To Fight the Housing Crisis, Upzone and Build Public Housing
British Columbia’s housing crisis is among the worst in North America. Just as in other regions grappling with similar challenges, increasing density through upzoning for public and nonprofit housing is essential to tackle the crisis head-on.
Construction vehicles in front of a residential building under construction in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, on April 19, 2024. (Paige Taylor White / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
British Columbia (BC) has come to a strange moment in the housing crisis. After enacting a huge flurry of policy measures, the provincial government is head and shoulders above any other Canadian province in its action on housing policy. But the action still doesn’t match the scale of the crisis, which remains severe.
In the last year alone, BC has taken new measures, including launching the BC Builds program, creating the Rental Protection Fund, regulating short-term rentals like Airbnb, instituting a flipping tax, commissioning standardized designs for multiplexes, reforming development charges, and pushing municipalities to ease restrictive zoning policies and move toward more proactive planning policies.
Despite all this, we’re still not meeting the demands of the crisis.
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