Anshu Arora LLM, MSc, PMP

New provincial legislation means public hearings will no longer be held for residential or mixed-use development with at least 50 per cent housing, but Abbotsford Mayor Ross Siemens said there are still opportunities for people to have their say.

Bill 44 – an amendment to the Local Government Act – was recently adopted by the province. Part of the bill prohibits municipalities from holding public hearings for housing projects that fall within the official community plan (OCP).

Council on Monday (Dec. 4) approved revisions to its Development Application Procedures Bylaw to fall in line with the new legislation. The changes also remove the requirement for a council hearing for development variance permits and housing agreements. Previously, all zoning bylaw amendments required a public hearing before final approval to allow neighbours to express their views on a proposal’s benefits or impacts.

But the mayor pointed out public hearings must still be held for any OCP changes. “It’s when we do the official community plan updates that there’s a … robust public engagement component to that, and that’s why we would recommend people pay specific attention to because changes in their neighbourhoods will be part of that process,” Siemens said. He said the public will also have an opportunity to ask questions of city staff on any project once a development/zoning sign is placed on the development site.

Also under Bill 44, all municipalities must update OCPs every five years. As well, starting July 1, 2024, developers will be able to start building a minimum of three and up to six units (near transit) on lots currently zoned for single-family homes and duplexes in municipalities above 5,000 people. The legislation means that local governments can no longer exclusively zone neighbourhoods for single-family lots. The province predicts Bill 44 will create 130,000 homes in B.C. in 10 years.

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Freshly made at Alstom’s plant in Kingston, Ontario, the first cars of an order of 205 new generation Mark V SkyTrain cars are now on the Trans-Canada Highway — onboard flatbed trucks — for their journey to reach TransLink’s SkyTrain hub in Edmonds in Burnaby.

These Mark V cars will be connected into fully articulated five-car-long trains — creating a total of 41 Mark V five-car-long trains — for use on the Expo and Millennium lines. They will be the longest trains yet on the SkyTrain system, providing the highest passenger capacities. Each new five-car Mark V train will be able to carry about 25% more passengers than the existing four-car Mark III train. The five-car Mark V train will be able to hold 672 passengers regularly, both seated and standing, while the four-car Mark III train can currently hold 533 passengers. This is an increase of 139 people per train compared to the current largest train, which is the four-car Mark III train.

These new cars also carry new interior design features, such as an improved seating and standing configuration with flex spaces, a large video screen above the doors for the programmable display of useful information, including next station details, and Indigenous art. Earlier this year, the first completed Mark V train underwent extensive testing at the manufacturer’s facility in Kingston, with provided video footage showing the train making looping runs around the test track. The 40 remaining five-car trains will gradually arrive in Burnaby and enter service between 2024 and 2028.

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A two-year engagement project intended to establish guidelines for Saanich’s version of missing-middle housing will now be a six-month educational program to explain the implications of the province’s new housing rules.

The new Housing Statutes Amendment Act will allow single-family lots to be replaced by denser housing forms such as houseplexes of three to six units, depending on proximity to transit, townhomes or small apartment buildings. Instead of the “neighbourhood homes” study, staff will work on bringing Saanich’s zoning bylaws in line with the new provincial legislation and keeping the public informed.

Saanich has until the end of June to bring its bylaws into line with the provincial changes. “What the province ended up bringing forward effectively sets the new rules and anything that would have been created as a result of the study has already been determined,” said Mayor Dean Murdock. Council voted this week to revise the terms of the “neighbourhood homes study,” directing staff to work on amending its zoning bylaws.

Councillors Judy Brownoff and Nathalie Chambers were the only two to vote against it. “I do not think this is democracy. Overriding community plans, in my opinion, is not democracy or good governance,” said Chambers. Brownoff, who was concerned about the ability of the district’s infrastructure to handle additional density and the effect on assessment values, asked district staff if municipalities could refuse to abide by the new legislation.

Staff said the municipality can’t opt out of the mandatory provisions of the legislation, although it’s not yet clear what the penalties would be for refusing. Murdock said the province is responding to the same concerns being heard in Saanich — that people are looking for family-suitable homes in the community.

