B.C. real estate expert praises Eby’s proposed housing plan

A real estate expert in Metro Vancouver is applauding B.C. NDP leadership candidate David Eby’s proposed provincial housing plan.

Announced on Wednesday, Eby’s plan sees sweeping changes to how the province will try to tackle the housing affordability crisis.

The plan includes using provincial legal powers to fast-track building housing, by over-riding individual municipalities, removing strata restrictions on rentals, and bringing in a house-flipping tax to deter speculation.

In addition, Eby’s plan includes legalizing secondary suites on all properties across the province, with developers in big cities allowed to replace single-family homes with up to three units.

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Professor Tom Davidoff, with the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, says there are a lot of good things in the proposed plan, but is questioning the idea to bring in a tax if someone sells a home within two years of buying it, saying he’s not convinced “flipping” is a fundamental cause of housing unaffordability.

“I’d say it’s more of a symptom of an expensive and volatile market, that some people look to game,” he told CityNews. “Probably this will mostly raise revenue. It might discourage some legitimate moves, and you know, fix-p-houses-and-sell-them-type transactions, but it’ll probably raise some revenue and mostly be harmless.”

Davidoff says Eby’s plan is “ambitious” and will receive a lot of support. He does expect the proposed plan to create more housing if it goes through.

“The deletion of single-family zoning, which is exclusionary, and regressive and inefficient, [is] bad for economic efficiency, [and is] bad for equality. Getting rid of that is a really important step and I think it has a lot of symbolic value,” he said.

Davidoff says the province overriding the wishes of municipal councils could break the log jam that’s been preventing affordable housing from being built.

“I think a lot of municipalities are run by progressive people who want to make the world a better place, who understand the need for affordable housing, [but] are tormented by voters, the so-called NIMBY, not in my backyard type, voters who get angry when anything changes in the community,” he explained.

Most civic politicians will be grateful if the province takes the heat, Davidoff believes, when it comes to potentially controversial decisions about zoning and redevelopment.

The B.C. NDP chooses its new leader on Dec. 3.

With files from Kier Junos