After being appointed as Minister of Housing in December 2022, Ravi Kahlon spent much of 2023 — particularly the latter half of the year — introducing a suite of legislation focused on housing and development.
There was Bill 35, focused on short-term rentals; Bill 44, focused on small-scale multi-unit housing (SSMUH); Bill 46, focused on development financing; and Bill 47, focused on transit-oriented development; among many other smaller policy changes and new initiatives.
This past year then saw local governments tasked with implementing much of those changes, while the Province stepped back a bit to let the dust settle (ahead of the Fall election).
In December 2023, we sat down with Minister Kahlon to reflect on his first year and the various pieces of legislation that he had just announced. After Premier David Eby issued the mandate letters to his cabinet earlier this month (as opposed to right after the ministers were sworn in), we sat down once more with Kahlon — now Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs — to look back on his second year in office as well as the year ahead.
Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
This second year saw much of your administration's legislative changes come into effect. Some local governments had no major issues, but others had challenges dealing with all the changes concurrently. What did you see and hear from local governments?
Our goal was to really look at how we make decisions around housing and from that perspective, I believe last year was a success. For example, when it comes to no public hearings for projects that were within what a community already agreed upon [under its Official Community Plan], I have people, at first, that were critical and now they understand why we did it. Their processes are becoming more efficient, less adversarial. We're hearing from communities that their OCP updates are getting higher engagements than they've ever gotten before, because people understand that this is the time to provide input, this is the time to share their concerns or participate in how their community grows and where it grows. So, all of that I think is positive.
As we saw issues, we were able to adjust to make the changes that were necessary. So, last year, obviously there were some big shifts. This year is a lot about execution. Communities have now updated their housing needs reports, which we've standardized across the province. By the end of the year, communities are required to have updated their community plans to the 10-year [housing] need of their community. So what that will do is not only create a lot more transparency and a lot more certainty for those who are building, but also with public hearings not needed after that, it will create a lot more efficiency for projects to get through.
Not only that, but we also have [housing] targets and we've been tracking to see how communities are making progress. We've seen a movement. For example, Delta was a community that was third from the lowest when we started tracking data. And now they're either the second or third place from the top. So we've seen communities really embrace the idea of targets and goals, and it's helped decision-making happen in a more efficient way. So the changes are positive. I think when it comes to small scale multi-units, we still have more work to do. Some communities have done a great job of adopting it — I think of Saanich, I think of Burnaby, and Surrey. But there are some communities — I won't name names — that continue to put barriers in the way, and so we're going to be working with them to remove some of those barriers.
In hindsight, is there anything you would've done differently, whether it be the details of the legislation, or the timing, or the implementation?
Well, I would say that we moved with the urgency that the housing crisis presented us. People are struggling in their communities to get access to housing. It has a huge downward pressure on the most vulnerable people in our community. When we see homelessness, it's not disconnected from the overall housing challenges we have in our community. We need that and I believe we showed that when government gets serious about the topic, we can make the changes that are required. And when there [were] communities that came and said we need a little bit more time, we did provide that time. When there [were] communities that came forward and said our infrastructure is not able to handle the growth of this housing that you're bringing on — they brought engineering reports validating that — we gave them more time. We built that flexibility in, where the concerns were valid, and we were flexible enough to, I believe, support communities.
It seemed to me that the piece of legislation that drew the most frustration was Bill 46. My understanding is that ACCs were intended to replace CACs, but some developers are worried that that isn't happening and they will be subject to both. Can you talk a bit about what you've seen and heard?
Legally, no local government can charge both an ACC and a CAC. If that's happening, that is breaking the law, and that should be coming forward.
In some communities, they haven't set up their ACC tools yet. In some communities, they're still going through that work. Quite frankly, in some communities, they see this delay in ACCs as an opportunity to make more money for the community. And I have nothing against communities collecting dollars for important amenities. It's important to have amenities as well as housing, so no issues there.
But the reason why we made this change to align ACCs closer to DCCs is because it's important that we have more transparency, it's important that everyone understands where the dollars are going and when they're collected. They're not going towards just general operating [expenses], but they're going directly towards amenities that help improve the community. That's the fundamental reason why we made it. We made it so that there would be more transparency for anyone coming to build housing — in the beginning of the process, not something that they negotiated after they spent millions of dollars to get it to the approval stage. That kind of uncertainty won't get any of the housing bill.
And by the way, it's not just developers who have that concern; not-for-profit housing people have that concern as well, where you have a project that's being approved and then all of a sudden they're told that they have to double the parking or pay more CACs. It's happening to everyone and, quite frankly, in this type of housing environment, that's unacceptable.
In recent months, DCCs have become a very big topic of discussion. What is your stance on DCCs and whether growth should pay for growth?
We've been having conversations with Metro [Vancouver] and the federal government about how we can have both the infrastructure we need in communities, as well as a better balance of what fees are collected. There is a path forward. I can't comment on where we'll land, other than to say that we've been making some good progress.
One thing developers are asking for is to pay DCCs after construction has completed, which would require a change to the Local Government Act. Is this something the Province is open to?
That is something that we're open to. We have to do more engagement on the topic, but certainly it's something we're open to.
I'm sure you're aware of the loophole where properties that are transferred via a share sale — or reverse vesting orders in insolvency proceedings — avoid the property transfer tax. Is that loophole something the Province is looking at potentially closing?
