Mayor Patrick Johnstone isn’t expecting a surge of construction to occur in New Westminster as a result of the province’s new housing legislation.
In an effort to provide more housing across the province and to help it be built faster, the B.C. Legislature has passed several pieces of legislation related to housing.
The new legislation relates to a variety of aspects of housing, including: small-scale, multi-unit housing; “pro-active planning” as it relates to housing needs reports, official community plans, zoning bylaws, and public hearings; development finance; and transit-oriented development areas.
“I think they look like good moves, generally. Overall, it does signal a real structural change in how we build our community and across British Columbia, so I think that's going to be a big change,” Johnstone said. “I'm not sure how much is going to be built anytime soon because it's a large change.”
Johnstone said it’s going to take time for cities and the building industry to utilize the new legislation to create housing.
“We're not going to start building towers in lower Sapperton today; it's just not going to start happening,” he said. “It doesn't happen that fast.”
At the Dec. 11 council meeting, staff said they would be scheduling a workshop in January to discuss all of the changes. Staff are still assessing the legislation, having only received the guidelines on Friday.
In an earlier interview with the Record, Johnstone gave some preliminary thoughts on the new provincial legislation. Here’s an overview of some of the changes planned for local governments in B.C.
Transit-oriented development areas
The province is introducing legislation that will require some municipalities to designate transit-oriented development areas (TOD areas) near transit hubs. TOD areas are defined as areas located within 800 metres of a rapid transit station and 400 metres of a bus exchange.
According to the province, local governments are required to ensure the minimum levels of density, size, and dimension established by the province in regulations are allowed in TOD areas, with these requirements varying by municipality. At their discretion, local governments can approve densities that exceed the provincial regulations.
In addition, restrictive minimums for off-street residential parking will be removed.
“It doesn't mean no parking. The market will still determine how much parking they need to sell their housing,” Johnstone said. “There will also be requirements for commercial parking.”
Johnstone said the reduction of parking minimums in TOD areas could “have a pretty significant effect” in many cities, but he feels New West is ready for that change. He said the city has been “pretty aggressive” at reducing its parking requirements, provided developments have proper transportation demand management plans in place.
“So I don't think it'll affect us that much,” he said. “It's going to make some people uncomfortable, but I think, effectively, it's time.”
Johnstone said the plan “aligns perfectly” with the province's Clean BC plan in regards to transportation systems.
“The challenge, of course, will be whether they are going to fund transit enough to make sure that the transit system supports that kind of transit-oriented development,” he said. “This is going to put more pressure on a transit system that's already struggling for funding, struggling for its ability to grow.”
Johnstone said transit-oriented development is important in New Westminster. He said it will be interesting to see how the new requirements intersect with the city’s planning process for the area around the 22nd Street SkyTrain station.
Small-scale, multi-unit housing
New provincial legislation also aims to create more small-scale, multi-unit housing in single-family neighbourhoods – with the goal being to provide more affordable housing options than single-family homes for middle-income families. This initiative aims to see construction of more secondary suites in single-family dwellings, detached accessory dwelling units like laneway homes, triplexes and townhomes are some examples of small-scale, multi-unit housing.
According to the province, local governments must update their bylaws by June 30, 2024 to accommodate small-scale, multi-unit housing requirements (except in areas where they have applied for an extension).
“I don't expect a big surge because I think there's a lot of uncertainty. We don't know what it's going to cost to build this type of building form. We don't know whether it makes economic sense,” Johnstone said. “There's also, frankly, not that many builders in the city.”
With all of the changes that will be taking place across British Columbia, Johnstone said it is “not realistic” to expect there will be enough capacity in the building industry to suddenly redesign every neighbourhood in the province.
“It's going to take some time for our communities to adjust to what this means,” he said. “We've been in a housing crisis for a long time, and I think this does represent the kind of big shift, the structural shift, we need to address housing and housing affordability in the region.”
“Pro-active planning” – housing needs reports, official community plans, zoning bylaws, and public hearings
According to the province, B.C. is shifting to a more pro-active, long-term approach to planning, where local governments identify their housing needs, and then zone for what is needed. This includes new requirements in a number of areas, including:
- Official community plans: OCPs must identify areas for residential development to meet anticipated housing needs for at least the next 20 years and must also include policies for affordable housing, rental housing, and special needs housing. Municipalities must review and update their OCPs every five years.
- Zoning bylaws: Municipalities will be required to align zoning bylaws with their OCPs and housing needs reports a regular basis, including updating zoning bylaws to permit the use and density to accommodate the total number of housing units needed over at least the next 20 years.
