In Brief:
- Turn the Agricultural Land Commission into an advisory board and allow non-arable land to immediately be taken out of the ALR.
- Zoning laws and rent controls must be eased.
- Reduce or eliminate property transfer tax.
- Eliminate the School Tax.
- Lift some of the red tape builders must go through before breaking ground.
- End Speculation Tax, Empty Homes Tax, and the new Home-Flipping Tax – they are just tax grabs.
- Stand against money laundering through real estate.
- Phase out rental-assistance programmes that drive up prices.
- Adjust the Residential Tenancy Act to make investing in rental properties and renting space in primary residences more desirable to increase inventory and drive down pricing.
- Put a pause on Step Code.
At Length:
Crown land makes up 95 per cent of British Columbia. Of the remaining 5%, roughly half is part of the Agriculture Land Reserve, which means it cannot be used to develop more housing. An estimated 15-20 per cent of ALR lands are not arable and should be made available for immediate removal from the ALR. Should the owner of such a property care to sell, or develop the land into additional housing, a one-time tax would be levied, because the value of the property would be immensely increase but also to compensate for many other property-related tax cuts the BCLP would enact.
The Agricultural Land Commission would be repurposed into an advisory board, giving municipalities recommendations, but the BCLP believes all property needs to be valued as it’s best-use and not for uses dictated by central planning bodies.
Municipal zoning should not restrict the provincial housing supply, neither for rentals nor ownership, so the BCLP would leverage the Province’s power derived from the Municipal Act to mandate all local governments simply zoning categories to the following:
Heavy Industrial, Light Industrial, Commercial, Commercial/Housing Mixed Use, Housing more than 4 Stories, Housing 4 Stories or Less, and Recreational.
The BCLP would like to make it easier for the builder of a high rise to compensate nearby residents who feel a loss of pleasure from having a high-rise in their neighborhood. Under current rules, you get no compensation and this just creates lots of destructive NIMBYism. And it causes local corruptions since builders have to spend lots of money to persuade city councils to let them build what they think they can sell. As it stands, much of the available land in B.C. is zoned as Single Family Housing, which only millionaires can afford in our current market.
Taxes add cost to the overall cost of a residential property, whether it is a primary residence, vacation home, or investment rental property. The Property Transfer Tax costs the buyer thousands of dollars, even for a modest property. Those amounts alone can cross the line of affordability.
We will also end the additional school tax, which will be countered by administrational cuts within the Ministry of Education.
The Speculation tax, Empty Homes Tax, and upcoming Home-Flipping Tax are all tax grabs that have/will not make a dent on the housing supply deficit, but have a negative effect on British Columbians’ pocket book.
While the BCLP does not want to deter foreign buyers, we do not want to enable money laundering or money parking. Foreign investment has helped keep B.C. builders and all related supply industries busy and providing employment through financial fluctuations. Unfortunately, B.C. has had some money of questionable origin going through our systems. In order to prevent anyone from hiding ill-begotten gains from the CRA or their own foreign government, we propose that no numbered companies can be the owners of local real-estate. Names of people and corporations must be associated with real-estate.
In order to encourage investors to buy properties for rental purposes, we must address the components of the Residential Tenancy Act to make investing in residential rental properties attractive. As it stands, the rules are skewed heavily on the side of tenants, regardless of damage to property, non-payment, or other rule-breaking. The intention is to increase inventory of rental spaces, and thus inspiring competition, to ultimately drive down pricing.
Rental-assistance programs, though undoubtedly well-intentioned create some problems. First, they begin a cycle of dependency on government (taxpayer) funding. The recipients are not motivated to remove themselves from the program, and worse, if the subsidized rent is fixed to their income, the recipient is not motivated to gain promotion in the workplace or take on supplemental jobs.
Depending on the program, the landlord can raise prices knowing that the renter is receiving these funds and can afford a higher amount than the market would otherwise allow. Also, when the government (taxpayers) subsidize any project, developers know that they can get a part of the extra funding and may charge more than market-value pricing.
In other situations a housing complex may be restricted from raising rates, so it disincentivizes property upgrades, and the property can start resembling a slum.
In order to lower housing prices, both for purchase and rent, we must increase the inventory of available properties. In order to encourage builders to build, we must eliminate the red-tape delays or even prevent building. Before even breaking ground, builders must go through lengthy and time consuming processes of applying for various permits and approvals of questionable necessity. This red tape has pushed developers to build mostly luxury properties, for which they can charge more. These properties are priced out of most peoples’ affordability.
With interest rates being more than double what they were five years ago, it greatly adds to the borrowing costs of a developer, so the longer it sits unfinished during the approval process the more cost-burden the developer must carry and evidently pass that on to purchasers.
The BCLP will revisit the B.C. Building Code with the purpose of making it easier to navigate and fall in line with the Federal Building Code. The Building Code should solely focus on safety measures and not make requirements for preferential outcomes.
The B.C. Energy Step Code would be immediately paused. The end-goal of Step Code is to get all new construction to be Net Zero Ready by 2032. While the BCLP understands that there are the cost-savings and health benefits in having a high-performance housing envelope and system we also know there is still demand for lower-grade housing, which could be less expensive to build, and be offered to British Columbians who value affordability over energy efficiency and environmental stewardship.