BC 2020: Housing

Updated on October 21, 2020

The below summary is a collection of party platform policies taken directly from platform materials published by the four major parties of the 2020 BC provincial election. This particular collection focuses on the party’s promises for housing and housing affordability. Vague statements of intent have been removed, or at least tied to a more concrete proposal, and biased language has been removed wherever possible. As such, the proposals listed here will be modified somewhat from the wording used in the platform documents themselves. For your convenience, the platform documents themselves are linked at the top of the chart.

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Housing

Direct Platform Links
  • Freeze rents to the end of 2021 and limit increases after that to the rate of inflation.
  • Provide an income-tested renter’s rebate of $400 per year for households earning up to $80,000 annually that are not already receiving other rental support.
  • Reduce construction costs for developers in order to bring down housing costs for people, by: eliminating outdated parking minimums in projects close to public transit; developing a single-window provincial permitting process; and working with communities to streamline approval processes at the local level.
  • Close loopholes in strata insurance and beef up regulatory powers in order to control the rising costs of strata insurance.
  • Use the BC Financial Services Authority to investigate and find new ways to help bring insurance costs down. If rates have not corrected by the end of 2021, develop and institute a public strata insurance option, similar to Saskatchewan.
  • Implement a 10-year housing plan that will deliver 114,000 new affordable housing units.
  • Deliver 1,750 new homes for Indigenous people, both on- and off-reserve, and pressure the federal government to do its share in providing urgent housing for Indigenous people.
  • Use the Housing Hub to provide low-interest loans for middle-income families, and partner with non-profit and co-op housing providers to acquire and preserve existing rental housing.
  • Use the Housing Hub to explore new pathways to home ownership through rent-to-own or other equity-building programs.
  • Build an additional 2,200 units of supportive housing to curb existing encampments and prevent new encampments from being created.
  • Provide rent supplements for residents of supportive housing who are ready to move on to independent living.
  • Establish an incentive fund for municipalities with housing policies that enable demonstrable increases in the construction and supply of new housing.
  • Implement tax and permitting changes to boost housing supply, including rental and market housing, to increase choice and improve affordability.
  • Review the current property tax structure to incent affordable housing development, prevent speculation, and drive affordable rental housing.
  • Require reviews of Official Community Plans every five years that are public, robust, and transparent; require that zoning bylaws then be updated to reflect changes to the plan within one year after adoption; and allow for the waiving of hearings for Official Community Plan compliant projects.
  • Support zoning reform to provide inclusionary zoning and to ensure that the Residential Rental Tenure Zoning tool cannot be used to devalue and dezone property.
  • Ensure no net loss of rental units in real estate redevelopment projects.
  • Develop tax-relief measures to help people hurt by COVID-19 economic impacts to keep their homes.
  • Implement split assessments for the commercially-rented portion of buildings through a new commercial property sub-class.
  • Create a new residential property sub-class for rental housing of three or more units.
  • Change BC Assessment practices to ensure rental properties are no longer valued based on the highest and best use, but rather on actual rental use.
  • Provide energy-efficiency rebates on rental renovations.
  • Use provincial and municipal land for affordable housing.
  • Invest in getting homeless British Columbians a home and connecting them with the health and social service supports they need.
  • Ensure prompt and effective resolution of tenancy disputes.
  • Enable affordable condominium strata insurance by: encouraging and facilitating self-insurance models for stratas; eliminating the practice of ‘best-terms’ pricing; and reducing statutorily-required insurance for strata properties from full replacement value to a level in line with actual claims cost history.
  • Reduce delays in building-permit approvals and new homeowner costs.
  • Improve the municipal development approval process, based on best practices.
  • Strengthen and enforce Regional Growth Strategy targets so that they are robust and effective.
  • Provide provincial funding to create a digital tracking tool to allow municipalities and applicants to tract the progress of individual applications and identify roadblocks.
  • Increase the supply of fully-accessible units for persons with disabilities in newly-built multi-unit residential buildings.
  • Modernize the BC Building Code to address accessibility, energy efficiency, and strata insurance premiums.
  • Support and develop co-operative housing and other alternative ownership models.
  • Implement a real-estate speculation tax by changing the Speculation Tax to a condo-flipping capital gains tax.
  • Implement higher property taxes for non-residents of Canada.
  • Take a housing-first approach and accelerate investments to affordable, supportive and social housing on a priority basis.
  • Expand supports for co-op housing through extending leases for existing co-ops about to expire, creating a land bank for new co-ops, and providing security of tenure for co-ops on leased land.
  • Work with local governments to expand the “missing middle”, such as townhouses and triplexes.
  • Establish a capital fund to support the acquisition and maintenance of rental housing by nonprofits to maintain affordable rental units and address the financialization of the rental market.
  • Close the bare trust loophole.
  • Close loopholes in the speculation tax that allow too many foreign owners and satellite families to be exempt.
  • Introduce a rental supplement that will: close the gap between affordable rent and what renters are actually paying; and introduce a means-tested grant that applies to low and moderate income earners who are paying more than 30% of their income in rent.
  • Convene a taskforce to deal with the rising cost of strata insurance and develop solutions as soon as the BC Financial Services Authority finishes their investigation.
  • Review the existing 95% of land in BC that is Crown Land – in consultation with First Nations, municipalities, urban planners, and other stakeholders.
  • Allocate up to 1% of existing Crown Land to development that will promote more affordable housing for British Columbians.
  • Encourage all financial institutions in British Columbia to finance the development of affordable housing that is release from Crown Land.
  • Increase the threshold to qualify for Property Transfer Tax exemption for first time home buyers, based on Fair Market Value in Respective BC Regions.