Subsidiarity
Addison Del Mastro has an interesting post describing the principle of subsidiarity, and how it applies to zoning. He quotes the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:
The principle of Subsidiarity reminds us that larger institutions in society (such as the state or federal government) should not overwhelm or interfere with smaller or local institutions (such as the family, local schools, or the Church community). Yet larger institutions have essential responsibilities when local institutions cannot adequately protect human dignity, meet human needs, or advance the common good.
In the case of land use in Metro Vancouver, it seems reasonable to observe that municipal governments have failed to allow enough housing. Their incentives are backwards. This is why the provincial government is intervening.
Ethan Demme, an elected official (township supervisor) in East Lampeter, Pennsylvania, comments:
I've always viewed subsidiarity as the organizational entity closest to the problem, capable of solving it, should be empowered to address it. In the case of restrictive zoning, local jurisdictions have a track record of being unable to solve the problem. Therefore, the authority should be moved to the next level of jurisdiction.
The real issue is that the upsides to housing growth accrue across a city, a metro area, or even a state, while the nuisances of new construction (parking scarcity, traffic, aesthetic change) are incredibly local. So if you ask a very small area “do you want more housing or less?” a lot of people will say that they think the local harms exceed the local benefits, and the division will basically come down to aesthetic preference for more or less density. But if you ask a large area “do you want more housing or less?” the very same people with all the same values and ideas may come up with a different answer because they [get] a much larger share of the benefits.
The issue of housing production is not local. It is a regional if not national concern if places that have the most productive jobs and other job centers and have high wages are basically barring people from around the country from being able to access those and then also harming the people who live within the community already by making them pay extraordinarily high rents and housing prices.
And so you need to move the decision-making up and that makes it actually more democratic, not less democratic, because more people vote at the state level. More people vote for mayor than they do for their city council members. They know their mayor and they're more willing to blame their mayor and hold that person accountable than they will local members of government, and that's true across the country. And then when you get to the state level, even more people are willing to hold that person accountable. There's also more journalism that holds that person accountable. When you get to the state level, state governments usually are held at a much higher standard of accountability than any kind of local government, which often has zero journalists even paying attention.
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Previously: territoriality vs. “we live in a society”, summary of BC policies, Urbanarium debate on provincial intervention
Follow-up post by Addison Del Mastro
I'm currently listening to construction noise, every weekday. And there will be many weekends. Metro Vancouver will soon be digging a 45m-deep shaft exactly 100m from my front window, down into bedrock.
The construction will go on for five years. About 200 people live basically across the street, another thousand within a block and a half.
We don't get any say in this, none whatsoever. Nearly a million people will receive the water coming through that huge water main, and the only place to put the pipe is in our FRONT yards, so we cannot be given a say.
This is all very plain when it comes to water and other major infrastructures for transportation and utilities.
It needs to be made just as plain for housing. It has not been because housing is this PRIVATE development, you're fighting a developer who's doing it to make money, not be part of the housing for a million people. Housing needs to be seen as a PUBLIC service, just like the common water main or common freeway.
If governments have to piss off a few people, tough; that's their new job, if they want it.
Surrey is meeting housing needs but its unironically the city with the least amount of accessible public transportation routes. Vancouver, Burnaby, and New West generally have two Skytrain lines leading to and from them while Surrey is still stuck with a short expo line and the expo line extension which won't be built for another 3 years. I really don't know why the government doesn't put a second skytrain line in Surrey and instead focuses on the Broadway to UBC expansion. Surrey probably wont get it until its already too late.