity of options so that people can stay in their communities as their housing needs evolve.”

The final quotas for each of these jurisdictions will be publicly released this summer, he says. Ministry staff will meet with the selected municipalities over the coming weeks, and provide them with a 30-day window to assess the targets before making the targets public. Progress updates with the municipalities will be conducted every six months.

Kahlon notes the targets will be more than just units, such as the inclusion of prescriptions for targets on multi-bedroom housing suitable for families.

He says where municipal governments have a choice is determining how to accommodate that growth, suggesting there will be some policy shifts soon in the communities.

“We need all communities to be participating in the work, and I expect most communities will be cooperating fully with us,” said Kahlon.

To aid cities in expediting permitting, Kahlon reiterated the measures the provincial government has put in place, such as providing funding to municipal governments to come up with their new and improved digital permitting processes.

If cities demonstrate they are having challenges or are non-compliant, the legislation provides the provincial government with the steps of bringing in an independent advisor to identify the path forward for creating progress. Further action can also be taken by the provincial government to override municipal directions, but this will be a tool of last resort.

“If we find that the progress is not being made, then we have the ability as a province to step in and make the decisions that we believe are necessary to ensure affordable housing in communities,” continued the minister.

The first 10 municipalities under the Housing Supply Act are:

Vancouver
West Vancouver
North Vancouver (district)
Port Moody
Delta
Abbotsford
Victoria
Oak Bay
Saanich
Kamloops

Before the end of 2023, the provincial government will select and notify a second group of eight to 10 municipalities for inclusion into the Housing Supply Act, growing the list of jurisdictions under the legislation to up to a total of 20.

“The housing challenges that we see here today cannot be solved in any one municipality alone, including Vancouver,” said Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim. “These challenges impact our region and province as a whole. The reality is we need to build more housing faster, we need more social housing, more supportive housing, more affordable home ownership. Basically, we need more of everything.”

“It’s incredibly important that we all rise to this occasion, all municipalities. We realize that the City of Vancouver historically has not met the need of increased demand for housing.”

Sim suggests Vancouver has made progress over the last six months with speeding up housing, such as digitizing the permitting process and streamlining application review processes. On Tuesday, Vancouver City Council approved a temporary strategy for prioritizing rezoning applications based on the highest number of net new homes, until City staff are able to resolve their backlog of applications for review.

The mayor noted, “It’s a top priority to build as much housing as quickly as possible,” and suggested some projects are no longer economically feasible by the time they get their permit after years of waiting.

“We still have a helluva of a lot of work to do, but as the largest city in the province we have the responsibility to lead by example, and maybe more importantly we have an opportunity to demonstrate to municipalities across the province that it’s possible to make progress. If we can’t tackle this challenge, this housing crisis now, our kids and future generations will have little chance of being able to build a future in our city and our province,” added Sim.

Early this spring, City Council rejected City staff’s proposal to add a “Pace of Change” policy to the area densification strategy of the Broadway Plan. This policy would have considerably slowed down the pace of new developments in the area by regulating the number of applications that would be considered on an annual basis.

In a previous interview with Daily Hive Urbanized, Kahlon said City Council made the right move in not adopting such a policy.

“I’m pleased Vancouver City Council and the mayor made the right decision. When we get to a point where we already made a decision on an area plan, and we’re in a housing crisis, it’s go-time,” said Kahlon.

“Vancouver right now has one of the best rental protection plans for the Broadway Corridor than any other area I’ve seen in North America. If a not-for-profit or private sector builder is ready to go with a project, we need them to proceed because we need this housing as soon as possible, not just in Vancouver but in communities across the province.”

Today, Kahlon further added that the provincial government will be pushing cities to get their community/area plans in place, and “depoliticizing” such strategies to the effect that they do not need to be revisited for amendments.

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