Some municipalities are already on track to meet the B.C. government’s new five-year housing targets while others have a long way to go.
But even if municipalities meet the targets, B.C. will still fall well short of the housing needed to cool prices and meet future immigration levels, housing analysts say.
The first 10 municipalities tapped by the province to speed up housing approvals will be required to green-light a combined 60,000 new homes by 2028.
The B.C. NDP took the “politically convenient route” of setting moderate housing targets that don’t go far enough in addressing the affordability crisis, said Robert Berry of the Victoria-based pro density group Homes for Living.
A report released this month by the Canada Mortgage Housing Corp. found if B.C. continues building homes at the current pace, the province will still be short 610,000 units of housing by 2030. CMHC’s report looked at the number of units required to return to the level of affordability seen 10 years ago.
“The province’s figures are very, very conservative given just how deep the housing need is (and) considering how many homes are actually needed to return to some level of affordability,” Berry said.
B.C. is one of the fastest growing provinces in Canada, with 217,500 new permanent residents expected to arrive in the province between 2023 and 2025, double the historical immigration levels.
Brendon Ogmundson, chief economist for the B.C. Real Estate Association, said looking at the targets for the 10 municipalities selected by Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon, “some are probably a real stretch and some probably aren’t enough.”
Vancouver, for example, isn’t far off from meeting the province’s five-year targets. The city saw 21,420 net new homes between 2018 and 2022 and the province expects to see 28,900 net new homes in Vancouver in the next five years, including 7,894 below-market rentals. (Net new homes take into account homes demolished to make way for new development.)
Saanich, Oak Bay, Abbotsford and Port Moody by contrast, have the largest gaps between net new homes and their five-year targets.
Even if the five Metro Vancouver municipalities — Delta, North Vancouver, Port Moody, Vancouver and West Vancouver — meet the housing targets with a combined 38,471 net new units, they will still fall short by 20,000 housing units below the projected need by 2030, according to figures in Metro’s housing data book.
“It’s a really good start, but it’s not going to be enough to improve affordability back to what CMHC thinks it should be,” Ogmundson said.
B.C. United party Leader Kevin Falcon was more blunt: “It’s a joke. They spent a year coming up with some targets? I’ve always said if we want more affordable housing, make it less expensive to build.”
Falcon criticized the proposal by Metro mayors to hike development fees, which he said will offset the savings of the federal government’s GST waiver for rental buildings and only make housing more expensive for British Columbians.
Kahlon said Tuesday that if the targets are met, it will mean an additional 16,800 below-market rentals over five years, which will improve affordability for British Columbians.
The housing targets require municipalities to add a certain number of rental units, below-market rental units and supportive housing units, and specify the number of units by size including one-, two- and three-bedroom units.
Under the Housing Supply Act, municipalities that meet the targets will be eligible for funding for amenities, such as parks, bike lanes and recreation centres. Those that don’t meet the targets risk being overruled by the province, which has the power to rezone entire neighbourhoods to create more density.
Developers say the targets are achievable and they’re hopeful that the provincial mandates will push municipalities to speed up housing approvals.
Tim Grant, president of PCI Developments, said a proposed 858-unit rental building across from the Moody Centre transit station would on its own help Port Moody achieve half of its five-year housing target. The development includes 43 units of below-market housing.
Port Moody Mayor Meghan Lahti said that while the application hasn’t come to council yet, “the density that’s being proposed down there is absolutely appropriate as it’s adjacent to a SkyTrain station.”
Port Moody has only added 130 net new homes between 2018 and 2022, and Lahti acknowledged that it will be an “uphill battle” to meet the province’s targets of 1,694 net new homes by 2028.
“For us, this is not something that we can say, ‘Oh, we’ll easily make those targets,’ ” Lahti said. “I don’t know if it’s possible to have that much growth and have it occupied in the next five years.”
Andy Yan, an urban planner and director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program, said that in dense urban centres like Vancouver where there’s limited space for new development, he’s concerned that the province’s push to build high-density buildings at a lightning clip could result in demovictions of lower income renters similar to what happened in Metrotown when Burnaby underwent a development boom starting in 2010.
That’s why, Berry said, it’s crucial for municipalities to allow higher density apartment buildings to replace single-family homes in residential neighbourhoods. Most B.C. municipalities only allow new apartment buildings to replace existing apartment buildings, which is why older single-family homes are more likely to be replaced with “McMansions” than multi-family homes, he said.
Victoria and Vancouver have adopted so-called missing middle policies to allow multiplex homes on single-family lots, but in Victoria, for example, critics say the policy is so restrictive that few developers have applied under the new guidelines.
The B.C. government is expected to pass legislation this fall that will force municipal councils to approve multi-unit housing on single-family lots as long as the project meets all the parameters around setbacks and size.