“Duplexes, triplexes, townhouses are going to be more in reach for families than a single-family home,” he said. “We should be using our limited resources to address these concerns and working with the province to create more options for folks rather than dedicating our resources to trying to fight the province, which is a losing battle.” Coun. Teale Phelps Bondaroff said he likes the fact that the pace of change has been increased.

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Rental prices in Canada reached a new high, with an average asking price of $2,149 per month in October, according to a new report compiled by a Canadian rental listings website(opens in a new tab).

According to Rentals.ca and real estate research firm Urbanation, the Canadian market continued its upward trajectory with data suggesting a monthly increase of 1.5 per cent from August, and an annual surge of 11.1 per cent. Experiencing double-digit year-over-year growth, the annual rate of rent inflation surged to its highest point in nine months, stated the report.

The report’s metrics are based on new listings, not what existing tenants are paying per month. In terms of rental types, one-bedroom units recorded the fastest annual growth in asking rents, soaring by 15.5 per cent, reaching an average of $1,905. Two-bedroom apartments averaged $2,268, marking a 13.1 per cent increase year-over-year, while three-bedroom units were up by 11.4 per cent, averaging $2,514.

Studios, representing the most economical choice, had the lowest year-over-year growth with an increase of 11.3 per cent, averaging $1,511 in rental prices. Asking rents for purpose-built and condominium apartments averaged a record high of $2,078 in September, increasing 1.6 per cent month-over-month and 13.3 per cent year-over-year. Nova Scotia surpassed Alberta with the average asking rents for apartments by reaching $2,088, while Alberta rose to $1,663. Quebec had the third fastest annual growth with a rate of 13 per cent, followed closely by British Columbia with 12.3 per cent.

In Ontario, the annual rate growth slowed from 9.9 per cent in August to 6.6 per cent in September. Asking rents in the province also declined by 0.4 per cent month-over-month. Yet, despite this glimpse of financial hope, Ontario still has the second highest rent average by province at $2,486. The Prairie provinces remained the most financially friendly locations as Saskatchewan and Manitoba both had the slowest annual rent growth in September at 3.8 per cent and 3.1 per cent, respectively. Saskatchewan’s asking rents averaged $1,115 and $1,431 for Manitoba.

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On Oct. 20, Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie came back from her temporary leave to overrule a previous rejection by city council and allow the building of four-unit housing on low-rise residential lots.

The move not only kept Mississauga in the running for a federal housing grant, but it also added the city to the growing list of municipalities around Canada pushing through massive zoning changes to address Canada’s housing crisis.

Since the federal government’s $4-billion Housing Accelerator Fund was launched in May of this year, cities have been rushing to claim the incentives that are tied to zoning changes. In the last few months, the Ontario cities of Brampton, London, Vaughan and Hamilton, as well as Halifax and Kelowna, have all signed agreements with the federal government. Others, like the Ontario cities of Mississauga, Kitchener and Burlington, as well as Calgary, were making significant gains in zoning changes.

This has led some experts to argue that Canada was witnessing nothing short of a zoning “revolution.” In much of the country, zoning restrictions mean developers are allowed to build only single-family homes or condo towers in residential areas. There is a huge chunk of housing options, often referred to as “missing middle housing,” that does not get built. “It’s been really fascinating to watch how quickly that’s happened after almost 50 years of that (single-family) zoning being locked in place,” Carolyn Whitzman, a housing policy expert and expert advisor to the Housing Assessment Resource Tools Project, told Global News this week.

Whitzman said cities around Canada are beginning to realize that single-family zoning is not only serving them poorly but is exacerbating the housing crisis. “Zoning came in in the 1920s, so it has a century of use in Canada,” she said. “They were made much stricter in terms of suburban redevelopment from about the 1960s and 1970s onward. So now, you’re talking about one or two generations that really can’t imagine any other (kind of) development happening.”

James McKellar, professor emeritus of real estate and infrastructure at York University’s Schulich School of Business, said Canadian cities need to adapt zoning rules to allow for housing that better meets the needs of Canada’s population. Part of the reason many cities are accelerating the pace of change is the federal government’s Housing Accelerator Fund. The federal government is pushing municipalities to make rapid zoning changes. This includes pushing municipalities to build more fourplex and mixed housing units.

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