Incoming B.C. premier outlines radical housing platform

October 10, 2022


David Eby

David Eby, the front runner among just two contenders, is widely seen as the next leader of the BC NDP and premier of the province. His coronation could come as early as this October, since the other candidate is expected to withdraw. Therefore, when Eby released a radical provincial housing policy platform September 28 it attracted notice.
Eby, B.C.’s former housing minister, has proposed changes including measures to increase density in communities zoned for single family homes—even by overriding the permitting and zoning power of municipal governments—and a new "flipping tax" that would apply to the sale of residential properties that are resold within two years. 
"We don't want first-time home buyers competing for a place to live with a bunch of short-term speculators and investors that are driving prices up,” Eby told reporters.
Recent data from BC Real Estate Association, however, shows that flipping is a non-issue now, as average home prices have been falling month-over-month since March 2022 and are predicted to decline a further 3.5 per cent in 2023.
Under Eby's plan, strata councils would also no longer be able to prohibit owners in their buildings from renting their condos out and make it illegal to have under age 19 restrictions in condo buildings.
He also proposed allowing home builders to replace a single-family house with up to three units on the same footprint, anywhere in the province.
Perhaps the most controversial item of the policy platform is a Rental Housing Acquisition Fund, backed with $500 million in provincial money, that would give First Nations, non-profits and co-op housing groups the first right of refusal on the purchase of affordable rental buildings—mostly aging apartment buildings—that come up for sale. This, the policy states, is to protect renters from “speculators.”
It was under Eby’s watch as the former housing minister that B.C. experienced Canada’s worst housing crisis, with the highest rents and housing prices and the lowest rental vacancy rates, not to mention record-high homelessness.