Newsletter June 10, 2023: Langford, the Province’s Model for Oak Bay?
The response from a variety of reputable sources is that there is so much about the Provincial Government’s new Housing Plan that doesn’t add up. The Housing Plan has been highly criticized and called “illogical”. The Province’s forced densification plan also has financial and many other implications for every BC Municipality.
The criticisms included: Housing is a many-sided issue. Every development application is different and cannot be decided with a “one size fits all” formula and; when you take power away from municipalities, you’re taking away that power from the citizens of those municipalities,
The Mayor of Richmond Malcolm Brodie and Andy Yan Professor and Director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University, summed up these concerns by stating:
Mayor Malcolm Brodie: “It should be up to municipalities to decide how they are zoned, particularly given local infrastructure limitations. It's fine to say you want a lot more dwelling units, but do you have the sewers and the pipes and the water supply, everything that it takes,".
"Every time we have a rezoning, we have a traffic study. Are we going to assume that traffic will take care of itself? What about the need for other services, the police, the fire, the libraries, the community centres?"
Professor Andy Yan: Worries the policy won’t create housing that’s affordable for the working class. He said, “I think it’s a really simple solution focusing on the wrong problem, Is it to just produce as much housing no matter what it is for and whomever it is for, Will that solve the problem of trying to house a family-of-four on lower incomes working in the service industry?”
BC’s 181 Municipalities will bear almost all of the costs for this forced density. The costs could exceed tens of billions of tax dollars. The Province has already announced its inadequate contribution – a $4-billion payout over the next three years and $12 billion over the next decade.
This year $1 billion has already been distributed providing BC's Municipalities with a few million each. Contrast this with Oak Bay’s 400-million-dollar infrastructure deficit, or a couple of billion that will be required for a new bridge to Vancouver's North Shore Municipalities, they say will be necessary.
Out of the gate, the new BC Housing Minister’s and Premier Eby's statements have all the earmarks of shifting the blame and costs, for the Housing Crisis to BC’s Municipalities.
BC Housing Minister: “In B.C., we have some communities that have taken on growth … we have some communities that have hidden from growth, but that’s just not acceptable when you’re in a housing crisis.”
BC Premier EBy: "It is simply unacceptable that a British Columbian who is searching Craigslist for a place to rent can't find a home and somebody who owns a condo is not permitted to rent that home to that individual,"
Just hold on a minute there: Wasn’t it the Federal and Provincial Governments who failed to protect Canadians from global investors, speculators and money launderers? The Senior Governments had the power to provide the necessary checks and balances however, their lack of action in the past three decades, has led to the housing crises.
Senior governments have given “investors” a free hand to make our housing a commodity. They have been allowed unchecked, to use inflated currencies to buy up properties and land.
Investment companies and billionaires with deep pockets and, even ordinary offshore residents can and have easily outbid Canadians for housing and land. For example, a US resident would pay only $750, 000 US for the same home that would cost a Canadian citizen $1,000,000.
The Province’s Housing Plan cannot possibly achieve its affordable housing objectives as it doesn’t address the root causes of the affordable housing crisis: The artificially inflated land costs and, as the Vancouver Sun aptly states, “the hundreds of thousands of immigrants they (the Federal Government) keep ushering in”. These are the primary factors and for decades now speculation in urban land acquisition has been the investment target.
Premier Eby’s Housing Plan, for the most part, is to build on expensive land. His strategy, is the same as the Industry. That is: to make housing more affordable, more and more expensive supply needs to be built. However, there is absolutely no evidence that indicates that building more and more supply on expensive land has reduced housing or rental prices. In fact, the opposite is true.
It is noticeable that Canada’s senior government’s housing affordability initiatives namely, “we are going to enact legislation to stop the speculators” has not been fast-tracked like the more and more supply legislation. In fact, its nowhere in sight. Even the late arrival (January 2023) of the Federal 2-year Foreign Buyer Ban Legislation has just (March 27, 2023) been rendered null and void.
This long-time coming, often promised Federal Government Foreign Buyer Ban has recently been amended - more loopholes have been added (See Oak Bay Watch Perspective for more information).
Oak Bay Watch Perspective (Langford a model for Oak Bay?)
There is no quarrel that something has to be done to solve BC’s affordable housing crisis. However, according to many experts, the Province’s new supply-side Housing Plan will not make housing more affordable however, it will result in irreversible, and unwanted consequences.
According to a June 7, 2023 Times Colonist article David Eby, “praised Victoria and Langford for having done some very interesting and important housing work and said in many respects are our models for other cities.”
How out of touch can you get? Victoria has out-of-control homeless and traffic congestion problems and, Langford just dumped its previous Council based on its development agenda. This is as well as the municipality’s congestion and liveability issues. Much of Victoria’s and a large portion of Langford’s new development has been high-rise, apartment-sized condos. Could it be Eby’s Plan is to promote this type of development and make BC Municipalities Victoria’s and Langford clones?
