B.C. NDP’s Mass Densification Plan Hitting Roadblocks

After narrowly returning to power in October, Premier David Eby’s NDP government is proceeding full steam ahead with increasingly controversial province-wide densification plans.

The B.C. NDP’s Bill 44 is now in effect. This piece of legislation mandates that all municipalities with over 5,000 residents allow four to six housing units on what were formerly single-family residential lots. In addition to abolishing single-family zoning, Bill 44 also prohibits public rezoning hearings.

In previous articles, I wondered what would happen if some local communities were simply unwilling to transfer control over zoning to Victoria. We are now starting to see examples of this.

Sooke’s municipal council has voted 3-3 on implementing Bill 44 after the province denied the town’s request for a five-year extension. A tie means the motion is defeated. Sooke Mayor Maja Tait was one of those who voted against the motion, telling a Black Press reporter that she felt the province’s denial of her community’s extension request “comes across as, ‘Do as we say. We know better than you do.’”

Will the NDP government seek to enforce compliance against the expressed desires of an elected local council? What form will this take? A provincial government stepping in to unilaterally rewrite bylaws would be a striking seizure of municipal authority.

An editorial in the Sooke News Mirror described the provincial government’s approach to Bill 44 as “a glaring example of top-down governance gone wrong.” The editorial pointed out that 21 other communities have been given extensions, and wondered: “Why not Sooke?”

Meanwhile, in Burnaby’s Brentwood Park neighbourhood, a group of neighbours calling itself “Save Brentwood Park” is raising awareness of a little-known legal mechanism they hope will stall densification in much of the province.

The group’s website (savebrentwoodpark.com) explains that homeowners are rallying to defend their neighbourhood from overdevelopment: “Land assemblers and speculators have targeted our community with the intent to replace our homes to erect 8-storey and 12-storey towers.”

They argue that Bill 44 does not supersede old property covenants from the 1950s, which designated certain properties as single-family lots: “Most homes in Brentwood Park are protected by Statutory Building Schemes registered on title that restrict the use of land in our neighbourhood to single family dwellings.”

A piece in the Vancouver Sun reported that Save Brentwood Park intends to build a database of houses in the area with single-family covenants, enabling neighbours to take legal action if a developer starts building multiplexes.

As Bill 44 faces non-compliance from municipalities and creative resistance from local communities, new information is beginning to emerge about the forces which have influenced the B.C. NDP’s aggressive development agenda.

In an article published on CRD Watch (crdwatch.ca) on November 22nd, B.C. activist Sasha Izard documented in detail the revelations that emerged from a Freedom of Information (FOI) request he submitted to the provincial government.

I encourage readers to check out Izard’s exposé. In summary, the trove of documents he unearthed reveal that significant elements of several of the B.C. NDP’s densification bills bear a striking similarity to recommendations submitted to the provincial government by the Urban Development Institute (UDI). The UDI is a registered organization on the B.C. lobbyist registry, and has numerous corporate members in the real estate and development industry.

Therein lies the rub. The limitless upzoning rampant in cities and towns across the province expands the profit of developers and speculators, while degrading the quality of life of British Columbians who value peaceful, livable neighbourhoods with open spaces, woodlots, and backyards.

The movement to ramp up density enriches business interests with a vested interest in endless residential construction, and is granted a veneer of moral righteousness by YIMBY (“Yes In My Backyard”) activists who portray their fight against zoning controls as a struggle for affordability while ignoring the real driver of the housing crisis: immigration-driven population growth.

Vancouver is the fourth-most dense region in North America – where’s the affordability?