It's something that the Ministry of Finance has to take the lead on. Our ministry doesn't deal directly with financial matters, but I know that has come to their attention and that is something that they are exploring right now.
Earlier this month you received your mandate letter, in which Premier Eby tasked you with removing barriers to the construction of small-scale multi-unit housing. What barriers do you see?
I think we can make it easier for capital to flow, so we're looking at what measures we can do — something I've talked to the federal government about as well — to make it easier for these types of projects to be financed. We're having conversations. We've been directed to work with the Ministry of Finance to look at all barriers associated with getting more SSMUH built, whether that's working with local governments that have put, I would say, hidden barriers in the way, or working with different financial institutions and the insurance industry to remove barriers.
One of the issues that I certainly will be raising with all of the mayors, and I've actually just written to them, is the need for them to allow for the stratification of the units. Burnaby has moved in a progressive way to do that and I believe by the end of the year, Burnaby will have the most small-scale multi-unit housing permits in the queue of any community in the province. So it shows you that if you remove barriers, you make it easy, and your cost structure is transparent, people will come. Those are issues I'm going to be raising with local governments. At the end of the day, the whole point is to have units that are more affordable for people to get in to, whether that's rent or whether it's for home ownership.
You were also tasked with addressing barriers on new construction in general. What barriers will you be looking at?
I've asked the ministry to come back with any ideas that come from the industry and we have a regular working relationship with BC not-for-profit housing, with UDI, with ULI. Our partners are canvassing with their members on issues and opportunities for us to explore. As I say to the industry all the time: everything's on the table. We're not afraid to make difficult decisions. We just need to make sure that we're doing them in a way that helps us get the outcome we want, which is more housing.
You mentioned earlier that this year will be about "execution." Can we also expect any new pieces of legislation this year?
Yes, there will be legislation coming this spring session to help us enable more housing to come online. It won't be as much legislation as I brought in last year, but there are a couple of substantial pieces that will be coming in the spring session for sure. I can't speak to them yet, unfortunately.
I can touch on the landlord and tenants piece, though. We went from one of the highest wait times in the country for landlord-tenant disputes to now one the lowest times. We are seeing turnarounds for full decisions within weeks. We've see decisions for non-payment of rent done within a couple weeks. And we're going to take further measures to ensure that both landlords and tenants are protected and decisions can be made in a much better way, focusing on bad actors — sometimes it's landlords, sometimes it's tenants. There will be additional measures coming to address both. We made a big policy shift. Not only did we put additional resources in, but now we've put a mandatory facilitation process at the beginning. What we've seen, in the first five months of it being there, is 70% of our applications are being resolved through a facilitated conversation, which is saving us a lot of time for hearings as well, so I'm proud of the progress we've been able to make, but we know there's more to do.
I think it would be fair to say that the election results were not what you guys had hoped for. Premier Eby has said he has gotten the message. What is your take-away from the election results and the feedback from British Columbians?
Well, it varies from region to region, but I would say that what we heard clearly from people is they want to see more results on the ground. They understood that we've taken action, but they haven't yet seen the housing come online. They haven't seen — at that point — the rents start to stabilize or come down. Even from the election [in October] to now, we've seen rents come down month over month, consistently. We're seeing, continuously, steady housing starts. We've got a bit of a dip year over year, but if you look at our historic trend, we are still significantly above the historic trend. I think people want to see the result and I believe that, with the measures we've put in place, not only are we seeing those results already, but we're going to continue to see them as we go forward.
Earlier this month, the Province launched the short-term rentals registry. Can you talk a bit about the work that went into that and how it has been working with the short-term rental platforms?
We've had fairly good cooperation from the platforms. We launched the provincial registry and that will help us with enforcement. This allows us now not to have local government by local government trying to figure it out. I do believe with the provincial registry, we're going to see some local governments step away from this space, because the Province is stepping in. Local governments have been asking, for some time, for the Province to play a better leadership role in this space, because it costs a lot more if every local government tries to create their own system. It's much cheaper if the Province does one. The provincial registry allows us to do that, it allows us to share data directly with local governments, but it also allows us to share information about who owns what property with the Ministry of Finance, which has its own registry that tracks home ownership, numbered companies, and investment properties.
You were appointed (on January 29) to chair the Province's "war room" as it relates to the US tariff threat. I know it just started, but can you talk about the work you and your team are doing and what it entails?
The task force I've been asked to lead, while working with my colleagues, is focused on three things. One: to figure out what our potential response can look like, from the Province in partnership with other provinces. Second is how do we strengthen both our local economy, our local production, our local industries. And third is looking to diversify and how to find new markets for products that perhaps used to go to the US and [now] maybe can't.
Whether the tariffs come on Saturday or not, the relationship with the US has changed, and we cannot live four years with constant threats coming from President Trump. We have to mitigate any of those concerns as we can. When it comes to construction and home-building, a significant amount of our supply comes from the US. I've heard anything from 40 to 50 to 55% of our supplies are from the US. So what that will mean is taking our industry partners on trade missions to our Asian partners, our South American partners, and making sure that we start limiting our risk and exposure to the US, moving away from buying that much percentage of our buildings supply from the US, and looking for other partners. It's going to be important and every minister is looking at their own portfolio with a similar lens.
