Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver
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More Missing Middle Housing Options for British Columbians
Affordable, appropriate housing is unattainable for too many British Columbians. The average MLS® residential price in March 2023 was over $941,000, and the supply of listings is low by historical standards.
Single-detached homes are generally the most expensive type of housing in any municipality, with the largest carbon footprints, maintenance costs, and property taxes compared to other housing types. While single-detached homes are important for many families, they are also out of reach for many British Columbian families, particularly for first-time homebuyers. Missing Middle Housing, which describes a range of multi-unit or clustered housing types compatible in scale with single-family homes, can help meet the need of our province’s current and future population.
The ability to distribute the high cost of land amongst several housing units improves affordability. Single-detached zoning currently makes up 60-75 per cent of residential zoning designations in BC and assigns the entire cost of one lot to one dwelling unit. Building up to four or six units on a lot will dramatically reduce the land component of each dwelling unit and, therefore, the cost of each unit. Each unit will be significantly smaller, and given the high construction cost in the current market, this will also decrease the cost of each unit.
Missing Middle Housing can be built quickly compared to large apartment buildings. They can also be developed without the costly and time-consuming land assembly process to achieve minimum site sizes. This type of housing can be built by small contractors using less complex construction techniques.
Opening up more housing options will allow young families to move into neighbourhoods experiencing population stagnation, generating more school enrollment, and providing more support for commercial businesses.
Recommendation: Apply zoning legislation across the province
REALTORS® commend large parts of the BC Government’s “Homes for People” action plan, especially the commitment to introduce legislation allowing up to four units on a traditional single-family detached lot with additional density permitted in areas well-served by transit.
“Land lift” is the increase in property value that occurs when a lot is rezoned to accommodate more units. Bidding wars and speculative land lift can happen when an artificial shortage is created by applying this policy to select areas or municipalities. By making the government’s zoning legislation applicable to all single-detached lots within the province, or at least a given region, there will be no shortage of available developable lots, which should prevent bidding wars.
Housing unattainability is a crisis across the province, including northern and rural communities. Policies providing more attainable homes must be considered across the province, not just in the Lower Mainland and the Capital Regional District. While each community has its unique challenges, providing more housing options for more people is necessary across the province.
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Development or enactment of any regulation, including the enactment of a regulation for the purposes of amending or repealing a regulation, Development, establishment, amendment or termination of any program, policy, directive or guideline of the government of British Columbia or a Provincial entity, Development of any legislative proposal by the government of British Columbia, a Provincial entity or a member of the Legislative Assembly
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Consumer Issues, Housing
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Permanent British Columbia Housing Roundtable
The current process of development for new housing policy is neither efficient nor effective. There is significant need for a more collaborative, multi-stakeholder process to identify the obstacles to housing attainability and the factors limiting the housing supply response across the housing spectrum. Achieving more attainable housing for British Columbians requires a robust and coordinated effort between different levels of government, in close collaboration with market and non-market housing stakeholders. On-the-ground real estate expertise is underutilized in the policy process.
The BC Government has made commendable progress on housing attainability solutions through the “Homes for People” Action Plan, the Housing Supply Act, the creation of a separate Ministry of Housing, new investments in non-market housing, and the establishment of the BC Builds program. While these are important advancements, their implementation will determine their effectiveness.
The lack of a permanent, holistic, coordinated approach to housing attainability has reduced the intended benefits of housing policy and worse, produced unintended negative consequences for consumers that could have been anticipated and avoided with fulsome sector engagement. For example, Bill 44’s removal of only some strata age restrictions has resulted in even fewer opportunities for growing families and first-time homebuyers, as some strata corporations have shifted their age limits to 55-plus. With a housing roundtable, sector input could have anticipated this effect and proposed mitigating suggestions.
Recommendation: Create a permanent housing roundtable within the newly created Ministry of Housing.
The provincial government should convene a permanent housing roundtable, bringing together representatives of federal, provincial, municipal, and Indigenous government authorities, along with builders, boards of trade, real estate professionals, non-market housing organizations, and civil society organizations. Much of the sectoral policy expertise does not exist solely at the governmental level. Many of these stakeholders are rarely adequately consulted, nor is there a permanently established process for the ongoing sharing of ideas, perspectives and approaches between these groups. Market, non-market, and government representatives are all equally dedicated to creating sound housing policy for British Columbians to increase housing supply across the housing continuum. The time has come to establish a better process to harness these collective interests and expertise.
The roundtable’s purpose should be to engage British Columbian housing stakeholders and build upon previous examples of well-researched work and effective sectoral consultation conducted by the provincial government. As such, the roundtable’s focus should be on how best to implement the “Development Approvals Process Review” and the “Canada-British Columbia Expert Panel on the Future of Housing Supply and Affordability” final report recommendations.
While the roundtable should consider increasing access to housing for all British Columbians, it should give special attention to the most at-need groups, such as persons with disabilities, underhoused individuals, and Indigenous communities.
REALTORS® are on the frontlines of the challenges in market housing. They are the primary source of data on housing markets, enabling them to provide on-the-ground knowledge to identify where and to what degree market challenges exist in their community.
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Development, establishment, amendment or termination of any program, policy, directive or guideline of the government of British Columbia or a Provincial entity, Development or enactment of any regulation, including the enactment of a regulation for the purposes of amending or repealing a regulation, Development of any legislative proposal by the government of British Columbia, a Provincial entity or a member of the Legislative Assembly
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Consumer Issues, Housing
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