- Public hearings: In an effort to speed up the construction of homes, public hearings for rezonings have been phased out for housing projects that are consistent with OCPs. Public hearings will still be required when local governments are updating or developing new OCPs or considering rezonings for projects that aren’t consistent with the OCP.
According to the province, local governments must have completed their interim housing needs report by Jan. 1, 2025 and completed their first review and update of their OCP and zoning bylaws (based on the interim housing needs report) by Dec. 31, 2025.
Johnstone said he welcomes the changes being introduced by the province but he does have some concerns.
“My biggest concern is actually how we're going to do it practically in the city,” he told the Record. “We don't have the staff capacity to make all of these changes quickly. This is going to take rewriting our official community plan. It's going to take the development of new development guidelines for all of these housing forms.”
According to Johnstone, New Westminster is already meeting its regional growth strategy targets for new housing across the spectrum, except in the area of affordable housing and supportive housing. He’s concerned about taking staff away from working on new affordable housing proposals in order to do work being required by the province, if that work isn't going to create more housing.
“So it's a long-term versus a short-term problem,” he said. “I see the long-term benefit; I'm concerned about our ability to meet the short-term goals.”
After a two-year process that included considerable public consultation, city council approved a new official community plan for New Westminster in 2017.
“We will have to write a new OCP,” Johnstone said. “Every city is going to have to write new OCP at some time in the next year or two.”
Johnstone said local governments will now be legislated to do OCP updates every five years. He said the city has to determine what this requirement for a new OCP means for the city and whether it can edit the current plan order to fulfill this new requirement.
Johnstone said the OCP includes housing unit targets, not population targets. With more and more people moving to the Lower Mainland, he said the region is currently under-housed for its population.
“The population growth is going to happen; we're going to have a million people moving to this region – that is just a demographic reality based on the attractiveness of living in this region, in our government and climate stability,” he said. “There are a lot of reasons people are moving to the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. And if we don't build the housing for them, then we're going to continue to be an unaffordable and difficult place for people to live and enjoy their lives in.”
Development finance
The province is providing new and updated development finance tools that local governments can use to help fund the costs of the infrastructure and amenities needed to support complete and livable communities.
One of the new tools is amenity cost charges (ACCs), which allow local governments to collect funds for amenities (like community centres, daycares, and libraries) from new development that results in an increased population. To implement an ACC, local governments will need to: identify areas where more housing supply is planned (based on official community plans and other planning documents) and what amenities are needed to support that supply; determine the ACC amounts; and pass a bylaw that implements the charges.
“It's going to take time,” Johnstone said. “It may take years for us to put together a comprehensive citywide amenity plan.”
Like development costs charges, Johnstone believes amenity cost charges could be good tool – but it will take time for cities to do all the work that’s needed to start collecting funds for amenities. In order to collect ACCs from development, he said the city would need to have a plans in place related to its infrastructure needs – such as community centres, parks, fire halls or open spaces – and it would need to have a budget for those amenities.
“So for us to plan ahead 10, 20 years about what amenity infrastructure we need, what public art we want, what community centres we want, what playing fields we want – for us to plan that all ahead of time and then budget for it, and then figure out a portion of that, it's a complicated process,” he said. “It's a much more complicated process than what we do with voluntary amenity charges.”
With voluntary amenity contributions (VACs) from developers, Johnstone said the city collects money and directs the funds to things wanted by the city, such as affordable housing, public art and parks and green space.
“It's already apportioned out to different things, but the specific projects aren't identified yet,” he explained.
Johnstone said work that’s currently taking place to update the city’s parks and recreation comprehensive master plan would help on this front as it will map out the city’s priorities and plans for parks and recreation. However, it won’t price out the cost of everything in that plan.
“In order for us to put it into amenity charges, now we will have to price out all of those things,” he said.
When the city creates a DCC bylaw – and now an ACC bylaw – it often hires consultants to do that work, as it doesn’t have enough staff to do all that work, Johnstone said.
“Every city in the province is going to be doing this at the same time. So those consultants aren't going to have staff to do that work,” he said. “This is adding a whole new staff load, and if we can't do it with staff, we will need consultants. And frankly, there aren't enough bodies in the province to do all this work provincewide.”
Johnstone said the City of New Westminster has a “housing accelerator fund application” in with the federal government, which, if successful, will help the city to staff up some positions to do some of the work needed to get housing approved in the city.
“We are continuing to work on getting as much housing approved as we can,” he said.
