Rick Ilich: If governments genuinely want to tackle housing affordability, they must pivot toward immediate structural reforms
Article content
Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier David Eby announcing a federal-provincial partnership to bulk-buy 2,200 unsold condominiums in B.C. triggered a wave of political and public skepticism. Critics labelled the $1.5-billion plan a “developer bailout,” suggesting the industry lobbied for governments to absorb market risk using taxpayer dollars.
Article content
That is simply untrue.
Article content
Article content
Story continues below
Article content
Let’s set the record straight: The industry proposed ideas to help homebuyers — all things only all levels of government control — but they took a shocking route and caught us off guard.
Article content
Article content
As the voice of the development industry, Urban Development Institute has been very clear with government: Our goal is to build communities where British Columbians can lay down roots — not to have government become a landlord or a real estate speculator of distressed assets.
Article content
For years, we have asked for a reduction in regulations, a reduction in government fees imposed on us and GST imposed on buyers, and a reduction in policies that drive up the cost of building homes, which in turn increases the cost of buying a home.
Article content
We especially want housing made attainable for middle-income earners — workforce housing, something our premier publicly supported as housing minister.
Article content
Workforce housing fills a critical gap for employed people who don’t qualify for government assistance and can’t afford to pay market rents in the city where they work. Many of these workers are essential service workers like teachers, hospitality employees, and grocery clerks, alongside emergency first responders and frontline health-care workers who a healthy city relies on.
Article content
Story continues below
Article content
Targeting housing at the middle-income workforce does more than put a roof over heads. It directly solves the severe staffing shortages and retention crisis plaguing our essential services due to the local cost of living. Crucially, allowing frontline workers to live where they serve is a matter of public safety. When natural disasters or emergency crises strike, a localized workforce is essential for an immediate, coordinated emergency response.
Article content
By bringing this workforce to urban areas, we vastly improve the quality of life for the entire centre and reduce gridlock on roads and pressure on public transit. It advances municipal sustainability goals by encouraging green mobility and reinforces regional economic resiliency, fostering thriving, complete neighbourhoods.
Article content
For the province to choose to funnel tax dollars into purchasing existing condo inventory while simultaneously scaling back or suspending critical funding for the Community Housing Fund — programs designed to build new, dedicated affordable housing with projects that had already laid the groundwork — I suggest their advisers missed the mark.
