Anshu Arora LLM, MSc, PMP

Fees associated with building new residential and non-residential buildings across Metro Vancouver will go up significantly over a three-year period between 2025 and 2027. In a public meeting today, Metro Vancouver Regional District’s board of directors approved the recommendations and framework by regional district staff to exponentially increase the development cost charges (DCCs) associated with new building developments.

Depending on location, the combined total DCCs rate increases for residential projects are $18,506 to $24,106 per single-family lot, $16,952 to $22,182 per townhouse unit, and $11,360 to $14,657 per apartment unit. While builders and developers will cover the cost of these fees, it is assumed that the resulting added costs to construction will be passed on to residents through a higher sale price or rental rate. These fee hikes will help fund a significant portion of the regional district’s $35 billion plan over the next 30 years to expand and improve the regional network of water supply and sources, sewerage capacity, and regional parks to meet the needs of the region’s growing population and economy and renew aging infrastructure. The single most expensive project is the new Iona Island Sewage Treatment Plant facility near Vancouver International Airport which will cost over $10 billion.

The highly controversial “growth pays for growth” strategy has been met with much criticism from the development industry, some municipal officials, and even the federal government, which first indicated its opposition in September by delaying the federal Housing Accelerator Fund to Burnaby and Surrey. In an open letter earlier this week ahead of today’s decision, Federal Minister of Housing Sean Fraser reiterated the federal government’s position against the added costs to building development and the impact that it would have on addressing housing affordability and supply. “Given the spirit of the Housing Accelerator Fund and the work that the federal government is doing to change the financial equation for builders, large increases in development charges are at odds with these goals,” wrote Fraser.

The minister challenged the “growth pays for growth” strategy, as “we will all pay for stagnation as a result of a lower pace of construction. A ‘growth pays for growth’ approach ignores the value that new development, new property tax bases, new businesses, and new neighbours bring to our communities. I am concerned that at this particular moment in time, a drastic increase in development charges will inhibit our ability to seize the opportunity to incentivize a rapid increase in construction.” Fraser requested the regional district’s board of directors — comprised of the elected municipal officials of Metro Vancouver’s municipal governments — to delay the start date of the new DCCs and implement exceptions for secured purpose-built rental housing.

#buy

#sell

#invest

#kingslistings

#surreycondoking

#billions

#apple

#google

#trillions

#burnabycondoking

Interest in de-dollarisation is increasing given growing financial fragmentation risks worldwide, according to a report, but there is still not a credible alternative to the US dollar despite yuan internalisation efforts, political and financial leaders said at a forum at the weekend.

The report by the International Finance Forum (IFF) attributed the trend of using regional currencies rather than the US dollar to the adverse spillovers of unprecedented US monetary tightening.The US Federal Reserve raised interest rates 11 times in 17 months, hitting a 22-year high in July. “[De-dollarisation] could be one of the unintended consequences of the financial fragmentation,” the IFF report released on Saturday said.

 

Financial sanctions could be weaponised, along with other forms of restrictions including embargoes, trade wars, seizure of assets, limiting access to capital and technology and screening of investments, which could eventually lead to global financial fragmentation, the report warned.However, political and financial leaders said at the IFF in Guangzhou on Saturday that there is not a credible alternative major currency that could absorb much of the global operations occupied by the US dollar.

The 2023 Global Finance and Development Report by the IFF echoed research released by the PBOC on Friday, which showed the yuan’s share in global payments, trade finance and central bank reserves is still far behind the US dollar despite progress in the past decade.

Hong Kong-based Mandarin Oriental is the best luxury hotel brand in the world, according to the latest annual ranking by LTI – Luxury Travel Intelligence, and two other brands in Hong Kong feature in the top 12. LTI is a global members-only organisation that provides digital reporting for affluent travellers “based on our honest and detailed intelligence”. Each year, the organisation assesses luxury brands that own or manage 10 or more properties according to a number of touch points relevant to the luxury hotel sector.

 

Homebuyers’ choices have undoubtedly improved, but affordability has not improved as much. For markets to be fully on the buyers’ side, they need plenty of choice and affordability. Thousands more homes are available to purchase, but most remain out of reach of mid-income earners.

There was a 32 per cent increase in listings in September, according to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB), dropping the sales-to-new-listings ratio (SNLR) to 28.6 per cent. The industry rule of thumb says an SNLR of less than 40 per cent favours buyers and more than 60 per cent to favour sellers. Going just by that rule, it looks like a buyers’ market. The same report also said the average Toronto home price in September increased by three per cent from August. The average has increased by almost eight per cent since January. If housing was unaffordable earlier, it is still unaffordable.

The new medical school planned at Simon Fraser University’s Surrey campus will have a dedicated family doctor training program similar to the one spearheaded at an Ontario university, B.C.’s post-secondary education minister told Postmedia News.

Critics, however, point out that family doctors won’t graduate from the new medical school until 2030, which won’t immediately help the approximately one million British Columbians without access to primary care.Selina Robinson confirmed B.C.’s second medical school, set to open in 2026, will include a program specifically focused on family and community medicine.

“It’s recognizing that we need to make sure we identify people who want to do family practice, who want to do team-based care, that we support their learning and that we get them into the community ASAP,” she said. The SFU family doctor program, Robinson said, is modelled after a new program at Lakeridge Health, a satellite campus of Queen’s University in Ontario, which this month launched the country’s first dedicated program for family medicine.

Most medical schools in Canada are four-year programs, after which graduates spend between two and five years completing their residency in the medical field of their choice. Under Lakeridge’s MD family medicine program, the 20 students enrolled in the program this year will work in primary care clinics as part of their education and are committed to becoming family doctors when they graduate.

The SFU medical school will also have a specific focus on providing care for Indigenous communities, she said. This is in response to concerns from Indigenous communities, especially in rural and remote areas of the province, that they have poorer health outcomes because of a lack of access to health care and systemic racism within the health system.

#create

#buy

#sell

#invest

#kingslistings

#anshu

#medical

#surrey

#vancouver

#realestate

#luxury