Summary of BC's housing policies
Summary of BC's housing policies
Why aren't the Ontario Conservatives doing this?
Things look quieter on the Housing Accelerator front this week, so I thought I’d try to summarize what the BC NDP government has been doing on housing in the last couple of months. It’s a lot!
BC announces first housing targets - September 26
BC introduces legislation to restrict short-term rentals - October 16, passed October 27
BC announces province-wide multiplex policy (Bill 44) - November 1
BC to overhaul development charges on new housing (Bill 46) - November 7
BC’s transit-oriented development policy (Bill 47) - November 8
BC to define standardized multiplex designs - November 16
BC applies for first Unexplained Wealth Order - November 30
BC passes housing legislation (Bills 44, 46, 47) - November 30
BC considering single-stair design - December 5
BC publishes multiplex guidelines, list of transit-oriented development areas, detailed economic analysis - December 7
I wrote up a quick Twitter thread on the December 7 release.
Multiplex guidelines
Provincial policy manual and site standards for small-scale, multi-unit housing.
For a typical lot, the limit is three storeys, 50% site coverage. For a four-plex on a 33 x 122 lot, that's about 1500 square feet per unit. At least one parking space per unit.
Within a five-minute walk (400 m) of frequent transit (15-minute service): up to six units, three storeys, 60% site coverage. For a six-plex on a 33 x 122 lot, that's about 1200 square feet per unit.
Transit-oriented development areas
List of transit-oriented development areas, sorted by municipality. (Max Somerset used ChatGPT to extract the data from the province’s slides.) Transit-oriented development areas are effective immediately if there’s already a municipal plan for the area; if not, they’re effective June 30, 2024.
Economic analysis
Also released today: a 200-page economic analysis (by Jens von Bergmann, Thomas Davidoff, Albert Huang, Nathanael Lauster, and Tsur Somerville) estimating that over 5 years, these policies will result in 44,000 to 54,000 more completed homes province-wide, with prices and rents 6-12% lower compared to without these policies. I’ll need to spend some time reading and absorbing it.
Commentary from municipalities
New West mayor Patrick Johnstone has a great series of posts (from before yesterday’s release) describing what the provincial legislation looks like from the municipal point of view. He’s supportive, but concerned about staff capacity to make these changes by June 30.
Surrey planning director Don Luymes has a more critical view.
Coquitlam staff and council are also concerned about potentially losing density bonus revenue.
November 27 council meeting - see agenda item 6 for the staff report
Previous posts
Matthew Yglesias and Jerusalem Demsas on hyperlocal opposition and the importance of state-level intervention in the US
Summary of BC’s previous policies to reduce demand (“speculation”), starting in 2016
October 2021: Will the provincial government step in?
March 2022: What happened in the 1970s?
September 2022: How much more housing do we need?
November 2022: BC setting housing targets for municipalities shortly after Eby sworn in as premier
January 2023: $500M for non-profits to acquire older, cheaper rentals
March 2023: BC Budget 2023
March 2023: Options for the province to intervene
April 2023: Updates to BC’s housing plan
April 2023: Q&A with Ravi Kahlon
August 2023: A wish list for BC’s land-use rules