Does the city of Vancouver really aim to take 70-80% of land lift?
Short answer: yes
Why is the approval process so broken, and why hasn’t anyone fixed it yet?
The city has a very strong incentive to keep the current system in place. Bonsai City:
As the MacPhail Report points out, the city's incentives are backwards. Because housing is so scarce and expensive, they're able to extract a lot of revenue as part of the spot rezoning process, allowing them to keep property taxes low. Their incentive is to keep the zoning as restrictive as possible, so that the value of the land is discounted. And then when they change the zoning for the land to something less unreasonable, they take 70-80% of the “uplift” in value. They’re taking away your ability to build more housing on your land, and selling it back to you.
Costs set a floor on prices and rents. By aiming to maximize the revenue that they can extract from new housing, the city is ratcheting up that floor.
Is this really the city’s policy?
The answer is yes. From the Community Amenity Contributions Policy for Rezonings, approved by city council in January 1999, last amended October 2025:
1.2 CACs will be negotiated either:
(a) based on target contributions (‘CAC Targets’) provided that the rezoning application meets the locational criteria and eligibility criteria in the Appendix and is not exempt under policy 8.1 or policy 8.2.
(i) CACs determined through CAC Targets under policy 1.2(a) will be restricted in their allocation and use, as summarized in the Appendix, unless otherwise allowed through policy 2.1; or(b) based on negotiations if the rezoning application does not meet the locational criteria and eligibility criteria in the Appendix and is not exempt under policy 8.1 or policy 8.2.
(c) CACs determined through negotiations under policy 1.2(b) will target a minimum of 75% of the increase in land value based upon the rezoning application.