We are also trying to get our head around the Government of Canada’s gutting it's Foreign Buyer Ban Legislation. While many of the original exemptions made no sense (e.g., the foreign student exemption to buy expensive properties) we can’t quite find acceptable many of the new Foreign Buyer Ban’s new purchasing exemptions, enacted as a result of lobbying by the Development Industry. For example:
“The existing provision on vacant land will also be repealed and the ban will no longer apply to all lands zoned for residential and mixed use. This means non-Canadians can now purchase vacant land zoned for residential and mixed use for any purpose, including residential development.”
“There will also be an exception allowing non-Canadians to purchase residential property for the purpose of development. This also extends the exception currently applicable to publicly traded corporations to publicly traded entities formed under the laws of Canada or a province and controlled by a non-Canadian.
We thought the whole purpose of the Foreign Buyer Ban Act was to prevent the exploitation of Canada’s urban land and housing by foreign buyers? After all the senior government’s messages about the root causes of the housing price increases have been loud and clear.
We cannot sum up any better how ineffective the Foreign Buyer Ban Act is now, and how deceptive senior governments have been with their empty promises and actions than the Financial Post’s March 29, 2023 article quote in response to the new list of Foreign Buyer Ban Exemptions: “This whole ban is so loop-holed and illogical that its political impetus could not be more transparent,”
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“Nothing is inevitable if you are paying attention” Oak Bay Watch
Oak Bay Watch is a volunteer community association and its members have a variety of professional backgrounds in both the public and private sector.
*******Please help us continue to provide you with information about Community concerns and Council decisions and actions. Oak Bay Watch members also help community groups with their specific development concerns. Donate to Oak Bay Watch - even $5 or $10 dollars provides expenses for door-to-door handouts and helps us maintain our website. Oak Bay Watch is committed to ensuring the Community gets the full range of information on budget, governance, and all key development issues – a well-informed opinion cannot be made without this.
(Please use Donate Button at the bottom of oakbaywatch.com Home Page)
Keep informed and sign up for our newsletter – at the bottom of the Newsletter top Menu Item.
The response from a variety of reputable sources is that there is so much about the Provincial Government’s new Housing Plan that doesn’t add up. The Housing Plan has been highly criticized and called “illogical”. The Province’s forced densification plan also has financial and many other implications for every BC Municipality.
The criticisms included: Housing is a many-sided issue. Every development application is different and cannot be decided with a “one size fits all” formula and; when you take power away from municipalities, you’re taking away that power from the citizens of those municipalities,
The Mayor of Richmond Malcolm Brodie and Andy Yan Professor and Director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University, summed up these concerns by stating:
Mayor Malcolm Brodie: “It should be up to municipalities to decide how they are zoned, particularly given local infrastructure limitations. It's fine to say you want a lot more dwelling units, but do you have the sewers and the pipes and the water supply, everything that it takes,".
"Every time we have a rezoning, we have a traffic study. Are we going to assume that traffic will take care of itself? What about the need for other services, the police, the fire, the libraries, the community centres?"
Professor Andy Yan: Worries the policy won’t create housing that’s affordable for the working class. He said, “I think it’s a really simple solution focusing on the wrong problem, Is it to just produce as much housing no matter what it is for and whomever it is for, Will that solve the problem of trying to house a family-of-four on lower incomes working in the service industry?”
BC’s 181 Municipalities will bear almost all of the costs for this forced density. The costs could exceed tens of billions of tax dollars. The Province has already announced its inadequate contribution – a $4-billion payout over the next three years and $12 billion over the next decade.
This year $1 billion has already been distributed providing BC's Municipalities with a few million each. Contrast this with Oak Bay’s 400-million-dollar infrastructure deficit, or a couple of billion that will be required for a new bridge to Vancouver's North Shore Municipalities, they say will be necessary.
Out of the gate, the new BC Housing Minister’s and Premier Eby's statements have all the earmarks of shifting the blame and costs, for the Housing Crisis to BC’s Municipalities.
BC Housing Minister: “In B.C., we have some communities that have taken on growth … we have some communities that have hidden from growth, but that’s just not acceptable when you’re in a housing crisis.”
BC Premier EBy: "It is simply unacceptable that a British Columbian who is searching Craigslist for a place to rent can't find a home and somebody who owns a condo is not permitted to rent that home to that individual,"
Just hold on a minute there: Wasn’t it the Federal and Provincial Governments who failed to protect Canadians from global investors, speculators and money launderers? The Senior Governments had the power to provide the necessary checks and balances however, their lack of action in the past three decades, has led to the housing crises.
