Sunday September 22, 2024 | VICTORIA, BC
Political analysis by Mary p Brooke | Island Social Trends
During this Fall 2024 BC Election campaign the BC NDP are promoting their plan to deliver 300,000 middle-class homes over the next 10 years.
That’s a considerable upgrade from the 114,000 new homes in the original Homes for BC as promised by the BC NDP in 2018.
- For months, Premier David Eby has earmarked housing as the top issue for British Columbians.
- BC Conservative Leader John Rustad says if his party forms government that they would revise or repeal some of the new NDP housing legislation.
- BC Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau appeals for more creativity in the housing supply process.
If not densification, then what?
Building many more homes relies on urban densification for reasons — not the least of which – includes the cost and availability of land, but also how the current system of market housing relies on the private sector to build homes within a profit model.
Densification is a normal process of city growth across Canada and North America. Housing and transportation are inextricably entwined… you can’t have one without the other and still hope to maintain economic momentum in urban communities. Nothing new about that.
It’s interesting how the BC NDP are being seen as doing some ‘new’ with steps to densification. Perhaps what is new is the speed with which they hope to see housing supply increase very quickly; that’s a natural response to how far behind the housing supply fell behind in the past 30 years in BC’s major urban centres.
Housing supply challenges are exacerbated in this decade by the higher cost of living, interest rate increases, rental market increases and the overall strain of population growth.
Suite of housing legislation:
The many-more-homes direction is supported by a suite of provincial legislation that was passed in the 42nd Session of the BC Legislative Assembly (in 2023 and 2024), most of it guided by Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon under current Premier David Eby.
Going after housing speculators (including disallowing investor-owned short-term rentals), easing up zoning restrictions and facilitating options for housing construction were the two key approaches of the BC NDP government.
A key innovative program called BC Builds sees partnership between government and other entities like non-profits and non-government landholders to to speed up access to land and get rolling with construction funding provided by the BC Government. A high-profile example of collaboration is how the BC government had input to a significant housing increase on base at Esquimalt DND.
A key piece of legislation called Bill 44 allows for small-scale, multi-unit housing — a range of buildings and housing units that can provide attainable housing for middle-income families. Examples of small-scale, multi-unit housing include:
- Secondary suites in single-family dwellings
- Detached accessory dwelling units (ADUs), like garden suites or laneway homes
- Triplexes
- Townhomes
- House-plexes
A set of pre-designed multi-plex housing plans were released, to help reduce architectural costs for smaller builders.
Another piece of legislation — Bill 47, requires higher-density housing near ‘transit-oriented areas’.
Pushback to housing approach:
Some pushback from the official opposition as well as some municipalities (re dropping the requirement for public hearings), as well as single-family homeowners and some rural areas has slowed down the densification momentum that the BC NDP government has hoped for.
However, by mid-summer, over 90 percent of municipalities had signed on for moving ahead with all bylaw and administrative changes required for enacting the suite of BC housing legislation.
The key concern is how infrastructure would be able to sustain more housing. At the recent Union of BC Municipalities convention in Vancouver Premier Eby and Minister Kahlon said there would be infrastructure investment along with housing expansion. Similarly, BC Conservative Leader John Rustad has pledged $10 billion for infrastructure.
===== RELATED:
- BC Housing Minister opens 97-unit rental building in James Bay (September 14, 2024)
- New housing coming to DND base in Esquimalt (August 17, 2024)
- Most BC municipalities have new bylaws to allow for small-scale multi-unit housing (July 25, 2024)
- Housing is a top election issue says Eby (July 22, 2024)
- High-density transit-oriented housing development will have exceptions & municipal input (December 4, 2023)
- Housing legislation takes affordability into account, says Minister Kahlon (November 10, 2023)
- Smart combo: more housing near transit (November 8, 2023)
- NEWS SECTIONS: BC PROVINCIAL ELECTION 2024 | POLTIICS | HOUSING