Hi everyone, Mark Iype in Edmonton today.
Housing seems to be on the tip of everyone’s tongue these days as the issue most pressing for pretty much all Canadians. Whether you have seen your rent soar in recent months or as interest rates crept ever higher the amortization on your mortgage is stretching well into the future, everyone is affected by housing concerns.
Federal politicians are finally taking the issue seriously (polling numbers will do that) and a variety of solutions have been pitched.
To address the housing crisis, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced last week that the government will remove the GST from new rental construction, including apartment buildings, student housing and seniors’ residences.
“This is something that all Canadians are worried about,” said Trudeau, adding he hoped the move would lead to more apartment construction across the country.
In British Columbia, where the crisis is playing out in a number of ways, the provincial government is hoping to streamline the system so the construction of new homes and secondary suites can be sped up.
The new Single Housing Application Service, first promised in January, gives builders a clear understanding of the provincial permits needed to build a house so they don’t have to spend as much time figuring out how to navigate the “maze of the provincial government,” said Premier David Eby.
As part of its housing plan announced previously, the government is also promising to give approximately 3,000 homeowners forgivable loans of up to $40,000 to create secondary suites, provided they rent them out for below market rate.
“‘I’m really excited about these announcements,” Eby said. “It’s not the full answer, it’s not the silver bullet. We have to go at this issue of housing from so many different angles and that’s what we’re doing.”
One wrench thrown into the works in the province’s biggest city is that a search in now on for a new head of planning.
The appointment of chief planner Theresa O’Donnell has “concluded,” the City of Vancouver announced last Thursday, days after the new council gave her team unanimous approval for a significant new policy allowing up to six units on most of the municipality’s vast swath of residential properties.
As Frances Bula reported for The Globe this week, this is the fourth time in recent years that the city has had to find a new planner.
Along with the most recent policy change, Ms. O’Donnell was also getting ready to start making other changes in line with the comprehensive Vancouver Plan that was passed last year, including finding ways to add more housing around smaller neighbourhood commercial centres.
“Theresa has made a remarkable contribution to Vancouver and the trajectory of its ongoing evolution,” wrote city manager Paul Mochrie in an internal e-mail to staff. “In particular, I want to acknowledge her leadership of some of our city’s most important land use planning work, including the Vancouver Plan, the Broadway Plan and the recent zoning updates to enable missing middle housing city-wide.”
The city’s media department did not provide details on whether Ms. O’Donnell had resigned or been asked to leave, saying it doesn’t discuss personnel matters.
While some have pointed at the new ABC Vancouver party-dominated council’s impatience to see dramatic change as the reason for Ms. O’Donnell’s departure, the city’s development community had become increasingly critical in the last year.
This is the weekly Western Canada newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox and Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.
Wendy Cox