Debate over supply issues in B.C.’s affordable housing crisis heats up
Posted March 24, 2022 8:05 am.
Last Updated March 24, 2022 6:49 pm.
The debate on whether we’re building enough housing in our province is heating up and comes as the province announces a proposed move to strip approval powers from local governments.
David Eby, the minister responsible for housing, believes adding supply is necessary and municipalities are not approving projects at a quick enough pace.
He says as a result, he is working on legislation to introduce next fall which would take away local veto powers on housing in order to ensure more homes are built to meet demand.
However, a new report is debating the underlying cause of the affordability crisis.
The Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) new report claims that the province doesn’t have a supply issue as “the number of new homes aligns closely with the population growth.”
It argues instead that the homes being built are driven by investors and that is contributing to high prices for those trying to break into the market.
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UBCM President Laurey-Anne Roodenburg says it’s complicated.
“It’s a three prong approach if you want to think about it, local government, provincial government, and the feds. We have to figure out how we are going to move this forward. We know that there is a shortage of homes in many markets, and its about the right supply of housing,” Roodenburg said.
The UBCM report is recommending more co-ops and attainable housing, as well as freeing up long-term rentals by cracking down on short-term rentals like Airbnb.
It also addresses that some communities are seeing a surge in demand compared to other areas.
“Some communities in BC have seen an exponential increase in the flipping of pre-sale condos. In Langley, flipping has grown 724% over the past three years, while Abbotsford saw 161% growth,” the report found.
Eby takes issue with the report.
“At the same time we have every indicator of a shortage of supply of homes to buy and rent and every indicator of unprecedented levels of migration levels to British Columbia, the UBCM issues a report that says we aren’t approving enough housing. I don’t understand it,” Eby said.
Tom Davidoff, an associate professor with UBC’s Sauder School of Business also discounts UBCM’s claims and says the debate over whether we are building enough housing is easy to answer.
“We’re not,” he said.
“UBCM made a logical fallacy in their report…they said ‘look –population growth and housing unit growth have been very similar’ well of course they are. People need housing units to live in, if you build more housing units more people will come to live here, if you build fewer units fewer people will come to live here. The question is, where do we want prices to be?”
He says municipalities are making efforts to improve housing projects, but need to be realistic and approve more density.
Tsur Somerville, another UBC Sauder School of Business associate professor agrees the report disregards several factors and says it appears municipalities are basically saying they aren’t the problem.
“You know one of the problems that we have is that when you don’t let people build lots of stuff everywhere, what you get is a few really tall towers in certain places,” he said.
Somerville points to slow approval processes or the municipal level being among the barriers to housing approvals.
“My take on the report is that it essentially wants to pass to buck and say ‘we are doing fine at the municipal level, it’s not our fault,'” he said.
With files from The Canadian Press
