Election 2021: Liberal Campaign Promises May Not Achieve British Columbia Housing and Transportation Goals

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Federal pledges to increase affordable housing and expand rapid transit in the Lower Continent could result in a higher cost of living, less affordable housing and more climate destruction, according to some analysts and advocates.

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During the recent election campaign, Liberals made promises to address home affordability with tax credits and savings accounts for first-time homebuyers. They made other pre-election commitments to contribute up to $ 1.3 billion toward the construction of the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain expansion.

But housing and climate experts say that no set of initiatives will achieve its goals without integration.

“Our increased investments in transportation have inadvertently displaced affordable condo rental from the market,” said Alex Boston, executive director of Renewable Cities, a group of policy and planning experts at Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Dialogue Center. “The Surrey-Langley SkyTrain project will actually increase carbon and congestion because it is facilitating urban sprawl.”

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Jill Atkey from the BC Nonprofit Housing Association agrees.

“We have dislocated policies. Transportation planning is separate from housing planning and housing planning is separate from school planning, even with medical care, we are building a giant hospital in St. Paul’s with no new homes planned around it. ” said.

Both Atkey and Boston believe a new approach is needed in which groups like TransLink work with municipalities, developers and the province to create housing alongside transit corridors, and for the federal government to require such linkages before providing funding. .

Atkey said she’s disappointed that the election promises made by the Liberals have focused more on new home ownership.

“We expected to see more investment in affordable housing, but we didn’t see much of that on the Liberal platform. There was more emphasis on new home ownership, which many economists say is not a good idea because it just fuels the demand for unaffordable homes, ”Atkey said. “Even with those first-time homebuyer incentives, unless you have an inheritance, you don’t have much of a chance to enter the market, so what about the rest of us?”

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Boston said first-time homeowners are being pushed to the suburbs, where their transportation costs will rise. He said that vehicle growth is 2 1/2 times the growth rate of housing.

“The further you get from employment centers and services, the more you drive. Housing developments in places like Surrey, Langley, and the Tri-Cities, for example, are being created to accommodate cars. They are not oriented to traffic and are not passable. Instead, they need to create neighborhoods around the transportation corridors. “

Boston suggests that TransLink partner with developers or nonprofits to build affordable housing on transit properties, where SkyTrain stations and transit hubs are built, adding that the federal and provincial governments should make that a requirement. to receive transit funds.

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“Single-family home developments never pay the cost of the infrastructure they need,” Boston said. “The densely populated neighborhoods actually subsidize those costs.”

Atkey said the Liberals made some election promises aimed at affordable rental housing, but they are not new initiatives. Most are improvements to the ongoing national housing strategy.

“They plan to double the existing Co-Investment Fund, but that is not a fund that has taken off here in British Columbia. We’d rather see a complete makeover of that program, ”he said.

The Co-Investment Fund offers loans to finance housing developments, but Atkey said the requirements eliminate most cooperative and nonprofit housing proposals.

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“You need to get municipal approval processes before federal funds are committed, but municipalities want funding commitments before considering approval processes, so it’s a trap,” Atkey said. “To get through the approval process, a nonprofit would have to contribute about $ 500,000 and that’s a big risk without the certainty of that final approval.”

Atkey says groups like his will look forward to a new federal promise to examine the tax regime for large corporate residential property owners.

“For every affordable housing unit we are building, we are losing two affordable housing units, so the solution is not just to build, but to preserve what we already have,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of details on this yet, but this could limit the excessive earnings that result from the resignations. We would like to see assistance for non-profit organizations to take over these properties. The provincial government is interested, but we haven’t heard much from the federal government. “

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Atkey is also interested in a federal promise of a rent-to-own program, which the province already has.

Analysts like Boston and advocates like Atkey agree that greater integration is needed between programs that focus on health, transportation and housing plans, along with greater cooperation between governments to align their programs and funding priorities.

“The disconnect is that we have strong provincial housing programs that are being implemented right now and they don’t really align with federal programs,” Atkey concluded.

Boston said there are signs that various levels of government are understanding that integration is crucial: “There is strong provincial support for strengthening transportation and sustainable land use policies. The UBCM has identified this as a priority, Infrastructure Canada is internally recognizing these links and that is encouraging. “