A coalition of diverse local organizations in British Columbia are calling on the provincial government to establish a permanent roundtable of housing experts and stakeholders in order to better address the housing crisis that BC continues to face and is struggling to alleviate.
The coalition making that call includes the Aboriginal Housing Management Association, Active Manufactured Home Owners Society, Appraisal Institute of BC, BC Non-Profit Housing Association, BC Real Estate Association (BCREA), Canadian Mortgage Brokers Association - BC, LandlordBC, Mortgage and Title Insurance Industry Association of Canada, Small Housing BC, and the Surrey Board of Trade.
The call was announced by BCREA's Senior VP of Policy Research and Advocacy, Trevor Hargreaves, in the presence of the Minister of Housing, at the Housing Crisis Solutions with Minister Ravi Kahlon event hosted by the Surrey Board of Trade on Thursday.
"Premier Eby and Housing Minister Kahlon are showing a great willingness to implement change and tackle BC's housing issues head-on, and that's to be commended," Hargreaves said. "What's lacking here isn't new ideas, but process. We're calling upon government today to create a permanent housing roundtable that will add more rigour to the policy-making process in BC, and create a structure that better utilizes the broad collection of expertise within the market and non-market housing organizations that can be brought to the table."
In a technical briefing, BCREA said that the existing process of policy development regarding housing is "often inconsistent and ad hoc." The hope of the coalition is that a roundtable of experts from across the housing spectrum and various governments in BC will collaborate on ideas and policies to create a more cohesive plan, leading to better results.
"The lack of a permanent, holistic, coordinated approach to housing attainability has reduced the intended benefits of housing policy and, worse, produced unintended negative consequences for consumers that could have been anticipated and avoided with fulsome sector engagement," BCREA said.
As one example, BCREA points to the amendments of the Strata Property Act -- one of the first actions David Eby took after he was sworn in -- that banned age restrictions for any age below 55 in strata buildings. BCREA says that this has resulted in "even fewer opportunities for growing families and first-time homebuyers, as some strata corporations have shifted their age limits to 55-plus," which is something BCREA says could have been anticipated and perhaps mitigated had the housing sector been properly consulted.
A similar situation has recently played out on the federal level, with the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act -- also known as the foreign buyer ban. Stakeholders in the real estate industry have regularly voiced frustrations with the rollout of the regulations, which involved little dialogue and weren't fully announced until less than two weeks before they came into effect. The ban resulted in some unintended consequences that affected developers and housing supply, and the federal government ultimately acknowledged as much after it amended the act on March 27.
RELATED: Inside the Industry Efforts to Amend the Foreign Buyer Ban
"Many of these stakeholders are rarely adequately consulted, nor is there a permanently established process for the ongoing sharing of ideas, perspectives, and approaches between these groups," BCREA said, regarding the need for a BC housing roundtable. "Market, non-market, and government representatives are all equally dedicated to creating sound policy for British Columbians to increase supply across the housing continuum. The time has come to establish a better process to harness these collective interests and expertise."
