B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon touched on a wide range of development and housing issues Thursday during an address to the Urban Development Institute, including infrastructure funding, planning standardization and housing targets
In wide-ranging remarks made in Vancouver, Kahlon said that a dialogue is needed around infrastructure funding to address B.C.’s challenges around housing supply and affordability.
“I had the opportunity to meet with Prime Minister Carney prior to him becoming prime minister and the one takeaway I did take from him: A serious commitment to investing in infrastructure with the understanding that those costs get reduced,” he said.
Kahlon also took time to address the Housing Supply Act, which has stirred controversy due to province’s ability to set housing targets that municipalities must meet based on their population and growth projections.
“When we brought that legislation in, it was to say to the local governments that we need to align and have an agreed-upon amount of housing being built in our communities,” he said.
Kahlon’s UDI appearance comes as B.C. municipalities are required to update their official community plans and zoning bylaws by year’s end to include 20 years of housing needs. The OCPs will require updates every five years.
The City of Vancouver will have its first ever city-wide official development plan by June 2026.
Below are excerpts of Kahlon’s remarks to the UDI audience.
Development cost charges
“How do we ensure that DCC payments are collected for local governments, but is done in a way that it lowers some overhead costs in the short term?”
“Prices have come down, rents have come down, all that makes it challenging for projects and my commitment to UDI, to the board members, to all of you, is that as we move forward, we will look at every single item that we can to help address costs.”
“We will also work with the federal government to hold them to the fire on their commitment to reduce DCCs by 50 per cent.”
“We are looking at how we can make move the DCC payments to a later point in the development. That is a conversation that’s active.”
Infrastructure
“We could create a program for addressing infrastructure from a provincial perspective, but if the federal government comes over with a completely different program, then it’s apples and oranges, and then we have to try to put the whole thing together.”
“All of the things I have heard so far lead me to the conclusion that they [the feds] are going to put serious dollars on the table, and we’re prepared to be with them when that comes.”
“We provided additional dollars for local governments to do this work as well. Trying to get municipalities to do things more quickly, rezone more quickly.”
Planning standardization
“Every community does housing-needs reports totally different.
“So when we wanted to compare how communities were doing, we couldn’t do it, because it was like apples and oranges.
“So the first thing we did was we standardized housing-needs reports across the province, so every community now has to do it the same way. …
“Now communities must have their official community plans or the official development plans updated regularly, because it’s important for people to be engaged, it’s important for people and communities to have a voice to say where they want the housing, where they want the parks.”
