The ‘Newsmaker of the Year’ is part of STOREYS annual week-long editorial series. You can find the rest of our 2023 BC selections here as they're released throughout the week.
The year was off to a slow start for British Columbians when it came to provincial housing reforms, but by November the changes were coming so fast and furious that not even industry experts could keep up.
As anyone who’s even casually aware of the housing situation will know, BC is deep into a housing affordability crisis, particularly in its urban areas.
Enter BC's Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon, who was appointed exactly a year ago and went into 2023 with the dogged mission of upping the supply of housing through any means at his disposal. (Find STOREYS full in-depth interview with Minister Kahlon on his first year in office here.)
He’d promised last year that the approach would be speedy, and he meant it.
Behind the scenes, the Province enlisted outside experts and used economic modelling to forecast the number of homes that could be built through various initiatives, such as conversion of single-detached houses into multi-family buildings.
By spring, the provincial government announced a new housing plan to speed up the supply of thousands of homes over a decade, called the “Homes for People” plan. As it’s been rolled out these past months, the $12B plan has made Kahlon a fixture behind the podium at press conferences.
The government announced forgivable loans up to $40k over five years for homeowners who build secondary rental units as long as they stay below market rent for at least five years. They launched a tax credit of up to $400 a year for renters that is income tested. They promised a “flipping tax” aimed at people who purchase homes so they can flip them for a quick buck.
Then came what the media dubbed “the naughty list,” a tongue-in cheek name for the list of municipalities throughout the province identified as not delivering enough housing supply to suit demand. By June, they’d revealed a list of municipalities.
If it sounds like the Province is moving into the urban planning space normally occupied by local governments, that’s because they are.
“We have actually been expanding over the last year a lot of expertise when it comes to planning,” says Kahlon. “In fact, some of the local governments that are complaining about the changes we are making, we have planners from those communities that we have hired into the province.
“So we are scaling up our capacity because historically that isn’t something the province has done.”
The Province announced the upcoming BC Builds, a plan they will roll out in the new year involving a land bank of publicly owned properties and financing agreements that would make it possible to build affordable homes. The idea is to keep public land in government hands and partner with the private sector to build housing.
“I think the biggest thing is BC Builds,” says Kahlon. “Historically the province has been in the low-income [housing] space, but we have seen clearly that the private sector won’t be able to bring on housing for that middle-income earner section of the population, not because they don’t want to, but with interest rates, land costs and global inflation, they aren’t able to.
“So we are going to step into that space.”
In October, the arrival of the short-term rental accommodations act was a resounding blow for a lot of people who thought they could pad their retirement income with Airbnb revenue from the investment condo they had acquired for that very purpose. Among the many restrictions, the Province gave local governments the right to charge hefty fines, and they limited short-term rentals to the host’s principal residence and secondary suite, such as a basement apartment.
“There is more to come,” says Kahlon, including the new Rental Protection Fund, an independent, government funded non-profit through which housing providers purchase existing rental buildings and fix them up to keep them as affordable housing. The fund is just getting started.
“We will be able to share soon how that fund is going.”
By November, the Province brought out the big guns. They’d already announced a plan to allow standardized multiplex housing throughout the province, on single-family lots, as part of a far-reaching goal to create 130,000 multi-unit buildings over a decade. It’s the first legislation of its kind in Canada. The replacement buildings would contain three or four, or even six units, if close to a transit hub. So far, it looks like the Province is going to leave it up to each municipality to determine if these multiplexes will be for rental or ownership, or a mix. New legislation also brought an end to site-specific spot zoning and public hearings, and made secondary suites legal.
“When you rezone a large area across a region, the land lift is actually very small compared to what it would be if one property had been rezoned,” explained Kahlon at the press conference.
Bill 44 passed on November 29 with 45 votes in favour from the New Democratic Party and 29 from the opposition, including BC United, BC Greens, the Conservative Party of BC and independent Adam Walker.
The legislation is, in housing policy terms, huge – and certain to transform much of the province. To the chagrin of critics, the provincial government only had three weeks before the house adjourned to try to understand the details of the bill before it passed. Premier David Eby told media that there was a sense of “urgency” around the reforms.
Kahlon said it’s a case of “political posturing games.”
“That was one of the highest debated bills in the last 20 years,” he says.
“Just that bill alone I believe will create a lot more certainty. It will allow for different housing forms, so instead of just single-family homes, it will allow up to four units on single-family lots, which fundamentally means people have options now.”
Other major pieces of housing legislation were passed in the last week of November. Earlier in the month the Province also announced a bill that would override municipalities that obtain community amenity contributions (CACs) as part of negotiations with developers that apply for a rezoning.
Instead of CACs, there’d be an amenity cost charge, revealed to developers upfront, thereby helping them manage costs. If approved, the Province could waive or reduce the ACC (Amenity Cost Charge) in exchange for affordable housing, or other public benefit.
And then there’s bill 47, a major upzoning of all transit-oriented development areas throughout the province that would see eight- to 20-storey towers built within 800 metres of a SkyTrain station or 400 metres of a bus exchange. The Province would thereby restrict the zoning powers of municipalities so that they could not deny the minimum allowable height and density to these areas. The provincial height and density would trump any municipality that allowed less.
Oh, and they just expanded the speculation and vacancy tax to include 13 more municipalities, including Penticton, which has a lot of part-time residents who like to vacation there in the summer.
As developer Michael Geller put it: “It’s amazing, all these government initiatives. There is all this stuff happening, although we don’t know how it’s going to turn out.”
A couple of key criticisms have emerged from the broadly sweeping reforms, and that includes the potential for displacement of renters as property values increase due to upzoning, and also the fact that there’s little transparency as to how the Province reached their targets.
Kahlon said that local governments can still decide on tenure, such as whether they want to create rental zones for the new provincially mandated density.
“The provincial policy manual for Transit Oriented Development will provide local governments with guidance and important considerations for its implementation and will encourage local governments to follow best practices in relation to tenant protection policies,” he said.
Green MLA Adam Olsen said one of his complaints is a lack of details and information sharing that could have led to a proper debate before the legislation was passed. In session, he challenged Kahlon to make public the economic modelling report that substantiated the 130,000 homes that come on-stream due to the multiplex upzoning; however, Kahlon would only say they’d make it public in the near future.
“I have a strong feeling that... this is a deliberate decision to not give these bills the type of air that they should,” said Olsen. “These changes are not small and nor are they inconsequential. They are the polar opposite of that,” he said, noting an emphasis on market-rate housing.
“We are changing the way we do housing and claiming that we are fixing it for people who need housing at an affordable rate — but yet there are no affordability measures. The only thing they have done is just take one [house] and make it three, four or six homes,” he said, referring to the multiplexes of Bill 44.
“There is a strong indication we need housing for extreme core housing need, and those are the people we need more housing for, not market housing.
“The scale and scope of this is a major issue,” said Olsen.
