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Despite a looming trade war with the Americans, 小蓝视频 Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon says more certainty should come to the province’s housing sector in 2025.
This comes as all 小蓝视频 municipalities are required to update their official community plans (OCPs) by year’s end.
In wide-ranging remarks to an Urban Land Institute (ULI) audience Friday in Vancouver, Kahlon said more co-operation is needed between all stakeholders to address the province’s challenges around housing supply and affordability.
“My New Year’s resolution was to be more co-operative with all my partners at local government, and so I’ve been reaching out to say that it's our responsibility to work together to be able to clear barriers, to make sure that housing can be built in a smoother way,” he said.
Updated OCPs will help accelerate more housing supply, the minister said.
“What the updated official community plans mean is [there will be] no public hearings for any projects that fit within the official community plans. That will, I believe, be a major shift in creating more certainty for housing to be built in our communities."
Below are further excerpts of Kahlon’s remarks to the ULI audience at Vancouver’s Terminal City Club.
On the U.S. tariffs expected March 4:
“We have very diverse markets, with trading partners across Asia and in South America.
“We’re well positioned to be able to navigate our very diversified economy.
“So we are in a better place than, say, Ontario and Quebec, but we are Team Canada and if Ontario is struggling and Quebec is struggling, then we struggle.”
On small-scale, multi-unit housing (SSMUH):
“We’ve been clear to local governments that all future infrastructure dollars will be tied to ensuring that communities are working to remove barriers for this type of housing to be built.”
On transit-oriented development and infrastructure:
“If we’re going to make investments in transit, we have an expectation there’s going to be housing coming with that. …
“To unlock transit-oriented development, we need infrastructure dollars.
“We provided, last year, a billion dollars to local governments. … More than half of that money has not been spent yet on infrastructure.”
On the Real Estate Development Marketing Act (REDMA):
“We’ve just made changes, as of yesterday, to REDMA to extend the presale period from 12 months to 18 months for presales for units of 100 and above.”
On development cost charges (DCCs):
“We are very close to an agreement with Metro Vancouver and the federal government to address the big elephant in the room around DCCs.
“It will go a long way, I think, to help address some of the challenges, the barriers, for a lot of projects that are close to going forward but are faced with significant increases in costs.”
On the cost of building supplies:
“One of the things that we are considering right now is some flexibility in the accessibility changes on the building code.”
On the standardization of planning:
“What we realized was, every community does housing needs reports totally different.
“So when we wanted to compare how communities were doing, we couldn’t do it, because it was like apples and oranges.
“So the first thing we did was we standardized housing needs reports across the province, so every community now has to do it the same way. …
“Now, communities must have their official community plans or the official development plans updated regularly, because it’s important for people to be engaged, it’s important for people and communities to have a voice to say where they want the housing, where they want the parks, etc.”
On Vancouver’s supportive housing freeze:
“Part of my disappointment is that this whole conversation is, I think, being framed in not the way that’s the most helpful.
“The problem here is not homeless people.
“The problem is that there’s a lack of housing.
“When the discussion is being framed the way it is, it’s really demonizing these vulnerable people who often, outside of their control, have found themselves in just a bad situation. …
“If we want to address the problem, I think it shouldn’t be to attack vulnerable people or try to score points off that.”
