Public hearings reduced in new B.C. housing plan, some ask why

Some neighbourhood groups are pushing back against B.C.’s plan to drastically reduce public hearings as part of newly introduced housing legislation.

With the province deciding more density and home construction is the way out of this affordability crisis, its proposed legislation aims to simplify the path to building.

Will O’Brien with the Coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods doesn’t understand removing public hearings for one-off and site-by-site developments around other parts of B.C.

While the changes in the new legislation regarding public hearings don’t apply to Vancouver, he feels people around B.C. should be given a chance to weigh in on significant changes that affect their neighbourhoods.

“It’s a simple concept, where the public and the neighbourhood has the right to know about [changes] and offer their commentary,” O’Brien told CityNews in an interview.

“[Public hearings] should be a non-threatening environment for people who live in the area to know what’s going on, and have a say about what’s going on.”

O’Brien points out a public hearing has never stopped a project from going ahead — the only people with the power to actually do that in a local government context are the elected officials.

But Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives senior economist Alex Hemingway feels the legislation is needed, and evens suggests it doesn’t go far enough to addressing the scale of the housing crisis.

“There’s a credible estimate along with these changes that they’ll create 130,000 additional homes over 10 years,” Hemingway said during an interview. “That was done by independent analysts. That’s very significant. That’s a real step forward. We also need to put that in context though…[Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation] tells us we need to create 600,000 additional homes above our current building trends by 2030 to meet the shortage we face and that’s built up over decades.

“This is a contribution to that, but it by no means gets us all the way there. What we’re talking about here, fundamentally, is small-scale, multiplex housing. That’s good to have. It’s a good minimum standard. But what we’re going to need, particularly in our high-demand, high-rent areas, is more apartment buildings to help address that shortage. This policy doesn’t address that yet. The government has signalled that there’s more legislation coming down the line, in the coming weeks, related to transit-oriented development and upzoning in those areas, so we’ll be watching that closely.”

The BC NDP government is expected to enact the changes introduced in the legislature this week later this fall.