It has been conducting research on the province's residential real estate sector for two years
The Canada-British Columbia Expert Panel, formed in 2019 to conduct research on and formulate approaches to improving the province’s housing situation, has released its recommendations falling under five broad calls to action.
Joy MacPhail, chair of the panel, said that these recommendations are coming at an opportune moment, considering that the province’s long-standing housing challenges have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The pandemic has caused housing prices province-wide to rise sharply, as historically low interest rates allow borrowers to qualify for larger mortgage loans, and households seek more space to work or study from home,” MacPhail said. “This acceleration in housing demand has hindered British Columbians’ ability to access safe and affordable housing. There is an urgent need for coordinated action by all orders of government to dramatically increase this supply.”
Aside from the already in-progress steps of expanding the supply of community and affordable housing, the most crucial of these actions would be the creation of a planning framework “that proactively encourages housing,” the panel said in its report.
This could be done by imposing statutory time limits to each stage of the property development process, and by developing a digital development permitting system that can fulfill local government and industry needs quickly and cost-efficiently.
The provincial government should also “require all local governments to proactively update zoning bylaws to reflect official community plans, as widely and rapidly as possible,” the panel suggested. “Relying on privately initiated rezoning (spot-zoning) should be strongly discouraged.”
Read more: How British Columbia’s housing demand is shaping up
The panel added that BC needs to reform its property development fee regime.
The provincial government must “phase out community amenity contributions in tandem with an expansion of development cost charges, requiring any new or expanded fees or taxation of development to only fund capital expenses,” the panel said. “Federal and provincial governments [must] create a municipal housing incentive program rewarding the creation of net new housing supply wherever demand occurs.”
All of these steps should be accompanied by improved coordination “among and within all orders of government,” which would significantly help in addressing the housing needs of Indigenous communities, the panel said.