Senior governments have given “investors” a free hand to make our housing a commodity. They have been allowed unchecked, to use inflated currencies to buy up properties and land.
Investment companies and billionaires with deep pockets and, even ordinary offshore residents can and have easily outbid Canadians for housing and land. For example, a US resident would pay only $750, 000 US for the same home that would cost a Canadian citizen $1,000,000.
The Province’s Housing Plan cannot possibly achieve its affordable housing objectives as it doesn’t address the root causes of the affordable housing crisis: The artificially inflated land costs and, as the Vancouver Sun aptly states, “the hundreds of thousands of immigrants they (the Federal Government) keep ushering in”. These are the primary factors and for decades now speculation in urban land acquisition has been the investment target.
Premier Eby’s Housing Plan, for the most part, is to build on expensive land. His strategy, is the same as the Industry. That is: to make housing more affordable, more and more expensive supply needs to be built. However, there is absolutely no evidence that indicates that building more and more supply on expensive land has reduced housing or rental prices. In fact, the opposite is true.
It is noticeable that Canada’s senior government’s housing affordability initiatives namely, “we are going to enact legislation to stop the speculators” has not been fast-tracked like the more and more supply legislation. In fact, its nowhere in sight. Even the late arrival (January 2023) of the Federal 2-year Foreign Buyer Ban Legislation has just (March 27, 2023) been rendered null and void.
This long-time coming, often promised Federal Government Foreign Buyer Ban has recently been amended - more loopholes have been added (See Oak Bay Watch Perspective for more information).
Oak Bay Watch Perspective (Langford a model for Oak Bay?)
There is no quarrel that something has to be done to solve BC’s affordable housing crisis. However, according to many experts, the Province’s new supply-side Housing Plan will not make housing more affordable however, it will result in irreversible, and unwanted consequences.
According to a June 7, 2023 Times Colonist article David Eby, “praised Victoria and Langford for having done some very interesting and important housing work and said in many respects are our models for other cities.”
How out of touch can you get? Victoria has out-of-control homeless and traffic congestion problems and, Langford just dumped its previous Council based on its development agenda. This is as well as the municipality’s congestion and liveability issues. Much of Victoria’s and a large portion of Langford’s new development has been high-rise, apartment-sized condos. Could it be Eby’s Plan is to promote this type of development and make BC Municipalities Victoria’s and Langford clones?
We are also trying to get our head around the Government of Canada’s gutting it's Foreign Buyer Ban Legislation. While many of the original exemptions made no sense (e.g., the foreign student exemption to buy expensive properties) we can’t quite find acceptable many of the new Foreign Buyer Ban’s new purchasing exemptions, enacted as a result of lobbying by the Development Industry. For example:
“The existing provision on vacant land will also be repealed and the ban will no longer apply to all lands zoned for residential and mixed use. This means non-Canadians can now purchase vacant land zoned for residential and mixed use for any purpose, including residential development.”
“There will also be an exception allowing non-Canadians to purchase residential property for the purpose of development. This also extends the exception currently applicable to publicly traded corporations to publicly traded entities formed under the laws of Canada or a province and controlled by a non-Canadian.
We thought the whole purpose of the Foreign Buyer Ban Act was to prevent the exploitation of Canada’s urban land and housing by foreign buyers? After all the senior government’s messages about the root causes of the housing price increases have been loud and clear.
- “Large corporations and wealthy investors are using loopholes to avoid paying their fair share”, which “drives up the housing costs for everyday people.” Enforcement is planned “to target these “frauds, cheats, and criminals”, and
- For years, foreign money has been coming into Canada to buy residential real estate, fuelling concerns about the impact on costs in cities like Vancouver and Toronto, and worries about Canadians being priced out of the housing market in cities and towns across the country.
We cannot sum up any better how ineffective the Foreign Buyer Ban Act is now, and how deceptive senior governments have been with their empty promises and actions than the Financial Post’s March 29, 2023 article quote in response to the new list of Foreign Buyer Ban Exemptions: “This whole ban is so loop-holed and illogical that its political impetus could not be more transparent,”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
“Nothing is inevitable if you are paying attention” Oak Bay Watch
Oak Bay Watch is a volunteer community association and its members have a variety of professional backgrounds in both the public and private sector.
*******Please help us continue to provide you with information about Community concerns and Council decisions and actions. Oak Bay Watch members also help community groups with their specific development concerns. Donate to Oak Bay Watch - even $5 or $10 dollars provides expenses for door-to-door handouts and helps us maintain our website. Oak Bay Watch is committed to ensuring the Community gets the full range of information on budget, governance, and all key development issues – a well-informed opinion cannot be made without this.
(Please use Donate Button at the bottom of oakbaywatch.com Home Page)
Keep informed and sign up for our newsletter – at the bottom of the Newsletter top Menu Item.