BC Political Discussion: Election 2020 and Beyond

[Migrant_Coconut]

Not sure where this goes, I figure here's as good as anywhere.

BC government is looking to Vienna and Singapore for public housing models, says Minister of Housing

The last few months in British Columbia have been highly eventful in the topical realm of housing affordability and homelessness, with the provincial government taking the first steps on its new ambitious multi-faceted housing affordability and supply strategy.

It is a $4-billion, multi-year strategy to invest in tens of thousands of new homes across the housing continuum of social and supportive housing, below-market rental housing, market rental housing, and purpose-built student housing to reduce pressure on the rental market...

Main takeaway:

...When Premier David Eby was running for the BC NDP party leadership race last fall, he mentioned the idea of launching BC’s very own public housing system. We saw some details in the recent provincial budget on BC Builds, but are you able to further elaborate on what it could look like?

The concept of BC Builds, which we will be providing more information later in the year, is very much aligned with what we see in other jurisdictions. We’re looking at places like Vienna and Singapore as examples, where social housing isn’t just for low-income people. The idea of social housing is housing for the middle class, as well as people who are lower income, where you build more healthy and wholesome communities. That is what BC Builds will be.

We are in the process right now of creating an inventory of province-owned, municipal-owned, school board-owned, and other government-owned land so that we can do an assessment of where the ideal opportunities are to build housing for the middle class and low-income earners...

... The days of selling our lands at cheap costs to private developers, hoping that one day they’ll build housing, is gone, and I hope it never comes back.

The province recently introduced Bill 26 as a measure to circumvent the court challenge by a Kitsilano residents advocacy group to stall BC Housing’s new affordable housing project next to SkyTrain’s future Arbutus Station. What are your thoughts on those who say this is too much of a heavy-handed approach? Can this legislation be used for other projects in the future?

We have people who are sleeping in RVs, tentsm (sic) and parks. In fact, a few blocks from that Arbutus site, there are people living in Vanier Park who can’t find affordable housing and are struggling and need supports.

Here we have a project that we spent two years trying to get an approval, six days of public hearings, and long hours of deliberation from City Council, and only then did we finally got approval. And now we’re dealing with the courts because they’re saying we haven’t consulted enough...

... We can now go ahead and proceed with the project, and meet the timelines to get the housing built. And yes, we do have Bill 26 as an option for future projects.

We’ve got to get to the point where we get to “Yes” on these projects. There’s a lot of reasons to say no, and some are very good reasons, but we need to find ways to mitigate those challenges and impacts, and get to a point where we’re actually approving projects. It’s just happening way too slow. We want to make sure all projects move faster in this province.

Sounds like the province is going to directly intervene in municipal development. Let's hope it doesn't end up like Ontario's.