“You can’t socially engineer people out of their lifestyle into another.”
– Nancy Di Castri
Mayors and residents are sounding the alarm bells over the effects of aggressive BC NDP housing density legislation.
Bill 44 is particularly controversial. Passed in November 2023, the residential development bill mandates all B.C. municipalities with more than 5,000 residents allow multiplexes of three to four units on what were previously single-family lots, with up to six units allowed on lots near frequent bus service. The new law also eliminates most public rezoning hearings.
Sooke Mayor Maja Tait says this transfer of zoning power from local governments to Victoria is imposing a “one-size-fits-all” approach that has been a “complete fail.”
According to Tait, Bill 44 is creating infrastructure chaos in Sooke. Only accessible via one regional highway, Sooke is already straining to provide emergency services, healthcare, and schools to a rapidly growing population, says Tait.
“There’s capacity constraints with infrastructure, with wastewater services, transit service is also stretched. So, when the province then determines ‘Oh you can put in all this housing in all these locations’…without investment in schools, in ambulances, healthcare systems, and transit, it simply doesn’t work from a quality of life perspective.”
“There’s capacity constraints with infrastructure, with wastewater services, transit service is also stretched.”
Maja Tait
For Tait, spreading densification into smaller towns like Sooke also puts at risk the very qualities that make the community attractive in the first place.
“Typically, when people come out this way, they’re looking for a bit more land. In an ideal world, you’re leaving a more densified urban centre, you’re moving out to Sooke because you want a place to park your RV, your fishing boat. You’re willing to deal with the commute so you can not be in a strata, you can have space for your family, space for your dog,” she says.
The mayor says she’s not opposed to building housing but wants her municipality’s zoning power back because she knows her community and its needs better than bureaucrats and politicians in Victoria.
UBCM president: ‘There was no meaningful discussion’
The organization that represents the province’s locally elected officials seems to agree. The president of the Union of BC Municipalities (UNBC) wants to replace top-down planning with a spirit of collaboration.
Trish Mandewo has been a vocal critic of the BC NDP’s imposition of densification on municipalities. She says mayors are right to be worried about the province’s seizure of local government zoning power.
“Bill 44 came by, and it severely weakened the ability of councils to direct growth…There is a reason why those kinds of policies should be established by elected councils and local government staff, rather than by anonymous staff in Victoria,” says Mandewo.
Particularly troubling for Mandewo is what she describes as the BC government’s lack of interest in meaningful consultation with municipalities, notably through a new tendency of skipping policy development, a consultation stage where local officials can point out unintended consequences of bills.
“There was no meaningful discussion prior to legislation being crafted, and the province skipped the policy development process,” Mandewo says of Bill 44.
“We know that we can be more impactful… if we are working together.”
Trish Mandewo
“What we have learned since, is that this has become standard operating procedure…. they pretty much skip policy development, and then go straight to legislation.”
Mandewo emphasizes that the UBCM is in favour of building housing, but she believes that the best way to do so is through collaboration rather than top-down provincial control.
“We know that we can be more impactful, and we can move the dial if we are working together rather than just being heavy-handed and isolating local governments or leaving them out of the picture,” she says.
‘Groundswell’ of discontent, says advocate
Saanich resident Nancy Di Castri co-founded Save Our Saanich Neighbourhoods Society to fight what she sees as a flood of development upending her community. She says multiplexes allowed under Bill 44 are starting to pop up in what used to be single-family neighbourhoods in Saanich.
“When somebody puts their house up for sale, there’s this palpable fear: who’s going to buy my neighbour’s house? Because what we’re starting to see is these just horrendous, 36-feet high, four unit buildings… impacting the front yard, the house, and the back yard of the neighbouring properties,” Di Castri explains.
“There’s this palpable fear: who’s going to buy my neighbour’s house?”
Nancy De Castri
The BC government says the multiplexes allowed by Bill 44, which it calls “small-scale, multi-unit housing” are “ground-oriented and compatible in scale and form within established single-family neighbourhoods”. The Saanich government claims that the “duplexes, townhouses, houseplexes, and small apartments” covered by the bill “can be well integrated into existing neighbourhoods”.
Di Castri is not buying it.
“Some of them look like apartment buildings, because they’re flat-roofed, they’re 36-feet…you plunk that next to somebody’s home,” she says.
Underpinning the push for densification of BC’s single-family neighbourhoods, she argues, are lobby groups like the Urban Development Institute (UDI) – which has been an avid supporter of Bill 44 and other provincial density legislation.
The UDI describes itself as “a national non-profit association (with international affiliations) of the development industry” with “over 850 corporate members”. Di Castri points to extensive investigations published by Sasha Izard on his blog CRD Watch, documenting alleged efforts by the UDI to influence provincial housing legislation – including Bill 44.
Di Castri says that thoughtful affordable housing policy that adds dwellings does not have to destroy the quiet, leafy single-family neighbourhoods that so many British Columbians call home or aspire to one day call home. She says she gets daily calls from Saanich residents concerned about the rapid densification of their community, and senses a “groundswell” of discontent building up as fear turns to anger and a desire for change.
“You can’t socially engineer people out of their lifestyle into another. They’ll fight you tooth and nail – and that’s what’s happening.”