Some B.C. mayors are voicing their disapproval of the province’s ambitious housing plan as they race against time to update their community plans and bring them in line with legislation that requires municipalities to upzone single-family lots.
In November, the NDP government passed legislation that requires municipalities to formally enshrine the changes brought in through 2023’s Bill 44 in their official community plans. This includes allowing up to four units to be built on single-family lots in communities of more than 5,000 people and up to six on lots near bus stops.
Already required to change their zoning bylaws, municipalities were also asked to formally plan future development around the upzoning by June 30.
The Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs said in a statement that it doesn’t yet have compliance data because the deadline hasn’t passed. But it said local governments are notifying the province as they make changes.
Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West said this has put a chill on development in his city, where he and the council have been trying to promote the development of townhouses and other forms of housing that meet demand but also don’t strain local infrastructure capacity.
West said many property owners feel that, because their potential property values have gone up, they don’t need to sell to developers to build townhouses.
At the same time, they are also quickly discovering it isn’t cost effective to upgrade piping and other utilities for a single multi-unit developments, says West.
“It doesn’t work because they require a utility upgrade in the middle of a block in a neighbourhood where that level of density wasn’t expected, and so it becomes incredibly cost prohibitive to do a utility upgrade for a four-plex or a six-plex,” said the mayor.
“When you’re doing a townhome development, you’re maybe talking about 100 units, maybe more, and you’re not doing something that’s mid-block. You’re doing something that’s larger in scale, and so it becomes much more cost effective to do the utility upgrades.”
West also complained that the provincial legislation for multi-unit properties on single-family lots doesn’t have the same requirements around parking or green spaces as other forms of development.
He said council hasn’t passed its new official community plan yet but is confident they will meet the province’s deadline. At the same time, he warned that what they pass may not include everything the province wants.
“Our council is pretty firmly resolved that we’re going to make decisions that are in the best interests of our community and our residents, and if that means that we’re offside from provincial regulation, then we will cross that bridge,” said West.
“We’re not here to just rubber stamp everything that someone in Victoria has decided should happen, so that’s the position where we are taking, and we’re going through this now.”
