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Nathan Cullen, Stikine MLA and Minister for Municipal Affairs
spoke to elements of housing policy on Thursday |
There may not have been many viewers left on the Legislature Channel as the final hour of the Thursday afternoon session came to an end, but for those that were tuned in, or have since reviewed the archived video, a review of housing from the Municipal Affairs Minister provides a look at the current housing situation in the province.
Nathan Cullen, the MLA For Stikine who was put in the Municipal Affairs post last month, navigated a number of streams in his presentation in the legislature, opening up his comments by observing as to the challenges found today when it comes to housing in the province.
The effects of the housing crisis, the overheated housing market, are I think affecting, I can safely say, all of our communities. We are watching, particularly, the generation coming up behind us, the ability to own a house going further and further away.
As one young person said to me…. They have a pretty decent job. They've gone and got their education and are working hard. They can't save their way into a house, no matter how prudent they are, no matter how careful they are with their finances.
With what's happening in our housing market now, and has been happening for the last number of years, it just moves further and further and further away.
To bring the topic to the northwest, he offered up a view to his own riding and how even in Stikine the housing frenzy has been making for challenges for his constituents.
In Stikine, we've been seeing this reality as well. We've been seeing not only housing prices rise but that frenzy that happens around a house becoming available and people making offers, as we've all talked about, as one of the most significant decisions in their lives — especially your first house but any other house that follows after that — and making it in a panic. A panic buy.
You wouldn't go out and probably buy a bicycle that way, right, unless they said this is the only bicycle and there's 100 people in line and you need it to get to work.
Suddenly our normal calculus changes. The pressure has changed.
The challenges served as the preamble to his main comments towards the new legislation in Bill 12 that the NDP government believe will address some of those challenges.
What Bill 12 attempts to do is address one piece of this conversation. We don't make claims of great affordability measures in this. Our government has done a number of other things on the question of affordability, speculation tax and on down the line, and that's important.
And Despite all of those efforts, all of those changes to law that have happened since we have formed government in the last four or five years, the pressures on the market remain.
We're adding more supply. We're trying to cut down on the speculators. We're trying to cut down on the people who are being exploitative in the market, foreign currency and what not that have distorted the market realities.
This has been, as some realtors and some economists have talked about, a market failure. Where the supply and demand has been distorted by other effects that have come in. And it's also just an incredible place to live. We happen to live in a really amazing place.
Mr. Cullen also explored some of the engagement with Municipalities and how the provincial government has proposed changes to create more improved conditions in getting housing approvals moving forward.
I, as Municipal Affairs — following the former Municipal Affairs and the former one before that, who's now the Finance Minister — have been asked by the UBCM, the municipalities association, to put more tools in the toolbox for municipalities on the permitting side, to get more housing stock into the market.
Because that's something we hear from developers consistently.
I think all members in this place have heard this from realtors, from those trying to get stock onto the market — that the permitting process…. It's not…. The project isn't wrong. The permitting process takes so long that it ends up killing the project itself.
We have looked for densification opportunities, particularly in our urban environment — places where we can build up the city, to greater densify — particularly along transit routes, because that just makes sense.
Our government has put further billions of dollars into affordable transportation and active transportation. It makes sense, then, to not have all single-family units surrounding the SkyTrain and the whatnot.
And We're looking for opportunities with the Transportation Minister and UCBM.
UBCM has been asking.
The municipalities have been asking for these tools, and we were looking to provide them. We passed some legislation is this place to do that.
And there's more to do.
Homeowners, home builders, those looking to buy and municipal representatives that are part of the process of increasing the housing stock may all want to explore the full presentation of Thursday from the Municipal Affairs Minister.
The Property Law Amendment Act
was introduced on March 28th, the main thrust of the amendment is. to create a period of time to protect the would be home buyer.
The amendments would enable the creation of a period to give people buying a home more time to consider their offers, ensure financing and obtain a home inspection, instead of feeling like they need to waive these conditions. Regulations will be introduced this year to define the specific time homebuyers will have to exercise this right as well as the financial costs of retracting an offer. The legislation also allows for regional variation within the province, recognizing the housing market varies between regions.
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